I’ve been using TW since November 2022. I started with KDE, a disaster. Moved to GNOME, which was OK other than I hated it. I’m now back on XFCE and i3 (as always). I had a feeling it was slower than any other Linux distro I’ve used but didn’t much care. Today, however, I used Debian with XFCE and bloody hell if that thing wasn’t at least 5 times as quick. Boot time was the same but the browser, terminals, file managers - the lot! was faster. Especially Firefox which is abysmally slow, relatively. I’m not ready to quit Susie yet and I would like to know what I’m doing wrong - it’s almost always my fault.
My PC has 4xCore i5-7400, 16G RAM and an SSD.
Any ideas?
Edit: I just tested Fedora and Linux Mint - both are lightening fast compared to TW.
Edit: I just noticed that my keyboard and mouse battery levels are at 0% . I think the upower update went awry yesterday. On Debian it showed as 55% and 70% respectively.
I have two Kaby Lake desktops, so the same basic hardware, same core count on one, half on the other but with same thread count 4, but not depending on any batteries or wireless:
Operationally there is no problem of lack of speed on either. They are subjected to random instances of delayed X startup about which a bug is open. I haven’t upgraded their kernels from 6.2.12 yet.
I recognize nothing in your inxi output that is suspect. Have you tried looking for runaway processes with htop or top? Have you tried logging into an alternate session type to XFCE, IceWM perhaps, to see whether a system problem or an XFCE-only problem? The only place I have XFCE is on a Mint or two, and rarely used, so no meaningful familiarity with it. I think among regular helpers here most are using Plasma or Gnome. As seen above in inxi, I have one on Plasma, the other on TDE.
I run TW on Core i5-4800/8Gb with a snappy experience including firefox and KDE. Your experience with Debian confirms that the hardware is capable enough. For debugging, I would recommend doing some basic benchmarks (hdparm, sysbench). If your websurfing is low-risk, you should probably turn-off exploit mitigation in Yast/Boot Loader/Kernel parameters. Compare your benchmarking to Debian, if possible.
Thanks for taking a look. I tried TOP, nothing weird - well, maybe the memory is a bit high (1.2GB on a cold boot as opposed to Debian’s 400MB) but I don’t care about that at all. My average load is very low.
I tried IceWM and my usual i3 and both are about the same. I expected i3 to run like a formula one car but it’s not noticeably different from XFCE.
So, I reinstalled TW on a laptop (Thinkpad) with similar specs to my desktop with KDE Plasma and it was almost identical to XFCE in terms of speed except for Firefox which was even slower. I uninstalled the packaged version and replaced it with my own build and that solved that issue (I think Susie’s build of Firefox is wonky because, relatively, it’s slow on all my machines). I also installed Brave and Chromium and they are both operating as expected. The other issue on KDE Plasma is that two programs, GNUCash and KeepassXC, hang Plasma for exactly 5 seconds on close making the taskbar useless for that whopping 5 seconds. First world problems, eh?
Maybe I have a network issue Tumbleweed doesn’t like that Debian and Fedora don’t have a problem with.
Am I better off sticking to KDE purely because it, along with GNOME, is what the maintainers mainly focus on? As I mainly use my computer for writing C, C++, database administration, and occasionally Web Development (when I’m guilt tripped into it) it doesn’t particularly matter what I use - I don’t use it for “fun” for the most part.
“DisasterMong” would have been a much better username!
No tinkering outside of my i3 configuration and general XFCE ugliness cleanup. I have some time today so I might do a fresh install with KDE Plasma (and remove 90% of the funk that I’ll never use). It sure is pretty though.
Services on host 3400g: http://mistelberger.net/cgls-3400g.txt You may download and view in less or kate. Idle load is one percent. Desktop stays responsive at high load averages:
3400g:~ # w
17:28:46 up 1:50, 4 users, load average: 30.86, 12.31, 5.65
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
karl tty7 :0 15:38 1:50m 2:57 0.20s /usr/bin/startplasma-x11
karl pts/0 :0 15:38 1:50m 0.00s 2.81s /usr/bin/kded5
karl pts/1 :0 15:38 2.00s 0.23s 0.03s /bin/bash
karl pts/3 :0 15:41 2:14 17:09 0.03s /bin/bash
3400g:~ #
3400g:~ # stress-ng --cpu 0
stress-ng: info: [11824] defaulting to a 86400 second (1 day, 0.00 secs) run per stressor
stress-ng: info: [11824] dispatching hogs: 32 cpu
^Cstress-ng: info: [11824] successful run completed in 210.23s (3 mins, 30.23 secs)
3400g:~ #
YaST provides two methods of networking to choose from (NM & Wicked, either of which various apps demand be installed, though not necessarily enabled), but openSUSE provides also a third, which can only be enabled manually, and which I use on 100% of my desktop PCs: systemd-network (in static IP mode). You could give a try to either of those you do not currently use.
YaST Network doesn’t allow me to change anything and I don’t know how to use/setup systemd-network in static IP mode. I’ll take a look at the documentation.
YaST in admin mode should allow switching between NetworkManager and Wicked, but only if both are installed. Systemd-network is an optional package, so would need to be installed before switching to it. Systemd-network configuration goes in /etc/systemd/network, and existence of /etc/resolv.conf needs to be ensured. I do that by creating it manually and disabling or uninstalling anything containing string “resolv”. Config template for ipv4:
# ip a | grep eth0:
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
# cat /etc/systemd/network/eth0.network
[Match]
PermanentMACAddress=.:.:.:.:.:.
[Network]
Address=..../..
DNS=....
Gateway=....
IPv6AcceptRA=no
LinkLocalAddressing=no
@myswtest
IMO… I wouldn’t worry about it … if networking is working fine and not experiencing any delays, no need to get off into yet another “tedium”.
I admit, I do not like to mess with my OS. But apparently I back myself into a corner and do it anyway.
@mrmazda
YaST in admin mode should allow switching between NetworkManager and Wicked, but only if both are installed. Systemd-network is an optional package, so would need to be installed before switching to it. Systemd-network configuration goes in /etc/systemd/network, and existence of /etc/resolv.conf needs to be ensured. I do that by creating it manually and disabling or uninstalling anything containing string “resolv”.
Thanks for the information. I saw in YaST Software that it wasn’t installed.
Would it be prudent to use the de facto KDE Plasma? I don’t really care what I use (except for GNOME, not doing that).
Does anyone here use KeepassXC on Plasma without it hanging on close (only on X11, fine on wayland)? It’s bloody annoying.
OK, I definitely have something funky going on - two separate computers, both slow and when using Plasma KeepassXC (and GNUCash) hangs every time on close. Tried @mrmazda’s setup, no difference. I might have to put this to the side and get back to work now.
You mean systemd-network, or just switching between NM and Wicked? Switching to systemd-network means using systemctl to disable old way and enable new way, then restart network or computer, not simply installing and creating config files:
. I think the upower update went awry yesterday. On Debian it showed as 55% and 70% respectively.
”
. I will try it, thanks.