Hi, all. I've resurrected an ancient PC to try Lubuntu. Celeron 400 MHz, 256 Mb RAM and a 20 Gb PATA HDD. Here's my impression of running different browsers on the specified hardware.
Testing method: 1. Install Lubuntu from Lucid alpha2 preview2 iso. 2. Install additional browsers (Chromium, Midori, Arora) from default Lucid repos. 3. For each of the four available browsers, measure startup time and memory usage on a freshly-booted machine (no executables cached), with homepage set to about:blank (no downloading/rendering on startup). 4. For each of the four available browsers, try to load three tabs: - open google.com, search for "Lubuntu"; - open my gmail account, navigate to a 47-letters thread in lubuntu-desktop list ("default browser" discussion), hit "expand all" and wait for all to expand; - open http://www.rbc.ru, a news site in Russian with several Flash banners on the start page. 5. Examine memory usage afterwards. All memory usage numbers are listed as reported by Xfce4 Taskmanager with default settings (ie, with "Show memory used by cache as free" option active). These values are total numbers, including any memory used by system. A freshly-booted system with just taskmanager running reports 50..58 Mb RAM used. Startup times and memory usage after loading (homepage is about:blank, if applicable): Firefox: 13 seconds, 85 Mb. Chromium: 8..10 s, 81 Mb. Arora: 12 s, 78 Mb. Midori: 17 s, 108 Mb. Common problems noticed: 1. Standard Gmail interface is slow. After initializing, it occupies about half CPU capacity constantly. Occasionally, several seconds' delays happen just as I type this text. 2. Flash literally kills everything. Several gtk-gnash processes take up all CPU power the machine has. Several times, I had to wait for more than 10 minutes (!) until taskmanager window gets redrawn and I'm able to see memory usage. Arora problem: never finished expanding the 47 messages thread. "Still Working" message remains shown for more than 10 minutes, and there are about 15 messages not expanded. Firefox problem: while expanding 47 messages, gmail shows "unresponsive script" warning at least once. Apparently, the script is suspended until the user makes a choice, so the loading process needs close user attention. Midori: initially, gmail did not identify it as a fully compatible browser and loaded a reduced "compatible" interface. However, after changing the reported browser type to Firefox in preferences, no problems encountered with the full version of gmail interface. Memory usage with three tabs loaded: Firefox: 150..160 Mb. Arora: 175..185 Mb. Midori: 175..185 Mb. Chromium: 135..145 Mb. Conclusion: on low-grade hardware, flash and script-rich pages are painfully slow regardless of the browser. On less than 192 Mb RAM, you are likely to experience swapping with several pages opened in any browser. Given the available options, my vote is for Chromium *and* disabling flash by default. Best is to start playing flash only after the user clicks on it, however I'm not sure if it's possible without hacking the browser code. Regards, Mikhail _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop Post to : lubuntu-desktop@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp