xfree delay when switched from console, laptop framebuffer

[knu]

Hi,

PROBLEM: when I switch to X from a console terminal (typically Alt+F7) the screen is freezing for about 10 seconds, rather too long.

CONFIG: laptop acer travelmate 800lci + USB wheel mouse, Knoppix 3.2 2003-09-05, original XFConfig-4

thanks

[Superstoned]

10 seconds is rather long, but at my compu its also some 3-4 secs. so I dont think its really strange...

[knu]

I know I could just limit myself to using xterm and/or screen to avoid this delay, but I find it sometimes comfortable to work in a few console terminals, switching with Alt + arrow keys. But pressing those arrow keys too quickly (or without enough attention) may lead to X and then I'm stuck for another 10 seconds, not 3 or 7... 10 seconds.

Yet I find it strange and uncomfortable.

So anyone has an idea about the problem ?
Could it be some kind of hardware polling ?

[Superstoned]

well, I guess the resolution in X is different from the console-resolution, and your laptop might be slow switching resolutions...

Or X is just extremely slow, you might try some other distro's, check wether it is knoppix-only (and should be fixed).

[Dave_Bechtel]

1. How much RAM do you have
2. Do you have a swap partition or file enabled
3. Have you tried a lighter windowmanager like icewm to see if the problem remains?

Hi,

PROBLEM: when I switch to X from a console terminal (typically Alt+F7) the screen is freezing for about 10 seconds, rather too long.

CONFIG: laptop acer travelmate 800lci + USB wheel mouse, Knoppix 3.2 2003-09-05, original XFConfig-4

thanks

[knu]

16MB ram, noswap and enlightment3D... :)
No, it's not a "low on resources" problem.

I'm not used to framebuffer, I'll read a doc about it.
And another LiveCD distribution could be helpfull to make a quick test.

FYI, the travelmate comes with 512MB ram, I created a 800MB+ swap (on) and I even managed to kill the winmanager.

[Dave_Bechtel]

--Geez, you almost had me there!

--I have a Dell Latitude with P166MMX, 128Meg +168M swap and fb800x600, switching to "text" mode is pretty quick. Maybe it's the FB driver for your video card.

--Have you tried running ' nice top -d 10 ' to see if anything running in the BG is chewing up CPU?

--Note, if I boot w/o framebuffer on the P166 the text mode goes off the screen; but have you tried booting yours with SVGA and screen= cheatcodes to see if you can get around the framebugger? (I *live* in text mode so fb is the only reasonable way on that laptop unless I attach an external monitor, but perhaps your needs are different.)

16MB ram, noswap and enlightment3D...
No, it's not a "low on resources" problem.

I'm not used to framebuffer, I'll read a doc about it.
And another LiveCD distribution could be helpfull to make a quick test.

FYI, the travelmate comes with 512MB ram, I created a 800MB+ swap (on) and I even managed to kill the winmanager.