On 01/16/2018 at 11:56 Vladimir Sedach writes: >> Running from a desktop to a headless server, and based on side-by-side >> clicking, IceCat/GuixSD takes ~5x times as long as Mozilla/Debian to >> respond to clicks. Further, Mozilla/Debian takes ~5x times as long as >> Mozilla running on the desktop. The bottom line: IceCat/GuixSD is >> unbearably slow. >> >> Has anyone else seen this? >> >> Is there a known IceCat/GuixSD performance problem? > > This sounds like an X11 protocol issue. Starting with Firefox 47, > XRender support is disabled by default: > > https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/4nfmvp/ff_47_unbearable_slow_over_remote_x11/ > > Basically newer versions of Firefox stop using X11 correctly because > Mozilla considers X11 "technical debt," and because X11 does not support > some kinds of graphics acceleration. > > Back when Wayland development started the popular ideology became that > no one needed or wanted remote graphics, if you want it use desktop > forwarding like VNC, else tough luck. A lot of people bought into that > and now we are seeing the results.
I'm not a VNC fan (sigh)... > Check the value of gfx.xrender.enabled in about:config and try turning > it on/off to see if that changes the performance. It should come enabled > in Firefox 45, and is probably disabled in the newer IceCat. Thank you, this was really helpful. gfx.xrender.enabled=false in IceCat/GuixSD. Enabling it made the IceCat/GuixSD performance about the same as Firefox/Debian (which comes w/ gfx.xrender.enabled=true). > If it is lack of XRender causing the problems, the more interesting > question is why running Firefox 45 remotely is so much slower than > running it on the desktop. OK, I tested some more. It look like I was exagerating about firefox remotely. It looks more like 1/2 as fast. ISTM that ... Firefox>GTK+>X11(3.4GHz)<--1000BaseT-->XQuartz>Quartz(2.7GHz)>GPU ... could be 1/2 as fast as ... Firefox>GTK+>Quartz(2.7GHz)>GPU WDYT? - George
