xpdf is slow

w1k0 · 05-11-2011, 04:02 PM

Bertical,

in two former posts I attached PDF file causing problems with Xpdf and described in in which circumstances the problems appear. Meanwhile you marked your thread as SOLVED so my posts aren’t exposed well. Could you please test my PDF file with your Xpdf and report the results here?

Bertical · 05-11-2011, 06:35 PM

Hi w1k0,

I can confirm the file you attached has very slow scrolling in xpdf. If you recompile xpdf using the patch that san refers to in his post then the problem goes away. I think this problem is specific to certain hardware so only a few people see it. Disabling mtune=i686 in the Slackbuild works but I'm guessing it disables FPU ops as the march=i486 override doesn't know if you've got an SX or a DX so disables FPU stuff.

w1k0 · 05-11-2011, 08:44 PM

Bertical,

thank you for your tests and hints. I will try it later.

w1k0 · 05-12-2011, 10:17 AM

I can confirm: Michael Gilbert’s 03-float.patch causes Xpdf scrolling documents smoothly and quickly.

Here’s the instruction for the beginners:

I use Slackware 13.1 32-bit version.

1. I got Xpdf sources using the command:

Code:

wget -r ftp://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-13.1/source/xap/xpdf/

2. I got Michael Gilbert’s patch, I saved it as 03-float.patch file and I put that file into local slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-13.1/source/xap/xpdf/ directory.

3. I edited xpdf.SlackBuild file and changed the line:

Code:

BUILD=${BUILD:-2}

with the line:

Code:

BUILD=${BUILD:-3}

and I added after the line:

Code:

tar xvf $CWD/xpdf-$VERSION.tar.?z || exit 1

the line:

Code:

patch -p0 < $CWD/03-float.patch || exit 1

4. Then I started xpdf.SlackBuild script as usual and installed newly compiled Xpdf.

Xpdf using Michael Gilbert’s patch works well with the default /etc/xpdfrc file.

cacao74 · 06-25-2011, 04:27 AM

I will try this patch on my system and I will notice about tests.

cacao74 · 06-26-2011, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by w1k0

I can confirm: Michael Gilbert’s 03-float.patch causes Xpdf scrolling documents smoothly and quickly.

That patch works well for me, too.
Thanks for the suggestion.

gauchao · 06-26-2011, 04:33 PM

I use xpdf on 3 machines (phenom x2 quad core) under fluxbox with Slack64 13.0, 13.1 and 13.37 - I never saw xpdf slow down...

cacao74 · 06-26-2011, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gauchao

I use xpdf on 3 machines (phenom x2 quad core) under fluxbox with Slack64 13.0, 13.1 and 13.37 - I never saw xpdf slow down...

You could not "see" the problem with a powerful CPU like your phenom, ecc.
I notice the slowlyness of xpdf on a Centrino CPU, 1.3 GHz, where with slackware (till 12.2, 13.0) works perfectly.

business_kid · 07-08-2011, 08:44 AM

Yes, It's definitely significantly faster.

I have this pdf here on Christian Apologists which is a book copy. It's not stuff that I read, but every page takes a number of seconds to load. Scrolling was out of the question. It has images scanned at quite a high resolution, and text under the images. Even that scrolls acceptably.

carta.bianca · 07-10-2011, 10:43 AM

works !

on slackware 13.1 and 13.37

allend · 08-01-2012, 07:41 AM

I have just had this bug bite me. (Probably serves me right for using WindowMaker again after some time). I followed wik0's advice in post #19 and recompiled xpdf with the patch and now xpdf has scrolling that is fast and responsive.

H_TeXMeX_H · 08-01-2012, 08:52 AM

I recommend switching to mupdf. Faster and better rendering.

fskmh · 08-01-2012, 09:34 AM

Quite like mupdf myself.

On the pro side:
mupdf supports PDF 1.7 and XPS. The rendering is also very fast. Apparently xpdf 3.0.3 also supports PDF 1.7. Bit late in the cycle but perhaps Pat can upgrade to that from 3.0.2pl6 in current.

On the con side:
Requires two additional packages not usually included in Slackware, openjpeg and jbig2dec (both available on slackbuilds.org, although I used a newer openjpeg).
No print or find functionality out the box.

H_TeXMeX_H · 08-01-2012, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fskmh

On the con side:
Requires two additional packages not usually included in Slackware, openjpeg and jbig2dec (both available on slackbuilds.org, although I used a newer openjpeg).
No print or find functionality out the box.

That's true, and because of that it may remain just a slackbuild. I'm not too concerned about print functionality, because all xpdf does is use lp or lpr, which you can use on the command line to print the pdf just the same.

w1k0 · 08-01-2012, 12:20 PM

I installed and compared xpdf and MuPDF.

As for xpdf I installed it according to the recipe from my post #19.

As for MuPDF I used the following method:

Skip the BEGIN ... END section below and go to the post #34

BEGIN

1. I installed jbig2dec and openjpeg libraries using SlackBuilds.org sources. (The freetype2, libjpeg, and zlib libraries were installed in my system before.)

2.1. I tried to compile MuPDF for the first time but it displayed the following error:

# make prefix=/usr/local install

Code:

    MKDIR build/debug
    CC build/debug/filt_faxd.o
    CC build/debug/image_md5.o
    CC build/debug/image_jpx.o
fitz/image_jpx.c: In function ‘fz_load_jpx’:
fitz/image_jpx.c:54:9: error: ‘opj_dparameters_t’ has no member named ‘flags’
fitz/image_jpx.c:54:19: error: ‘OPJ_DPARAMETERS_IGNORE_PCLR_CMAP_CDEF_FLAG’ undeclared (first use in this function)
fitz/image_jpx.c:54:19: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in
make: *** [build/debug/image_jpx.o] Error 1
root@home2:~/DATA/programs/root/Linux/mupfd/mupdf-1.0-source# 
root@home2:~/DATA/programs/root/Linux/mupfd# tar xzfopenjpeg_v1_4_sources_r697.tgz 
tar: Old option `f' requires an argument.
Try `tar --help' or `tar --usage' for more information.

2.2. So I prepared the following patch:

mupfd-1.0.patch

Code:

--- fitz/image_jpx.c.old        2012-04-24 18:41:33.000000000 +0200
+++ fitz/image_jpx.c    2012-08-01 18:51:33.000000000 +0200
@@ -50,8 +50,8 @@
        evtmgr.info_handler = fz_opj_info_callback;
 
        opj_set_default_decoder_parameters(&params);
-       if (indexed)
-               params.flags |= OPJ_DPARAMETERS_IGNORE_PCLR_CMAP_CDEF_FLAG;
+//     if (indexed)
+//             params.flags |= OPJ_DPARAMETERS_IGNORE_PCLR_CMAP_CDEF_FLAG;
 
        info = opj_create_decompress(format);
        opj_set_event_mgr((opj_common_ptr)info, &evtmgr, ctx);

Then I copied it to mupdf-1.0-source directory and used the following command to apply it:

patch -p0 < mupfd-1.0.patch

2.3. Finally I compiled and installed MuPDF:

make prefix=/usr/local install

***

Then I tested both xpdf and MuPDF using the family_tree.pdf file that I attached to my #14.

Results:

1. The xpdf displays the aforementioned file properly and allows to scroll it vertically and horizontally.

2. The MuPDF displays the aforementioned file and allows to scroll it vertically but refuses to scroll it horizontally.

Conclusion:

MuPDF works bad in the comparison with xpdf – at least in the patched version.

***

I ask you to try both xpdf and MuPDF and to compare the results you’ll achieve with my results.

END