[fedora-arm] Miserable performance F29-beta-Xfce vs F28-Xfce

[Robert Moskowitz]

I am using a Cubieboard2 with the current image:

Fedora-Xfce-armhfp-29-20181002.n.0-sda

I connect ethernet, serial TTY/USB console, HDMI monitor, kybd/mouse. 
The OS is on a HD and only uboot is on the uSD card.

The firstboot proceeds normally and then I have to really wait for the
Initial Setup GUI to fully appear.  The mouse is VERY jumpy.  I manage
to click on root password and the Initial screen slowly goes up as a
window shade, revealing the root password dialog.  Very jumpy and slow,
I manage to set the root password and click done.

The screen comes down back to Initial and I manage to click on setting
up the user.  Very slow raising of the window shade and very slow
response in the dialog boxes for setting up the user.  Click done then
finish on the Initial setup screen.  Slowly get to the login screen and
then very slow giving me the default workstation question then getting
into the session. dnfdragora-updater seems to run forever.  I go into
session startup settings and turn this off. I wish this was the default
for arm...

Everything in the DE is very slow.  I finally get vncserver working, and
switch to a vnc client console and that is peppy.

So I wondered...  I grabbed another drive and build the F28-Xfce
released image and put its uboot on another uSD card.  This time Initial
Setup had decent performance.  The window screen went up much smoother. 
Mouse was not jumpy.  Dialog entry was decent.  Got into the DE
smoothly.  dnfdragora did not take forever to do its initial run.

So something really wrong, performance-wise with the F29-beta-Xfce. That
SELinux patch we got a couple weeks ago helped a little.

One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used.  Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

This is a real problem.
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[Peter Robinson]

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Fedora-Xfce-armhfp-29-20181002.n.0-sda
I connect ethernet, serial TTY/USB console, HDMI monitor, kybd/mouse.
The OS is on a HD and only uboot is on the uSD card.
The firstboot proceeds normally and then I have to really wait for the
Initial Setup GUI to fully appear. The mouse is VERY jumpy. I manage
to click on root password and the Initial screen slowly goes up as a
window shade, revealing the root password dialog. Very jumpy and slow,
I manage to set the root password and click done.
The screen comes down back to Initial and I manage to click on setting
up the user. Very slow raising of the window shade and very slow
response in the dialog boxes for setting up the user. Click done then
finish on the Initial setup screen. Slowly get to the login screen and
then very slow giving me the default workstation question then getting
into the session. dnfdragora-updater seems to run forever. I go into
session startup settings and turn this off. I wish this was the default
for arm...
Everything in the DE is very slow. I finally get vncserver working, and
switch to a vnc client console and that is peppy.

So the AllWinner devices use a MALI GPU and this has no open source
drivers, at least not usable state for desktops, so you're running the
rendering mostly on the CPU and the display side of things is
basically using the HW to blit out the desktop to the screen.
Basically to summarise the HW acceleration here is minimal! Welcome to
the early 2000s level of graphics acceleration basically.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
So I wondered... I grabbed another drive and build the F28-Xfce
released image and put its uboot on another uSD card. This time Initial
Setup had decent performance. The window screen went up much smoother.
Mouse was not jumpy. Dialog entry was decent. Got into the DE
smoothly. dnfdragora did not take forever to do its initial run.
So something really wrong, performance-wise with the F29-beta-Xfce. That
SELinux patch we got a couple weeks ago helped a little.

Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.


[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/xfce-4.13
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[Robert Moskowitz]

Peter, thanks for the reply...

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Fedora-Xfce-armhfp-29-20181002.n.0-sda
I connect ethernet, serial TTY/USB console, HDMI monitor, kybd/mouse.
The OS is on a HD and only uboot is on the uSD card.
The firstboot proceeds normally and then I have to really wait for the
Initial Setup GUI to fully appear. The mouse is VERY jumpy. I manage
to click on root password and the Initial screen slowly goes up as a
window shade, revealing the root password dialog. Very jumpy and slow,
I manage to set the root password and click done.
The screen comes down back to Initial and I manage to click on setting
up the user. Very slow raising of the window shade and very slow
response in the dialog boxes for setting up the user. Click done then
finish on the Initial setup screen. Slowly get to the login screen and
then very slow giving me the default workstation question then getting
into the session. dnfdragora-updater seems to run forever. I go into
session startup settings and turn this off. I wish this was the default
for arm...
Everything in the DE is very slow. I finally get vncserver working, and
switch to a vnc client console and that is peppy.

So the AllWinner devices use a MALI GPU and this has no open source
drivers, at least not usable state for desktops, so you're running the
rendering mostly on the CPU and the display side of things is
basically using the HW to blit out the desktop to the screen.
Basically to summarise the HW acceleration here is minimal! Welcome to
the early 2000s level of graphics acceleration basically.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
So I wondered... I grabbed another drive and build the F28-Xfce
released image and put its uboot on another uSD card. This time Initial
Setup had decent performance. The window screen went up much smoother.
Mouse was not jumpy. Dialog entry was decent. Got into the DE
smoothly. dnfdragora did not take forever to do its initial run.
So something really wrong, performance-wise with the F29-beta-Xfce. That
SELinux patch we got a couple weeks ago helped a little.

Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

Or getting vncserver working.  See my bug reports on this.

1626255
1633805
1633811

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/xfce-4.13

This is good to know.  I will look into it...

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[Robert Moskowitz]

Post by Peter Robinson
Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

I am looking at the BananaPi M2 Ultra with its quad core, 2GB mem, and
native sata.  Plus affordable for my budget.  They are going to be for
servers, so the Mali GPU should not be at issue.

But...

Other than I have a mess of Cubieboards, which one works better as a
desktop unit.

thanks

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition?  Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used.  Yet.

Nothing in fstab.  Guess I better read up on zram.

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[Peter Robinson]

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson
Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

I am looking at the BananaPi M2 Ultra with its quad core, 2GB mem, and
native sata. Plus affordable for my budget. They are going to be for
servers, so the Mali GPU should not be at issue.

Looks like there's reasonable support for it upstream although a quick
look I don't yet see ATA support, not sure of the status there.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Other than I have a mess of Cubieboards, which one works better as a
desktop unit.

Do you mean desktop support for Cubieboards or any device in general?

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.
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[Robert Moskowitz]

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson
Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

I am looking at the BananaPi M2 Ultra with its quad core, 2GB mem, and
native sata. Plus affordable for my budget. They are going to be for
servers, so the Mali GPU should not be at issue.

Looks like there's reasonable support for it upstream although a quick
look I don't yet see ATA support, not sure of the status there.

ATA support?  I think I just got lost in acronym land.  If you mean for
the sata interface, where can I ask to pursue this?  I know I really
need a quad core for a mail server, particularly once I start using DKIM.

Or about quad boards that will boot the OS from USB to sata interface?

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Other than I have a mess of Cubieboards, which one works better as a
desktop unit.

Do you mean desktop support for Cubieboards or any device in general?

In general.  Looking for affordable boards for desktop systems in
general.  That includes good HD (or SSD) support.

Like if I want to set up for my sister to plug into her TV and use a
wireless mouse and keyboard.

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

Good.  I will look into this Monday when I boot everything back up. Got
the Honeydo patch to work in on Sunday.  :)

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[Robert Moskowitz]

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

OK.  I took a look at the output of these commands and how zram is
running as a service.

Pretty neat, overall.

Though I saw where that system start date may play a longterm problem:

cat /etc/zram.conf
# The factor is the percentage of total system RAM to allocate to the
ZRAM block device(s).
FACTOR=2

# cat /etc/systemd/system/swap.target.wants/zram-swap.service
[Unit]
Description=Enable compressed swap in memory using zram
DefaultDependencies=no
Before=swap.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
TimeoutStartSec=30sec
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zramstart
ExecStop=/usr/sbin/zramstop

[Install]
WantedBy=swap.target

# systemctl -l --no-pager status zram-swap
\u25cf zram-swap.service - Enable compressed swap in memory using zram
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/zram-swap.service; enabled;
vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Fri 2018-06-22 11:12:12 EDT; 3 months
16 days ago
  Process: 437 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zramstart (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 437 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: Setting up swapspace version
1, size = 475.9 MiB (498999296 bytes)
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: no label,
UUID=ba3bf62f-7bb0-4295-ad8c-2d26b000c3f8
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: Activated ZRAM swap device of
499 MB
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost systemd[1]: Started Enable compressed swap in
memory using zram.

Active for 3 months and 16 days?  Hardly.  :)

Perhaps for F30, you can grab the timestamp of the Chrony drift file for
the startup rather than whereever you get this Jun 22 date?

thanks for all the help!

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[Peter Robinson]

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

OK. I took a look at the output of these commands and how zram is
running as a service.
Pretty neat, overall.
cat /etc/zram.conf
# The factor is the percentage of total system RAM to allocate to the
ZRAM block device(s).
FACTOR=2
# cat /etc/systemd/system/swap.target.wants/zram-swap.service
[Unit]
Description=Enable compressed swap in memory using zram
DefaultDependencies=no
Before=swap.target
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
TimeoutStartSec=30sec
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zramstart
ExecStop=/usr/sbin/zramstop
[Install]
WantedBy=swap.target
# systemctl -l --no-pager status zram-swap
\u25cf zram-swap.service - Enable compressed swap in memory using zram
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/zram-swap.service; enabled;
vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (exited) since Fri 2018-06-22 11:12:12 EDT; 3 months
16 days ago
Process: 437 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zramstart (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 437 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: Setting up swapspace version
1, size = 475.9 MiB (498999296 bytes)
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: no label,
UUID=ba3bf62f-7bb0-4295-ad8c-2d26b000c3f8
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: Activated ZRAM swap device of
499 MB
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost systemd[1]: Started Enable compressed swap in
memory using zram.
Active for 3 months and 16 days? Hardly. :)
Perhaps for F30, you can grab the timestamp of the Chrony drift file for
the startup rather than whereever you get this Jun 22 date?

It's probably the date the image was created.

Patches are welcome!
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[Robert Moskowitz]

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

OK. I took a look at the output of these commands and how zram is
running as a service.
Pretty neat, overall.
cat /etc/zram.conf
# The factor is the percentage of total system RAM to allocate to the
ZRAM block device(s).
FACTOR=2
# cat /etc/systemd/system/swap.target.wants/zram-swap.service
[Unit]
Description=Enable compressed swap in memory using zram
DefaultDependencies=no
Before=swap.target
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
TimeoutStartSec=30sec
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zramstart
ExecStop=/usr/sbin/zramstop
[Install]
WantedBy=swap.target
# systemctl -l --no-pager status zram-swap
\u25cf zram-swap.service - Enable compressed swap in memory using zram
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/zram-swap.service; enabled;
vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (exited) since Fri 2018-06-22 11:12:12 EDT; 3 months
16 days ago
Process: 437 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zramstart (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 437 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: Setting up swapspace version
1, size = 475.9 MiB (498999296 bytes)
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: no label,
UUID=ba3bf62f-7bb0-4295-ad8c-2d26b000c3f8
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost zramstart[437]: Activated ZRAM swap device of
499 MB
Jun 22 11:12:12 localhost systemd[1]: Started Enable compressed swap in
memory using zram.
Active for 3 months and 16 days? Hardly. :)
Perhaps for F30, you can grab the timestamp of the Chrony drift file for
the startup rather than whereever you get this Jun 22 date?

It's probably the date the image was created.
Patches are welcome!

I have no idea, and no way of finding out, where the boot gets this date
from.  I tried a find on files created that date and came up empty (or
was I looking for modified?)

find / -type f -newermt 2018-06-22 ! -newermt 2018-06-23 -ls

I tested this with 2018-10-08 - 2018-10-09 and it worked.

I tried at, ct, but Bt failed that the system could provide Birthdate.

So where is this date coming from?  If I knew that, perhaps something
could be set up to change it every so often.  If start was within a
short period it would be better than it is.

Or lift the code from Chrony on how it sets the time if no network
connectivity.

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[Robert Moskowitz]

I was just pointed to:

https://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi-Cedrus
https://linux-sunxi.org/Mainlining_Effort

Mali GPU and R40 sata support SHOULD be in the 4.20 kernel.  Of course
nothing on the date for that!

:)

So I can wait for Mali, but I will have to find something else than the
BananaPi M4-Ultra for now...

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson
Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

I am looking at the BananaPi M2 Ultra with its quad core, 2GB mem, and
native sata. Plus affordable for my budget. They are going to be for
servers, so the Mali GPU should not be at issue.

Looks like there's reasonable support for it upstream although a quick
look I don't yet see ATA support, not sure of the status there.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Other than I have a mess of Cubieboards, which one works better as a
desktop unit.

Do you mean desktop support for Cubieboards or any device in general?

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

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[Peter Robinson]

Post by Robert Moskowitz
https://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi-Cedrus

Cedrus is for HW decoding of encoded video format such as M264, it's
not the same thing as a display driver.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
https://linux-sunxi.org/Mainlining_Effort

I am well aware of all of those components.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Mali GPU and R40 sata support SHOULD be in the 4.20 kernel. Of course
nothing on the date for that!

Mali GPU drivers, for some devices, will be in the kernel, that
doesn't provide user space support. This is not having your cake and
being able to eat it too. It's like having Fred without Ginger.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
:)

Only partially.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
So I can wait for Mali, but I will have to find something else than the
BananaPi M4-Ultra for now...

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson
Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

I am looking at the BananaPi M2 Ultra with its quad core, 2GB mem, and
native sata. Plus affordable for my budget. They are going to be for
servers, so the Mali GPU should not be at issue.

Looks like there's reasonable support for it upstream although a quick
look I don't yet see ATA support, not sure of the status there.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Other than I have a mess of Cubieboards, which one works better as a
desktop unit.

Do you mean desktop support for Cubieboards or any device in general?

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

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[Robert Moskowitz]

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
https://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi-Cedrus

Cedrus is for HW decoding of encoded video format such as M264, it's
not the same thing as a display driver.

I was wondering about that, as I was reading through the page. "Well
this is interesting, but does it really help me" kind of moment.  I see
this does not address the more basic issue at hand.

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
https://linux-sunxi.org/Mainlining_Effort

I am well aware of all of those components.

I would expect so.  I have not followed sunxi development closely since
I was getting my uboot directly from Hans and was ahead of what was in
the official test.  After he moved on to other activities, I did not see
much happening that really helped me situation.

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Mali GPU and R40 sata support SHOULD be in the 4.20 kernel. Of course
nothing on the date for that!

Mali GPU drivers, for some devices, will be in the kernel, that
doesn't provide user space support. This is not having your cake and
being able to eat it too. It's like having Fred without Ginger.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
:)

Only partially.

Sigh.  Well it is fun, just not finding what I would give my sister.  OK
for most of my needs, but not replacing my x86_64 notebook anytime soon!

Thanks for all you do for us here.

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
So I can wait for Mali, but I will have to find something else than the
BananaPi M4-Ultra for now...

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson
Also the XFCE Spin rebased from 4.12 which was GTK2 based to 4.13 [1]
which is GTK3 based because GTK2 is ancient and not really maintained
anymore other than the occasional security or bug fix (if it even gets
that these days). The xfce 4.13 release is also a development release
on the way to the 4.14 stable release so it quite possibly could have
issues but overall GTK3 is more reliant on and expects more HW
acceleration so I'm not surprised about your experience at all. It's
also the reason I don't recommend AllWinner based devices to people
that wish to do GUI stuff, their best used for server/headless use
cases.

I am looking at the BananaPi M2 Ultra with its quad core, 2GB mem, and
native sata. Plus affordable for my budget. They are going to be for
servers, so the Mali GPU should not be at issue.

Looks like there's reasonable support for it upstream although a quick
look I don't yet see ATA support, not sure of the status there.

Post by Robert Moskowitz
Other than I have a mess of Cubieboards, which one works better as a
desktop unit.

Do you mean desktop support for Cubieboards or any device in general?

Post by Robert Moskowitz

Post by Peter Robinson

Post by Robert Moskowitz
One difference I note is F28 has a swap partition, F29 does not. Now
during the initial stuff, no swap was used. Now I see 29KB of swap used
with 86KB memory free.

So we use zram for swap in F-29, it preserves the mSD card due to
wear, and is much faster, this isn't the problem. Basically up to a
max of 50% of the RAM will be allocated to swap using lz4 compression
and we generally see a 4-5 times compression ratio.

How can I 'see' my swap partition? Free shows a 487304B swap with none
used. Yet.
Nothing in fstab. Guess I better read up on zram.

It's created as part of the zram-swap service. The swapon (no options)
will show swap details, the zramctl cmd (no options) will show you
size, utiliation, compression ratios etc.

_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to arm-***@lists.fedoraproject.org
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