Are root applications faster?
 

I have this basic .txt (76kb) file that if I open in leafpad under a normal user the scrolling lags behind. Meaning that if I scroll down from the top of the document to the middle of the document the app takes a while for it self to get to that point all the while looking laggy. As if I was getting 5fps in a video. If I were to use the scroll bar on the app and drag the cursor down the scroll bar slowly goes down the page and so does the content.

However if I were to open leafpad and the document under a root user there is no lag. Scrolling is very smooth and responsive. I can jump to any point in the document instantly.

Is this because under root they (the applications) have higher priorities making the app faster? Or does apps run in real time under a root user? How would I make it equally as fast under a non root user?

Thank you!

More likely you have a user desktop setting that isn't on for root. Check for things like smooth scrolling, or desktop effects.

no, and no.

most probably one of the things the previous poster mentioned.

if you are opening as a normal user first the file will start to be read in to the disk cache, if you then open it as root it will already be in the disk cache and so apparantly load faster, at a guess, try openi g the file first as root then as a normal user and see what happens.

If I do open the file with root access first and then again with normal access, the document still scrolls sluggishly. Would graphics have anything to do with it? When I open leafpad as root the app does not have the system theme, instead it has the Raleigh theme.

themes will make a differrence but not that much, check if the default nice value for root is the same as your user it should default to 0

The value for both the root user and my user is 0.

After switching the main system theme to Raleigh, I can say that scrolling performance for a normal user is comparable to that of a root user.

So it looks as if my ATI 4200 GPU can not handle the Adwaita theme anymore :(

Back to gnome 2 for me!

Wonder if the same program is running actually?

i must say that i can confirm that.
not the thing with the root user, but with some gtk themes being very resource-hungry.

are you sure it's adwaita? which application? chances are, it is already a gtk2 app.

try also other themes; it is not necessarily the plain and ugly ones that are the fastest.

When using the uglier theme, both the root user and the normal user have the same amount of responsivness and they both opened at the same time according to time. So running a program as root, that program will not be any faster then running it as a normal user. (Unless if you are running two different themes) I just thaught it did.

The programs I tried were leafpad, gedit, scrolling an article on the bbc via firefox, and scrolling thru proc on thunar.

And the themes I tried were Adwaita, Raleigh and Numix Blue


And the icon themes I tried were Faenza and Gnome

With the Adwaita theme and the Faenze icon set, opening leafpad took about a half a second and scrolling down a text documnent I had was horribly laggy. Changing the icon set to Gnome leafpad opened in about .45 seconds but scrolling was of course still laggy because I was using the Adwaita theme. Scrolling thru proc on Thunar was really laggy that it was immpossible to jump to one point to another with out having to wait 1 or 2 seconds for it to slowly scroll to where you wanted to go. Scrolling thru a completly rendered bbc article was fast up until the point were there was an image and then scrolling become laggy until I passed the photo.

Using the Numix Blue theme leafpad opened in about two seconds and scrolling thru a document was impossible as the app became unresponsive after trying to scroll to the half way point of the document with the scroll wheel. Thunar, with the Faenza icons, locked up as well and scrolling on the bbc article was laggy but managable. With the Gnome iconsthunar did not lock up but scrolling was laggy.

With the Raleigh theme and Faenze icon set scrolling thru proc on thunar was jittery but not horribly slow, scrolling thru the text document on leafpad was very smooth and leafpad opened up in about 4 thenths of a second. Scrolling thru the BBC was very fast even when I was scrolling past a photo. With the Gnome icons scrolling became more responsive but every now and again there was some lag.

I find that using the Raleigh theme with no icons is fastest for thunar.

I know I did not provide any science to my terms of laggy and such but I do not know how to measure scrolling lag.

Its a shame that there are kernel patches to increase the processing power of the cpu, but not for the GPU.

please post the output of for now, esp. in firefox, disable smooth scrolling.
and just don't use that numix gtk theme.

I am sorry for the delay. Here is the output:

frodo@ATT:~$ lspci -k
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS880 Host Bridge
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems Device 9602
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 3)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
00:12.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
00:13.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3c)
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control
Kernel driver in use: k10temp
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ffa0
Kernel driver in use: radeon
0e:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8181
Kernel driver in use: rtl8192se
14:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff00
Kernel driver in use: r8169

there are actually no such kernel patches, neither for cpu nor for gpu.
linux is great (and magic!), but it still cannot increase the physical capabilities of your hardware.
is your gpu an ATI Radeon HD4225?
according to this it wasn't strong even when it came out some 6 years ago.
using the proprietary amd/ati driver (instead of the open source "radeon", as seen in your lspci output) might help - a little.

The BFS patch does seem to increase the processing power of the CPU, even tho it is still operating at its manufactured limits.
Ya, this was the first computer that I had ever bought. The only reason why I did, was because of the BestBuy guy telling me that this was faster for gaming and processing. This thing came out right when the i series was on its first gen. A couple of days latter I was devastated that I was only able to play games at low settings in order for it to be fluid. Even on Gentoo, games do not run that fast, I only get a max of 35 fps on Nexuiz and an average of 29.

The sad thing is that it was about 555 dollars and now it is only worth about 25 dollars on ebay. There are some Dells from 05 that are still going for about 100 dollars.