Screen tearing and high CPU
Hello!
I installed Trisquel for 3D work and I'm using double monitor set-up.
I'm having issues with screen tearing (like when vsync don't work in games).
The problem shows up when I move windows around, when scrolling content up and down, when watching videos etc.
Related visual issues:
The cursor pointer sometimes remain visually on one monitor while I'm on the other (moving back it disappears).
The system opening fade-in effect is choppy and the same does the closing fade-out effect.
In Blender, the color picker is laggy and the 3D view tears when looking around the 3D model.
Other things that may be related:
When typing in gedit, the CPU usage rises very fast and holds there even when I'm not typing anymore. But when I save the file or just move a window a little bit, the CPU drops back down. I figured out that the processes that eat my CPU are the ibus ones: ibus-daemon, ibus-engine-sim and ibus-x11 mostly. But I can't figure out what they are.
When I type python code, it gets even worse and the keyboard becomes not responsive.
I'm using the LTS kernel, linux-libre64-4.1. I tried the newest one but it was the same.
My video card is an nVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti.
If you need specific info, ask me and I'll provide.
Thank you all very much!
If you never type Chinese or Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese or Thai or ... characters, then choose no keyboard input method system in the "Language" tab of "Language support" in the "System Settings". Also, ~/.xinputrc (that is, the hidden file named ".xinputrc" in your home folder) should have "run_im none" and not "run_im xim" (or any other input method).
The graphical session may have be restarted for the changes to be effective.
I am a translator!
As far as the screen tearing, on Xfce I solved it using compton compositor and it works great and it's lightweight and smooth.
backend = "glx";
paint-on-overlay = true;
glx-no-stencil = true;
glx-no-rebind-pixmap = true;
vsync = "opengl-swc";
put that in compton.conf in /home
I'm using the default Trisquel Gnome fallback DE.
I have a compton.conf file in /etc and the things you wrote are there (scattered around the document between much more text).
Yes! :D This helped! The CPU is ok now!!
Do you experience window lag?
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/window-resizing-issue
I don't know if it's related but you could try using Gnome Flashback + Compiz.
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/window-resizing-issue#comment-83660
I've experienced screen tearing on many GNU/Linux distros. It seems to be a common plague. OpenBSD/LibertyBSD is practically tear-free for some reason. They have their own implementation of X if that has any bearing in this matter.
I hope Wayland will be the end of video tearing on all platforms in the near future.
Oh my, when I try to install something through terminal, it says "Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution)."
The first time happened when I tried to install xfce4. It told me that there's a broken package in the package manager and I should go to see what it was.
I did go but couldn't find it so I shut down the system. At new startup there was no warning message and when I tried to install compiz it told me that the packages "compiz" and "xfce4" have unmet dependencies. I searched the web for solution and found some commands but don't really know what tey are for...
So now I tried "sudo apt-get install -f" and the output is as follows:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
xfce4-session
Suggested packages:
fortunes-mod
The following NEW packages will be installed:
xfce4-session
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 586 not upgraded.
49 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/610 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2 694 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 198999 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../xfce4-session_4.10.1-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking xfce4-session (4.10.1-3ubuntu5) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/xfce4-session_4.10.1-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite '/etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver.desktop', which is also in package trisquel-desktop-common-data 7.0-15
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.13-1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu1+7.0trisquel1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.10.1-0ubuntu2+7.0trisquel8) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.54ubuntu1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/xfce4-session_4.10.1-3ubuntu5_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
What does this mean?
It looks like a conflict between "xfce4-session" and "trisquel-desktop-common-data".
If you feel more at ease with a graphical interface, launch the "Synaptic Package Manager" (in the "System Settings"), click the "Custom Filters" button (in the bottom-left part of the window) and choose "Broken" (above). You can then try to 1. remove the broken packages (listed on the right), 2. update the system without broken packages, and 3. reinstall (some of) the packages you removed at step 1. Just pay attention to what will actually be removed before confirming (i.e., after pushing the "Apply" button): removing "trisquel" or "trisquel-desktop-common" (both are meta-packages) or "trisquel-desktop-common-data" is OK but you do not want to remove most of your system!
Actually I prefer the terminal, but anyway. I did what you wrote and it lists many packages. Some are installed and one of them is Synaptic - graphical pachage manager.
Should I uninstall Synaptic?
There is no perfect recipe (otherwise, APT would automatically follow it). I guess the lower-level the package the more likely it is the source of the mess. Synaptic is not low-level. I would try to remove the broken Xfce packages, see if that solves everything and, if so, try to reinstall Xfce properly.
Ok, now it's good! I did apt-get remove xfce4 and that worked. THX
Ok, so, now I installed compiz, configured it following the notes at the end of this page https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/compiz and it's eating half of my CPU and everything is slow.
Could it be 3D acceleration not working?
Yes, it is. And upgrading the kernel to the latest version does not solve the performance issue (but it solves a resolution issue): https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/geforce-gtx-750-ti-linux-libre
If your processor has an integrated graphical chipset, then you had better physically remove the nVidia card. Not only you would get better performances (including 3D acceleration) but you would save energy too!
Oh...
I'm in dual boot with Windows 7 so I don't think I'm going to remove it. Isn't there a way to set the integrated gpu only in Trisquel?
But anyway, how much performance can a integrated gpu have? Won't it be weak when I'm working in Blender and using the game engine?
I looked on the net, in my BIOS and in my Windows to see the specs of my integrated gpu but I didn't find a thing. In BIOS I just can see that I have it.
So there is no way to get 3D acceleration with my nVidia gpu?
Not with free software. Because Dogers does not have an Intel integrated chipset, he swapped the card for a two-year-older GeForce GT 630 and got much better performance (from 5 fps on Flightgear to 30): https://trisquel.info/fr/forum/geforce-gtx-750-ti-linux-libre
But you have an Intel integrated chipset and they work great with Linux-libre (hence Trisquel). See, e.g., https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-iris-6200 (but understand that the Fedora 22 uses proprietary firmware to drive the AMD and nVidia competitors).
I see.
Well, I have an AMD cpu. Is it ok anyway or does it change anything?
It does. You would then need an older nVidia card, like Dogers'. Or you can wait for a (hopefully) better support in the latest version of the Linux-libre kernel. With the "linux‑libre64" package in jxself's Linux-libre's repository, your kernel will always be the latest stable kernel (currently version 4.6): https://jxself.org/linux-libre/
OK, got it. Thank you for your help Magic Banana, appreciate it!
Kepler can be reclocked easily.