Linux performance still a let down on desktop.

[Snowdog]

I am not talking about the small market share.

I am talking about how poorly it does simply things like drag a window across the screen.

I have been using Linux for 20+ years. I first tried slackware from a stack of floppies I copied at my universities computer room in 1994. I have used it at work as a workstation OS (RHEL which sucked). I set up LAMP servers for Drupal at work as well (where it is actually good). And I have lost count how many times I have installed it at home hoping the desktop experience has improved, only to be continually let down.

It has been a couple of years since my last disappointment with Ubuntu. In the interim I have been hearing the Linux fans claiming it was now better than Windows. But I have heard that repeated in the past so I was in no hurry to be disappointed again.

But recently I cleaned up the insides of my old PC and found a place for another HD. So the perfect time to try another install. Mint seems very popular, so I installed Mint Cinnamon 18.1.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it is just as much disappointment as Ubuntu was a couple of years ago.

Dragging my browser window across the screen, was a jerky mess, when it is glass smooth on Windows 7.

Next I switched my DE to Xfce, noted for being "light weight". Not as bad as Cinnamon, but nowhere close to Windows 7.

Next I switched my DE to Lxde, note for being even "Lighter weight". Much closer to, but still not quite as good as Windows 7, but it would be good enough if not for:

Edge corruption while dragging. While cinnamon moved in jumps and jerks, it seemed to draw the whole image, but Xfce/Lxde, seemed to start drawing one edge, give up part way and start drawing the next.

Meanwhile, back in "bloated" Windows 7 completely smooth, fast and clean. Putting even Lxde to shame.

Even when stationary the browser is annoying me now, the scroll speed with mouse wheel is irritatingly slow, and there appear to be no adjustment for it in Mint (it happens in every application).

During drag operation I watched the CPU usage, and it was tiny, peaking at 7%, so nothing was chewing up cycles.

If Linux is to have more than the die-hard minority using it on desktop, the community really needs to concentrate more on fixing the graphical subsystems so it can deliver better than a 2nd rate experience of the basic desktop UI experience.

 

[Chuklr]

I've noticed the same corruptions on most of the distros I've tried out and I'm talking about corruption when moving a "card" from one stack to another in a game of solitaire (single player not online). I have found a distro that does not exhibit that phenomena: Solus (Mate which "feels" better to me than the Budgie DE). Of course, this is one of several distros I've tried that the cards in AisleRiot Solitaire don't resize when in full screen mode. Tough on an old s.o.b. looking at a 17" screen through trifocals.

Time will tell if I find my "perfect" distro. I'm a patient fellow so this is a journey. Linux perfect? Probably not. Nothing man made is. Hopefully, I will find a distro that meets my needs before I throw in the towel.

Just my 2¢ and observations that are worth much less than 2¢. Such a deal I have for YOU!!!

 

[Frobozz]

... graphics...

Do you have the time/desire to try out Fedora? It's supposed to be shipping Wayland and I have heard on some podcasts that the tearing issues are improved. I have not had time to give it a go personally.

 

[Snowdog]

Do you have the time/desire to try out Fedora? It's supposed to be shipping Wayland and I have heard on some podcasts that the tearing issues are improved. I have not had time to give it a go personally.

I read a review of Fedora 25 with Wayland and it sounds too much like a work in progress for me to put time into it.

It's possible Linux just has too many cooks in the graphic stack with too many layers.

 

[Frobozz]

I read a review of Fedora 25 with Wayland and it sounds too much like a work in progress for me to put time into it.

It's possible Linux just has too many cooks in the graphic stack with too many layers.

Could be. Not much for us to do then.

 

[ManofGod]

I simply have Ubuntu installed in a VM machine and I just tried it in full screen mode on a 4k monitor. So far, I did not notice any corruption but, I am only using it on the one monitor and I also may not be looking for what you are referring too. Mind you, I have a really knew Ryzen build with the newest Virtualbox so it may have something to do with that.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

This is why Linux is a GEEK OS and will remain so if things do not change.
I can usually find a fix for most issue like crappy 2D or 3D performance.
Same issue with the current distro I use; but the problem is it shipped with a crappy compositor. Install a better one, issues disappeared.
That is great, until you change distros or upgrade to a new version. Some other issue takes it's place. An issue the last version of this same distro didn't have was intermittent crashes when viewing web video. (you tube primarily) No fix that I can find. I just quit my occasional you tube viewing on this system. I switch my 0% AMD OEM support HD7870 card out for a well supported Nvidia GT210. I had this card install on a previous linux build, worked great with Nvidia OEM drivers. Well, on this version, if you load OEM it renders the system non booting. The first time it did this I thought my SSD drive croaked. It was after I reloaded everything and everything was fine until I installed the OEM video drivers, then........NO BOOT again. Stuck with the Xorg drivers which don't work as well.

NOW, all that complaining aside; when I have to use windows to accomplish anything I'm really put off on how difficult it is. It seems workflow on linux just works. Using windows in a PITA.

 

[Vermillion]

If Linux is to have more than the die-hard minority using it on desktop, the community really needs to concentrate more on fixing the graphical subsystems so it can deliver better than a 2nd rate experience of the basic desktop UI experience.

XFCE is 21 years old technically. The original XFCE code was first released back in 1996. The "modern" version (4.x) was first released in 2003. 14 years old. It was never built to compare with Windows 7. It was built in the Windows XP days. The default compositor in XFCE is a software compositor and it does enough for a lightweight DE. However, if you want to correct the tearing load up Compiz or Compton (hardware accelerated compositors) as your compositor instead of using the default one.

LXDE was first released in 2006. 11 years old and hasn't been updated since 2016. As far as I can tell it doesn't even contain a compositor of any sort. Again it was never designed to go up against Windows 7. Now here's the other question about the LXDE part. Was it LXDE or was it LXQT you were using? Sounds like you were on LXDE which is no longer actively updated as the project was merged with razor-qt to create LXQT. LXQT is LXDE only it isn't GTK3+. It is using QT. Now it appears that LXQT uses compton as it's compositor (don't know if it's on by default though) so LXQT most likely doesn't suffer from the issues you had with LXDE.

As for Cinnamon they forked Mutter and called it Muffin. That's where your compositor lies. I don't know enough about Mint or Muffin to say why that DE has tearing but it sure sounds like they mucked something up in Muffin if you're having issues.

I use Budgie with Mutter and I'm smooth as butter (sorry for the rhyming). Gnome 3, while is it isn't my first choice for a DE, uses Mutter and it's smooth as well. Ubuntu MATE uses Compiz as it's compositor which is why it's so smooth. MATE by default using a software compositor called Marco and it's not so smooth right out of the box. We all know software compositing is garbage. However, again compiz or compton and the issues go away.

KDE (kwin) straight up uses OpenGL for it's compositing and while I haven't run it myself I've only heard good things about Plasma.

Then there's also X.org and Wayland. X is old (god is it old) and doesn't have compositing built in which is why we need the compositing window managers like Kwin and Mutter. Wayland however does have compositing via OpenGL built-in. So that will change things in the future as well for the better since we shouldn't need different compositing windows manager for every other DE out there.

 

[Snowdog]

^ So everything is either too old, or too new, check back in a few more years and maybe things will be better?

Cinnamon was the only one were I didn't notice tearing. But it was the worse for jumpy/jerky/rubberbanding while dragging. It was the most intolerable to use.

LXQT sounds interesting, but there isn't even a distro based on it yet, which implies it is not quite ready for front and center duty.

I am right now attempting my third attempt to install KDE. It seemed to work the first time, but there was no option for a KDE session during login. So I repeated the install and it was installing packages again, implying something went wrong the first time. Second time while installing all my desktop windows closed, including the terminal that was installing KDE. I couldn't open windows, launch applications, so I Hard reset.

Third time just finished.... Off to see if I have KDE in my session list.

Have KDE Plasma now. Needed a full reboot to get it in my session list for some reason.

Not laggy like Cinnamon, but still get lots of tearing.

 

[Vermillion]

^ So everything is either too old, or too new, check back in a few more years and maybe things will be better?

Cinnamon was the only one were I didn't notice tearing. But it was the worse for jumpy/jerky/rubberbanding while dragging. It was the most intolerable to use.

LXQT sounds interesting, but there isn't even a distro based on it yet, which implies it is not quite ready for front and center duty.

I am right now attempting my third attempt to install KDE. It seemed to work the first time, but there was no option for a KDE session during login. So I repeated the install and it was installing packages again, implying something went wrong the first time. Second time while installing all my desktop windows closed, including the terminal that was installing KDE. I couldn't open windows, launch applications, so I Hard reset.

Third time just finished.... Off to see if I have KDE in my session list.

Have KDE Plasma now. Needed a full reboot to get it in my session list for some reason.

Not laggy like Cinnamon, but still get lots of tearing.

No I simply said you can't compare something designed for lightweight work with software compositors against Windows 7 which was designed with GPU acceleration in mind. And how is something too "new"? LXQT? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LXQt

Go load up Arch with LXQT. Majaro has a community build of it out too.

You can also tryout suse with it. https://en.opensuse.org/LXQT

Now out of curiosity how old is this old pc you're using? What's it running? Especially after hearing about tearing in KDE I'm curious. I haven't heard anybody complain about tearing in KDE Plasma.

 

[Snowdog]

No I simply said you can't compare something designed for lightweight work with software compositors against Windows 7 which was designed with GPU acceleration in mind. And how is something too "new"? LXQT?

New in that there no distros based on it. When Lubuntu converts to LXQT, which is the plan, then IMO it will be ready for prime time.

If there were was a meta package, that I could use to try it on Mint, I would try it out. But I am not going to bother with another distro until I have decided which DE to go with first. If I can't try that DE (without jumping through too many hoops) then it is out.

Now out of curiosity how old is this old pc you're using? What's it running? Especially after hearing about tearing in KDE I'm curious. I haven't heard anybody complain about tearing in KDE Plasma.

C2Q-3.2 GHz, 8800GT GPU.

IMO, there are probably different standards of acceptability in the Linux and Windows communities.

 

[MrCrispy]

Not surprised at all. I'm running one of the latest Linux distros on very modern hardware and have all kinds of issues (see my thread Linux screen flicker in main OS forum) and also see the slow GUI. Have jumped thru all kinds of hoops trying to fix things, a normal non expert user would've no clue how to do any of this and just give up, and they should'nt be expected to do all this.

Its a server OS. Desktop usage is always going to be an afterthought. How old is X again and how many years have we been promised an update?

 

[bezant]

Linux user since 1997. Has its uses.

 

[/dev/null]

Am I the only one that doesn't have any real issues with GUI slowdown? I have a GTX 1070, binary drivers & ubuntu 17.04.

 

[Snowdog]

Am I the only one that doesn't have any real issues with GUI slowdown? I have a GTX 1070, binary drivers & ubuntu 17.04.

I have no issue with speed in KDE. The remaining issue is edge tearing when moving my web browser around. It was mainly Cinnamon that very slow.

 

[ChadD]

Am I the only one that doesn't have any real issues with GUI slowdown? I have a GTX 1070, binary drivers & ubuntu 17.04.

I think most of the slow down issues I have heard about seem to be running Intel integrated systems ? I don't know I haven't ever really noticed much issue... perhaps its an Ubuntu thing or something I don't know. I'm on a beat up old Core2Duo with a 750 ti today running Gnome 3 on Arch and everything is silky smooth.

 

[MrCrispy]

Yes I'm on a laptop with integrated Intel graphics. Its a pretty new machine with touchscreen etc, ironically it seems a bad choice for Linux.

 

[ChadD]

Yes I'm on a laptop with integrated Intel graphics. Its a pretty new machine with touchscreen etc, ironically it seems a bad choice for Linux.

That is possible. Don't mean that as some type of attack if it sounds like it. Just a fact yes laptops can be the biggest PITA when it comes to Linux support... as most are designed for windows. Many have Wi-Fi cards and touch screen modules that are "software" driven... just like the old Win modems. Its not that they are bad its just that the software is doing all the work, instead of a hardware based option. So I will agree completely that if Linux is your target OS when shopping for a laptop you do have to do some research to make life easier. What can I say its true laptop mfgs don't target Linux outside of a handful of very good Linux builders like System76... and Dell with their developer line. Those laptops ship with Ubuntu and of course everything works flawlessly... but they do cost a little more cause well frankly they have a better class of hardware that doesn't rely on a micro kernel OS that allows the MFGs to turn their "drivers" into full software programs running things that should be hardware based.

The Intel graphics... that is annoying though as Intel does really great work supporting Linux in general. My only real suggestion, (and I realise its not a perfect solution) is to stick to the major DEs which use good composition software. So my suggestion would be Fedora+Gnome as wayland should enable OpenGL composition and run smooth on Intel hardware... and most other Distros with Gnome should be no issue, and many like Manjaro-gnome will now also enable wayland. If they still don't enable wayland they will at least use mutter which should also enable opengl compositing.

 

[almalino]

For me Lunux Mint 17 works well on my HTPC, Laptop and on Gaming tower on different NVidia GPUs. Indeed Linux caused me some headache at the installation phase. Installation itself is smooth like in Windows 10 and all works after it is done. But the moment you start installing proprietary NVidia drivers all goes boom!

On gaming tower it went to black screen on start up with NVidia drivers and I somehow fixed it with nomodeset. Now it works great!
On HTPC I am still on open source drivers because it is simply crashing on NVidia ones Still need to look at that
On Laptop if works great, no issues except that in dual screen mode one of the screen refresh rate may go down to like 10FPS and I need to close/open laptop lid to fix that

So overall I am very pleased with Linux after I switched from Windows 2 years ago but those issues above probably will make normal non techincal users away from it.

 

[BulletDust]

Not surprised at all. I'm running one of the latest Linux distros on very modern hardware and have all kinds of issues (see my thread Linux screen flicker in main OS forum) and also see the slow GUI. Have jumped thru all kinds of hoops trying to fix things, a normal non expert user would've no clue how to do any of this and just give up, and they should'nt be expected to do all this.

Its a server OS. Desktop usage is always going to be an afterthought. How old is X again and how many years have we been promised an update?

Which was all completely related to power saving measures that you implemented. You know this, so why are you so hellbent on bagging out the OS? Respect is dwindling at a rapid rate. Fact is, you probably should have just stuck to Windows as that's what you expected.

In relation to the OP's issue:

I'm running Linux on 4 PC's here, Windows on two, macOS on one. I never turn my main Linux PC off and I can honestly claim that the only time I experienced GUI issues was under Linux Mint Cinnamon, rectified easily by enabling 'disable compositing for full screen windows' with no ill effects whatsoever, in fact gaming performance improved slightly. Not a widespread issue under Linux in general by any stretch of the imagination and generally limited to the forced Mutter WM - In itself a great example of why one distro, one WM and one DE for all is not a great solution to anything.

People rave about Linux Mint Cinnamon, I used it for an extended period of time and since swapping distro's I really don't know what all the fuss is about, this has been an issue under Cinnamon (not Linux in general) for quite some time. Your issues are all related to the Muffin Window Manager under Cinnamon and are not present on any other distro using a better DE and a better WM.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=185691

Under Windows I've had flickering screens, Windows maximising behind the taskbar, icons moving around the desktop, taskbar swapping monitors at random, performance issues, 8 GB of vram filling up for no reason....The list goes on.

Point is, under no circumstance did I feel the need to start a thread highlighting my disappointment with Windows like my problems were even close to being a widespread issue. Operating systems such as Windows and Linux have to run on a plethora of differing platforms, it can naturally be assumed that issues will become evident depending on your particular configuration from time to time.

That's computing, get over it and move on. Perhaps next time, instead of starting a thread moaning about the issue, ask for help? I could have resolved your problem in a heartbeat before you went swapping DE's. The fact that you posted a thread moaning about Linux before asking for help tends to indicate a witch hunt.

My Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop from years ago, just in case you want to claim that I'm just making stuff up:

 

[Snowdog]

People rave about Linux Mint Cinnamon, I used it for an extended period of time and since swapping distro's I really don't know what all the fuss is about, this has been an issue under Cinnamon (not Linux in general) for quite some time. Your issues are all related to the Muffin Window Manager under Cinnamon and are not present on any other distro using a better DE and a better WM.

This is untrue. I have stated right from the first post that only Cinnamon, was that slow, but that wasn't the only issue. Edge tearing happened in every DE/WM that I tried.

This was actually only the tip of the iceberg.

It's funny but it has been several years since I last installed a distro at home on my personal machine (Ubuntu then), and it seems that nearly ZERO progress has been made in the interim. I went Ubuntu then and Mint now because they were the most popular distros and should have something going for them.

At this point I have probably given Linux a dozen or more chances to be a good enough desktop OS and it let me down every time. So you will have to excuse me if I express some of my frustration of Linux failing to live up to the hype of advocates like you.

This time, like last time, SPDIF passthrough for DTS/DD was MIA. Though this time, I am unwilling to waste my time hunting it down.

This time, like last time, Linux dual screen support is garbage, If I try to arrange my screen in the correct physical order, it insists on moving everything to my TV (my other screen), even though I tag my desktop as Primary, and even though I quickly stopped doing that, it still keeps opening applicaitons back on my TV even. Which is annoying when it is actually displaying OTA TV at the time.

This time, like last time, trying multiple DEs has messed things up. Applications just silently fail to launch. I have multiple copies of certain applications, shutdown/logout buttons not working in some DEs. Something I remember one of the local Linux Advocates saying wouldn't happen today...

At this point some of these failing are utterly ridiculous. After decades, still can't handle sound, multiple monitors, window dragging so it just works? Or simple things like mousewheel scrolling in a web browser. People have been complaining about it for 5+ years.

For some reason Linux attracts huge crowds working on making their own flavor of Linux, be seemingly no one to fix fundamental desktop issues.

Leaving it in a state, only a fan could love.

 

[KarsusTG]

Admittedly, I don't use cinnamon, mint, or ubuntu, but the only time I have experienced the screen tearing like you describe in the past 5 or so years is on first setup when I have not installed and updated everything. Most notebly the graphics drivers (nvidia ofc.) Also for some reason streaming netflix/amazon and you move the window it will sometimes do that, but not in normal browsing. No idea why that is the case.

I have never tried to hook up more than 3 monitors to it, much less multi monitors and a part time display such as a tv. I can see how a part time display could be problematic. I have experienced the apps starting on the wrong screen, but it's always been a setting somewhere that I missed or changed and forgot to apply.

My biggest complaint with linux isn't really the performance, its simply the fragmentation. Hell I would be happy if the community would just rally behind 2-3 base distro's and call it good. Debian/Fedora/openSUSE for instance.

 

[Vermillion]

This is untrue. I have stated right from the first post that only Cinnamon, was that slow, but that wasn't the only issue. Edge tearing happened in every DE/WM that I tried.

This was actually only the tip of the iceberg.

It's funny but it has been several years since I last installed a distro at home on my personal machine (Ubuntu then), and it seems that nearly ZERO progress has been made in the interim. I went Ubuntu then and Mint now because they were the most popular distros and should have something going for them.

At this point I have probably given Linux a dozen or more chances to be a good enough desktop OS and it let me down every time. So you will have to excuse me if I express some of my frustration of Linux failing to live up to the hype of advocates like you.

This time, like last time, SPDIF passthrough for DTS/DD was MIA. Though this time, I am unwilling to waste my time hunting it down.

This time, like last time, Linux dual screen support is garbage, If I try to arrange my screen in the correct physical order, it insists on moving everything to my TV (my other screen), even though I tag my desktop as Primary, and even though I quickly stopped doing that, it still keeps opening applicaitons back on my TV even. Which is annoying when it is actually displaying OTA TV at the time.

This time, like last time, trying multiple DEs has messed things up. Applications just silently fail to launch. I have multiple copies of certain applications, shutdown/logout buttons not working in some DEs. Something I remember one of the local Linux Advocates saying wouldn't happen today...

At this point some of these failing are utterly ridiculous. After decades, still can't handle sound, multiple monitors, window dragging so it just works? Or simple things like mousewheel scrolling in a web browser. People have been complaining about it for 5+ years.

For some reason Linux attracts huge crowds working on making their own flavor of Linux, be seemingly no one to fix fundamental desktop issues.

Leaving it in a state, only a fan could love.

And I honestly don't see any of the problems you claim to have. I use 2 monitors on the laptop (via a dock) that's I'm writing with right now. I can flip up the screen on the laptop and go 3 and it's perfect. I don't have the tearing or the lag you do. I'm simply on a pretty basic Arch install running Budgie which uses Mutter and the Gnome Stack (was previously on Solus and again none of the issues you describe). I have a duplicate Arch configuration on another E7470 and it's the same on the one I'm typing on. That one travels with me and goes home with me. I can plug it into a TV with zero issues. There's no lag or tearing or anything.

I have a Dell E5470 (Core i5, Intel IGP, 8GB RAM, M.2 256GB SSD) in need of a rebuild here at work though. I'm downloading Mint Cinnamon as we speak. Will fire it up and see how it goes.

 

[Chuklr]

And I honestly don't see any of the problems you claim to have. ...

Why infer that Snowdog is lying? Given that line of reasoning we can only infer that your claim that you do not have any tearing or lag is untrue. Just my 2¢.

 

[Vermillion]

Why infer that Snowdog is lying? Given that line of reasoning we can only infer that your claim that you do not have any tearing or lag is untrue. Just my 2¢.

Where did I ever say he was lying? I said I don't see the problems he does. I'll take a video of my Arch laptop using dual and triple monitors right now. I have no reason to lie about my Arch install or my previous Solus installs. Lying would make me no better than some of the rabid fanboys we have here on the [H].

I'm even going as far as to install Mint Cinnamon to see if I can duplicate his issues.

I'm genuinely curious because I simply don't see the problems he has. It makes me wonder what's going on. Is that a crime? Does that make me a troll? Mint install just finished.

Base install. No proprietary software installed by the installer. Encrypted system as well. Time to see what's going on.

 

[Chuklr]

I said you inferred he lying, i.e. not telling the truth. You did that by say "... the problems you claim to have ..." Which indicates there is doubt and if you did/do not doubt that he is having the problem(s) he describes you would have probably said " ... the problems you have ..." See the difference? I applaud your efforts to troubleshoot the problem.

 

[Snowdog]

And I honestly don't see any of the problems you claim to have. I use 2 monitors on the laptop (via a dock) that's I'm writing with right now. I can flip up the screen on the laptop and go 3 and it's perfect. I don't have the tearing or the lag you do. I'm simply on a pretty basic Arch install running Budgie which uses Mutter and the Gnome Stack (was previously on Solus and again none of the issues you describe). I have a duplicate Arch configuration on another E7470 and it's the same on the one I'm typing on. That one travels with me and goes home with me. I can plug it into a TV with zero issues. There's no lag or tearing or anything.

The problems are common, you can google any of them as I did after having them. Cinnamon is known to be slow at dragging windows, screen tearing seems widespread in multiple distros/DEs.

 

[Vermillion]

I said you inferred he lying, i.e. not telling the truth. You did that by say "... the problems you claim to have ..." Which indicates there is doubt and if you did/do not doubt that he is having the problem(s) he describes you would have probably said " ... the problems you have ..." See the difference? I applaud your efforts to troubleshoot the problem.

So far what I'm seeing is that Mint Cinnamon by default uses Muffin (mentioned previously in the thread) and definitely appears to be a software compositor as far as I can tell but I can't confirm. If it's a hardware renderer then it's a really shitty one. So under heavier usage (like updating the system) I do see some corner tearing. It's pretty obvious and it certainly isn't something I see on my Arch Budgie systems.

Chrome has definite tearing issues when moving it around. Again not something I see on my Arch install. It's pretty blatantly obvious. I really want to get compton or compiz running instead of Muffin as that should fix the issue. However, after some research it appears the way Cinnamon was engineered it is incompatible with compton and compiz. There's pretty much nothing out there on getting Cinnamon to use Compton or Compiz.

Under Mint MATE there's a whole Desktop Settings option to choose your compositor. https://www.linuxmint.com/pictures/screenshots/rosa/mintdesktop.png

I really think the main issue here is the DE itself. It's compositor Muffin is simply garbage in my opinion. Mutter (what Gnome 3 and Budgie uses) certainly doesn't have these issues and Muffin is a fork of Mutter. However, they act completely differently.

I'm loading up Mint MATE now as I want to play with real compositors just to confirm that it's a DE thing and not an actual base distro issue.

 

[Chuklr]

So far what I'm seeing is that Mint Cinnamon by default uses Muffin (mentioned previously in the thread) and definitely appears to be a software compositor as far as I can tell but I can't confirm. If it's a hardware renderer then it's a really shitty one. So under heavier usage (like updating the system) I do see some corner tearing. It's pretty obvious and it certainly isn't something I see on my Arch Budgie systems.

Chrome has definite tearing issues when moving it around. Again not something I see on my Arch install. It's pretty blatantly obvious. I really want to get compton or compiz running instead of Muffin as that should fix the issue. However, after some research it appears the way Cinnamon was engineered it is incompatible with compton and compiz. There's pretty much nothing out there on getting Cinnamon to use Compton or Compiz.

Under Mint MATE there's a whole Desktop Settings option to choose your compositor. https://www.linuxmint.com/pictures/screenshots/rosa/mintdesktop.png

I really think the main issue here is the DE itself. It's compositor Muffin is simply garbage in my opinion. Mutter (what Gnome 3 and Budgie uses) certainly doesn't have these issues and Muffin is a fork of Mutter. However, they act completely differently.

I'm loading up Mint MATE now as I want to play with real compositors just to confirm that it's a DE thing and not an actual base distro issue.

Interesting that you found that in Cinnamon and I saw it in the Debian based RoboLinux I ran using the Cinnamon DE. Good job!

 

[Vermillion]

Interesting that you found that in Cinnamon and I saw it in the Debian based RoboLinux I ran using the Cinnamon DE. Good job!

Quick update on MATE while it updates. Initially it suffers from the same thing as Cinnamon initially. It defaults to Marco as the window manager with compositing (software render) but it tears a lot.

That said MATE allows you to easily change the compositing options. I immediately changed MATE from Marco + compositing to Marco + compton. Silky smooth and no tearing. Waiting for updates to finish and then I'll install Chrome and test that but I expect no tearing.

Definitely interesting though how Cinnamon and MATE (out of the box) suffer the same issue. You'd think they'd give the user the option during install and a small explanation of each option. That way the user gets a better experience right out of the box.

 

[MrCrispy]

Which was all completely related to power saving measures that you implemented. You know this, so why are you so hellbent on bagging out the OS? Respect is dwindling at a rapid rate. Fact is, you probably should have just stuck to Windows as that's what you expected.

Why are you being combative? I have 2 issues, one is likely due to tlp, the other is graphics slowness on Intel integrated gpu. Both are issues seen on Linux, so its a perfectly valid example to bring up as they seem to be quite common. Why do you keep bringing up Windows? I expect a modern Linux distro to work out of the box on standard hardware, like any other user would.

If you want to say that there are no issues with LOTD then that's fine, that's ignoring reality.

 

[Vermillion]

After Chrome install still smooth as butter with compton as the compositor on Mint MATE.

So basically I find Cinnamon to be a subpar DE that honestly needs Compton or Compiz as it's compositor in order to make things silky smooth. They never should have forked Mutter.

Mint MATE is a far better DE and gives the user a very easy way to change the compositor and make it a very nice user experience.

 

[ChadD]

Well I guess the moral is the story... is as neck beards we must do a better job of convincing new Linux people to install distros that are as close to base as possible while still being user friendly.

I never did like cinnamon, and although I don't remember seeing issues with Mint when I last installed it.... still we should be pushing new users to Gnome 3 based distros as often as we can. (yes I like Mate... still Gnome3 is still imo the most polished of the DEs with the most mainstream commercial vendor support)

My suggestion to new users the last while is Manjaro Gnome. Its arch based so fast, its semi rolling... with the option to install with non-free GPU drivers (removing any PPAs or Terminal commands to take care of Nvidia or ATI hardware), it also has a very nice one click new user friendly Kernel update built in. Wayland support out of the box and rolling Gnome. Its a smooth distro. The only knock for new users could be the package manager (which is very good) it simply isn't as Store like as say Ubuntu or Mints with software cats ect. (although when new users become more advanced users it does allow full access to the AUR)

 

[Snowdog]

After Chrome install still smooth as butter with compton as the compositor on Mint MATE.

So basically I find Cinnamon to be a subpar DE that honestly needs Compton or Compiz as it's compositor in order to make things silky smooth. They never should have forked Mutter.

Mint MATE is a far better DE and gives the user a very easy way to change the compositor and make it a very nice user experience.

That the default position of the most popular Linux distro delivers lag and screen tearing says a lot about the state of Desktop Linux and acceptance of a subpar experience with it.

Compton did eliminate tearing under the Mate DE, but now dragging is stuttering, and CPU usage averages ~25% on a 3.2GHz C2Q. IMO it looks like it is still using the CPU instead of the GPU for desktop composition. I am running the latest NVidia Closed Source drivers it offered me: 340.102

This video has an option in newer (375) NVidia drivers to force "force composition pipeline" that are missing in mine...



This is exactly indicative of all my Linux desktop usage. An endless time-sink, trying to resolve issues that should have just worked ten years ago.

 

[BulletDust]

Why are you being combative? I have 2 issues, one is likely due to tlp, the other is graphics slowness on Intel integrated gpu. Both are issues seen on Linux, so its a perfectly valid example to bring up as they seem to be quite common. Why do you keep bringing up Windows? I expect a modern Linux distro to work out of the box on standard hardware, like any other user would.

If you want to say that there are no issues with LOTD then that's fine, that's ignoring reality.

And both issues were related to the fact that you installed TLP, you even admit this in the thread in question and yet here you are blaming the OS!

You wonder why I get on the defensive? This is why I get on the defensive! It's bullshit, you hose a perfectly good OS install and you blame Linux and go into every thread effectively claiming that you tried Linux and it was crap, knowing only too well that Linux was fine it was you that hosed the install - This is the reason why Linux users are in no way forthcoming when it comes to helping Windows users transition, because Windows users have an uncanny tendency to turn what should be a learning experience into a witch hunt.

 

[bezant]

In fairness to the OP, Linux is not a good desktop replacement for Windows for the casual gamer. My wife struggles with the computers at home that run linux.

 

[BulletDust]

This is untrue. I have stated right from the first post that only Cinnamon, was that slow, but that wasn't the only issue. Edge tearing happened in every DE/WM that I tried.

Of course edge tearing appeared in every DE you tried, it's the compositor that renders the desktop, not the DE! You cannot change the WM under Cinnamon, you are forced to use the Muffin WM - Once again, highlighting that one Distro, one DE and one WM are not a an ideal solution at all!

This time, like last time, Linux dual screen support is garbage, If I try to arrange my screen in the correct physical order, it insists on moving everything to my TV (my other screen), even though I tag my desktop as Primary, and even though I quickly stopped doing that, it still keeps opening applicaitons back on my TV even. Which is annoying when it is actually displaying OTA TV at the time.

I've been running multiple monitors running Nvidia hardware for about four years now under Linux, including Linux Mint, and I've never had an issue - In fact, as stated in my previous thread I've had far greater issues running multiple monitors under Windows running identical hardware.

This time, like last time, trying multiple DEs has messed things up. Applications just silently fail to launch. I have multiple copies of certain applications, shutdown/logout buttons not working in some DEs. Something I remember one of the local Linux Advocates saying wouldn't happen today...

You swapped DE's while using the same WM as you cannot use anything but Muffin under Cinnamon! This is why you were having the issues you are describing! It has nothing to do with Linux in general with the exception that Muffin is garbage, it has everything to do with the fact that you went installing random DE's while not considering how Cinnamon works and hosed your install.

At this point some of these failing are utterly ridiculous. After decades, still can't handle sound,

Sounds working just fine here using onboard audio, an X-Fi and Nvidia HDMI out, no idea just what you're on about regarding sound. My daughters Windows 10 PC keeps ignoring the microphone though and the Realtek drivers have been known to force update via Windows update which stuffs everything - Do you want evidence?

My biggest complaint with linux isn't really the performance, its simply the fragmentation. Hell I would be happy if the community would just rally behind 2-3 base distro's and call it good. Debian/Fedora/openSUSE for instance.

There's two package managers, DEB and RPM. Apart from that commands are identical across distro's and while you can customise the DE far beyond anything you can do under Windows the individual applets to control the OS as well as the general interface is still basically the same - I can jump to a DE I've never used before and navigate it no worries with total familiarisation. As seen in Snowdog's example, if Linux was one distro, one DE, one WM there would be no way to overcome this issue and you could claim that Linux is flawed - As it stands right now you can install another distro using anything but Cinnamon and you're problems would be resolved. Linux is about freedom of choice, locking it down to one ecosystem like Windows would not only detract from that philosophy, but it would be downright impossible considering the open source nature of the operating system.

Why infer that Snowdog is lying? Given that line of reasoning we can only infer that your claim that you do not have any tearing or lag is untrue. Just my 2¢.

No one's stating that his Lying, I actually stated that I'd experienced his issue and resolved it. What he is doing, as evidenced by the fact that he felt it necessary to start a thread whining and bagging out Linux as a whole due to an issue isolated to Cinnamon, as opposed to simply asking for help, is going on a witch hunt - He wants to make it known to the community that Linux is shit due to his isolated experiences and don't try to claim that he doesn't have specific examples as his examples are as specific as you can get!

Sadly he failed to actually research his issue before ranting down the garden path - This is a fairly well documented issue.

In relation to the OP's claim that he cam Google search and find a number of examples of Linux issues - Such a comment is no more than a back against the wall cop out. I can do the same for Windows.

 

[BulletDust]

In fairness to the OP, Linux is not a good desktop replacement for Windows for the casual gamer. My wife struggles with the computers at home that run linux.

My advice is to set up your DE better. My daughter and my wife both use my machine just fine - In fact they've never even commented on the fact it runs Linux.

There's Chrome, there's Firefox, there's Thunderbird, there's Libre Office, there's the file manager.

If you want the UI to look like Windows, make it look like Windows. If you want the UI to look like macOS, make it look like macOS. With such freedoms your comment really doesn't hold water.

 

[Chuklr]

And here I thought Vermillion and I worked this out.

I don't recall quoting anything you posted and saying you were lying. If I did, I apologize to you.

Vermillion did a heck of a job determining the primary issue and I complimented him on that.

Just my 2¢ ... I'm going to have to restock on pennies.

 

[BulletDust]

That the default position of the most popular Linux distro delivers lag and screen tearing says a lot about the state of Desktop Linux and acceptance of a subpar experience with it.

Compton did eliminate tearing under the Mate DE, but now dragging is stuttering, and CPU usage averages ~25% on a 3.2GHz C2Q. IMO it looks like it is still using the CPU instead of the GPU for desktop composition. I am running the latest NVidia Closed Source drivers it offered me: 340.102

This video has an option in newer (375) NVidia drivers to force "force composition pipeline" that are missing in mine...



This is exactly indicative of all my Linux desktop usage. An endless time-sink, trying to resolve issues that should have just worked ten years ago.

I run MATE with none of these issues whatsoever.