Your machine is too SLOW!

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loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

My Mplayer wants me not play, I'm a dull boy.

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loldier
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Here's the pic. "Don't bring an Atom into a CPU fight." The first post never shows thumbnails. Other than that, it plays videos just fine (up to 720p). Fatfox was part of the trouble, not the solution, as I had many tabs open.

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danieru
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> "Fatfox was part of the trouble, not the solution, as I had many tabs open."

Your machine isn't slow. Your software is too BLOATED!

SuperTramp83

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I can play smoothly almost all full hd vids I throw at my Intel celeron M 1.50 ghz :)

Here, try this and see if you can play it smoothly in 1080p -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJdPyoqt8U

PRO TIP:
play it with smplayer
set loop filter "skip only on HD videos"

pragmatist

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nice video!

SuperTramp83

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yeah!

loldier
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Some beautiful scenery. I'll keep it. This video is perfect for reference purposes. Thanks for sharing!

My netbook Atom N455 1.6 GHz plays videos up to 720p just fine -- despite Mplayer abruptly warning me against it. I must've been doing something more intensive than usual on the side. That Alvin Lee Ten Years After Woodstock video seems to have triggered it. Most videos are smooth.

I like Mplayer. It just works. Thanks to LibertyBSD/OpenBSD, my netbook is again an incredibly capable machine. Under Win 7 Starter and Asus crapware it could barely boot, let alone do anything useful.

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loldier
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*Addendum*

>PRO TIP:
play it with smplayer
set loop filter "skip only on HD videos"<

Well, you never know what you learn on a new day!

I applied that trick and the netbook came to full life. Full HD is quite watchable. Without this switch 1080p was all slow motion. Now the frames and the audio are in sync.

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SuperTramp83

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yeah, the difference between vlc (slowest), smplayer (slow in 1080p and smplayer with skip loopfilter is incredible. Another piece of software from Villalba, the same author, is smtube, which is great for youtube vids.

loldier
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I downloaded the latest Debian Jessie 8.5 and burned it to a DVD with growisofs, then booted the netbook to a Gnome live session. The little netbook cannot take it. Opening the Activities view takes longer than ten seconds, doing anything takes 10--15 seconds. The mouse cursor is OK but otherwise the desktop is completely unusable. I know, reading from a DVD takes its toll but the little Atom is way too SLOW.

Fvwm is gentle on the beast. With LibertyBSD my Asus feels like it was new again.

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danieru
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If you have time, do a little coparation betwen your BSD system and that live DVD Debian.
Run top to see how many task you have running.
and vmstat -s to get the used memory

I for example have 110 tasks total and 52 MBs of used RAM

loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

It was so painful that I'd rather not repeat the ordeal. I only tried the DVD after burning to make sure it boots. I couldn't do anything useful with it. All resources were exhausted merely running the desktop.

Memory is not a problem. I have 2 gigs total, free 1.35. Gnome Shell is too heavy.

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pragmatist

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Is fvwm a solution for you? I am setting up a netbook myself, and I would like to get it as fast as possible. I intend to try fluxbox, since in the past I have found it to be quite fast even on older hardware. It is probably because I have some experience with fluxbox, but fvwm seems a little less friendly. I'll try both and report back.

loldier
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Openbox is a full-fledged, easy to manage desktop, lightweight and fast. Just add obconfig, obmenu and Rox-Filer. Twm is not bad either.

You'll be flabbergasted at their lightness and speed.

But I like fvwm the way it is, although it's higly configurable once you get the hang of the syntax.

Please do report back. It'll be interesting to know how you managed with Fluxbox.

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danieru
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Holy monkey! 46 tasks only?

That is one of the reasons why your BSD system is so light and fast even on that tamagotchi.
Another reason is that by using any BSD you're using a faster and overall better libc implementation. Which helps a lot with better and faster binaries.

I bet that same Debian system running Fvwm still won't be as fast as your BSD setup.

SuperTramp83

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> 46 tasks
gee, I have 105 on debian and that is after I purged a lot of useless stuff..

danieru
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WTF 105? But I don't even have systemd or the like. I'll see exactly what I am running when booting. Maybe it's some of my scripts.

loldier
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I tried live Parabola GNU/Linux on my Atom box and it was quite fast, super fast when compared to the Gnome Shell experience. Parabola comes with the Mate desktop.

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pragmatist

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I'm sure this is a very minor point, but it is something I've always wondered about:

1.) Battery: Do some colors use up the battery faster than others?

2.) Speed: Does using a solid color background instead of an image background speed up the system?

My guesses:

1.) No, but screen brightness does and using certain colors may allow you to use a dimmer screen more effectively.

2.) Yes, but only by a negligible amount.

What do you think?

loldier
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I guess if you're low on RAM a heavy background could slow your system down noticeably.

pragmatist

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Interesting! Thanks loldier and root_vegetable!

Right now I am working on a friend's netbook, so we are looking to maximize function over form.

loldier
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Finally I pkg_added Xfce to my netbook's LibertyBSD setup to see how it would cope. Some screenshots to follow with the Mofit theme.

The tiny Atom beast of a netbook is pretty fast on Xfce. I only installed the package 'xfce' without extras or slim. I commented out '#fvwm' in .xinitrc and launched Xfce unceremoniously from the command line 'startx /usr/local/bin/xfce4-session'.

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andermetalsh
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Joined: 01/04/2013

I would add toad, thunar-volman and xfce-extras.

And launch xfce from 'exec ck-launch-session /usr/local/bin/xfce4-session'

loldier
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Yes, I have that consolekit launch line in my $HOME/.xinitrc file. I could not find a package named thunar-volman. Is it binary or from the ports?

I said Xfce is fast on my netbook. That's relative. Now that I'm back to fvwm I notice the difference that is remarkable. Fvwm is like a young virile man, Xfce feels a tad bit sluggish or hesitant, like a mature person who knows not to rush for nothing. Xfce is fully usable and you'd only notice the small lag in direct comparison when the memory print is fresh.

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andermetalsh
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Sorry, now I remember. Install gvfs just in case, and you must have these lines at /etc/rc.conf.local .

multicast_host=YES
hotplugd_flags=""
pkg_scripts="${pkg_scripts} messagebus toadd"