Why Firefox runs much slower in Linux than in Windows ?
 

I am a Linux fan since about 1999 when I've partitioned a hard drive for first time and installed Peanut Linux. Even today I am running alinux, However, I've played with Ark linux, Arch Linux, Knoppix, Debian, Fedora, Xubuntu etc.

As I said I like and prefer Linux over Windows, but I still use windows as the linux world does not have nothing equivalent to excel or Autocad ( I know that OO is wonderful, but yet it is not Excel).

Since the birth of Windows 3.1 I had the impression of it as being a bloated operating system which would make applications to run slower. This preconception brought me to buy an Apple computer in 1998. Big Mistake , the bitch took 45 seconds to open Excel while windows 95 opened same application in 5 - 7 seconds.Also , generatlly speaking I felt the slowness whenever I was in front of the Apple against when in front of the PC ( At tha time both machines where technologically equivalent)

Now, the reason of this posting and some questions that somebody with more knowledge here may answer.

I have installed and run Firefox on the same machine with all above linux flavors and NONE of them is even closer on the time that takes to open firefox on my default home page ( yahoo.com) . It takes ages to follow links . I mean 5 7 seconds againts 1 second or less for same links with XP or 2000.

I've made the same test on a IBM thinkpad R50P Pentium M, Dell Inspiron 6000 Pentium M and a Pentium III desktop.

Being the kernel way much small than the windows core and calls etc why is linux slower???

Why this is not targeted by the kernel developers?
What is the Trick that windows uses ?

I've seen some articles where the speed is related to , for instance , the performance of ray tracing programs , but whatever the case, the speed of a browser seems to be 40 to 50% faster when runninmg under windows.

In spite there are a lot of automated linux installers, the average linux user yet needs to know some basic computing which discourages the majority of the people. Being slower is then a negative factor impacting the same group.

I might very well be wrong , and perhaps it is not related to Linux and more something like the processor arquitecture is more adapted for the windows operating system. Could that be the case ?

If so , would some manufacturer ever build an arquitecture to better fit linux ?

Thank in advance for any answer /opinions

The first thing that comes to my mind is the speed of name resolution. Do you have any kind of router set up? Can you post the contents of /etc/resolv.conf?

When this happened to me was because resolv.conf had as the first line: "search NETGEAR" because my network's name was NETGEAR. After getting the IP addresses of my ISP's DNS servers I edited the resolv.conf to be:

nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

As for the Excel loading speed, I think when Windows starts it loads a lot of the daemons and libs that Office uses so all of that is in the background while Windows is running, just waiting for something to use it. OO doesn't load anything until you tell it to. I could be wrong, but it sounds good.

as for FF under Linux v MS, i have noticed that it depends on the distro, how my network is configured, etc...

currently FF runs slowest on my old laptop running CentOS 4.x, but then again it only has 128M ram with a pathetic little vid card and is running KDE 3.5. so a bit bloated GUI = slow to open, but once its open, getting from page to page is just as fast as even my best computer.

page searching under linux v MS in FF boils down to your network configuration. FF is hands down faster then IE and comperable with Opera or Safari, but for me i am dual booting atm on my fastest rig and FF is much faster under Debian Etch amd64 then winXP Pro. both in opening from scratch AND page searches.

i use an IPCop as my router so that is all i need on my local systems. works great for me and is very fast.

as for OOo vs MS Office and how fast they open. the above poster is correct, MS loads tons and tons of api's and other services to ensure its software (IE, and Office) open very fast, but that is also why it takes so bloody long for the GUI to start fully once you are loged in and same thing as for why your system takes up so much resrouces. a large amount of the resorcese are WAISTED waiting to do something that has not happened yet.

the reason they load faster is because parts of the applications are ALREADY running even if you do not have the application installed. so even if you REMOVE, IE or MS Office from your computer, guess what. yup, their API's and services are still loading and RUNNING in the background and you CANNOT without major hacks to the registry stop that from happening.

Thanks for your fast responses. I like the fact that I may need to do some tweakings and it is not a native Operating system thing.

Concerning resolv.conf; it has one single line

nameserver 192.168.0.1

which is OK as it is the router IP address.

May be a KDE thing. Anyway, the above resolv.conf is with my curent alinux distro. I will repeat this test with another light distro as xubuntu and verify resolv.conf I may find a faster response.

I've seen other similar posts mentioning the dma on or off. Do you think this could be also an issue; if so , where do I check this ?

Thanks !!!

Tweaking is fun! :D

The single line is ok, but I would load Windows and check the network connection's TCP/IP properties to see if it has anything different. You can always try alternate DNS servers if you know the IP addresses. Using the router as the DNS server takes extra time because the router is just contacting the servers it knows about and then passing the information to you. At least that's how mine works. One more thing, If you're using DHCP to configure the interface, anything you change in resolv.conf will be replaced upon the next boot.

The only way I think KDE could be at fault is if you have low memory, like only 256MB.

check lsmod for a kernel module named ipv6
if its loaded that is the problem i think
need to blacklist it.

Thanks,

ipv6 is indeed running ; however I can not remove it

# rmmod ipv6
ERROR: Module ipv6 is in use

May be is there a way to avoid the modprobe when booting, but not sure where to look.

I'll keep checking , just in case you know a direct kill please let me know

I think adding the following to /etc/modprobe.conf still works, too:

Code:

alias net-pf-10 off

Another way to disable ipv6 is blacklisting the module. Creating a new
file :

echo "blacklist ipv6" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ipv6

Also open about:config in Firefox and look for:

network.dns.disableIPv6 and set it to true.

I've tried both , created the file and added it in the already existing blacklist and added the blacklist-ipv6 file. Rebooted and there it is; alive and wagging the tail.

I will look which script starts it and try comment it out.

Put this in /etc/modprobe.d/00local
And this to /etc/environment if you are running KDE:

http://beranger.org/index.php?article=1127