XSun: Slow Scroll

Hello,

I've just installed a sunblade-150 with solaris-10. Problem is with X-
Display being very slow to scroll even the terminal in windowing
environment with half the screen displaying old contents and rest with
new and after 1-2 seconds it goes normail when I scroll. Can someone
help me how to fasten the fresh rate or get rid of this very slow
scroll issue in X

Regards,
/Nasir/

On 2009-03-16, Moody <> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've just installed a sunblade-150 with solaris-10. Problem is with X-
> Display being very slow to scroll even the terminal in windowing
> environment with half the screen displaying old contents and rest with
> new and after 1-2 seconds it goes normail when I scroll. Can someone
> help me how to fasten the fresh rate or get rid of this very slow
> scroll issue in X

I don't have a SB-150, nor any experience with ones displaying
that slow behavior, but I have a few questions which might help others
lead to a solution.

1) How much memory is in the system? This could be a case of
too little memory and a lot of swapping.

2) What window manager are you using? Solaris 10 gives the
choice of Gnome or CDE (before going into what is packaged
in the Software Companion CD). Of the two, Gnome is much more
resource hungry, so you might improve the speed by switching
to CDE -- in spite of their warnings that CDE might go away
soon. It won't go away from your current install at least.

3) What framebuffer are you using? I'm not sure whether the
SB-150 has a built-in framebuffer, or whether you are using one
in either a UPA slot or a PCI slot.

O.K. Looking at my FEH, (which only covers the SB-100, not the
SB-150) it appears that there is a built-in framebuffer, and
only PCI slots for other framebufers.

The choices appear to be (from an on-line FEH page for the
SB-150):

XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator (64MB)
XVR-600 Graphics Accelerator
XVR-500 Graphics Accelerator
PGX64 8/24-Bit Color Frame Buffer
XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator (32MB)

With the last three described as "supported by can no longer be
ordered with the system.

I suspect that any of these would be faster than the built-in
one which is what I suspect that you are using.

4) What resolution are you set to? fbconfig lets you select the
resolution (among other things) and you may get faster operation
by selecting a lower resolution.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: <> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Mar 16, 4:15*am, Moody <nasir.mahm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've just installed a sunblade-150 with solaris-10. Problem is with X-
> Display being very slow to scroll even the terminal in windowing
> environment with half the screen displaying old contents and rest with
> new and after 1-2 seconds it goes normail when I scroll. Can someone
> help me how to fasten the fresh rate or get rid of this very slow
> scroll issue in X
>
> Regards,
> /Nasir/

From my experience with trying to run X on a Sun Blade 100 (500MHz IIe
+ 512M RAM on the onboard framebuffer), Gnome just runs painfully slow
no matter what. Solaris 10 won't let you install on a system with
less than 512MB RAM, and the graphical install minimum is 768M. I'm
not sure how much having extra RAM will help though, and Solaris 10
just isn't meant for the low-end systems like the Blade 100 and 150.

I may be wrong and there may be a way to get Gnome running at an
acceptable speed, but with the IIe processors, I think you're limited
to CDE or nothing.

glenn

On Mar 18, 9:51*am, glennklockwood <glennklockw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 16, 4:15*am, Moody <nasir.mahm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
>
> > I've just installed a sunblade-150 with solaris-10. Problem is with X-
> > Display being veryslowto scroll even the terminal in windowing
> > environment with half the screen displaying old contents and rest with
> > new and after 1-2 seconds it goes normail when I scroll. Can someone
> > help me how to fasten the fresh rate or get rid of this veryslow
> > scroll issue in X
>
> > Regards,
> > /Nasir/
>
> From my experience with trying to run X on a Sun Blade 100 (500MHz IIe
> + 512M RAM on the onboard framebuffer), Gnome just runs painfullyslow
> no matter what. *Solaris 10 won't let you install on a system with
> less than 512MB RAM, and the graphical install minimum is 768M. *I'm
> not sure how much having extra RAM will help though, and Solaris 10
> just isn't meant for the low-end systems like the Blade 100 and 150.
>


# prtdiag -v
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Blade 150
(UltraSPARC-IIe 650MHz)
System clock frequency: 93 MHZ
Memory size: 1GB

==================================== CPUs
====================================
E$ CPU CPU
CPU Freq Size Implementation Mask Status
Location
--- -------- ---------- --------------------- ----- ------
--------
0 650 MHz 512KB SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIe 3.3 on-line
+-board/cpu0

================================= IO Devices
=================================

> I may be wrong and there may be a way to get Gnome running at an
> acceptable speed, but with the IIe processors, I think you're limited
> to CDE or nothing.
>
> glenn

On Mar 17, 4:24*am, "DoN. Nichols" <dnich...@d-and-d.com> wrote:
> On 2009-03-16, Moody <nasir.mahm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
>
> > I've just installed a sunblade-150 with solaris-10. Problem is with X-
> > Display being veryslowto scroll even the terminal in windowing
> > environment with half the screen displaying old contents and rest with
> > new and after 1-2 seconds it goes normail when I scroll. Can someone
> > help me how to fasten the fresh rate or get rid of this veryslow
> > scroll issue in X
>
> * * * * I don't have a SB-150, nor any experience with ones displaying
> thatslowbehavior, but I have a few questions which might help others
> lead to a solution.
>
> 1) * * *How much memory is in the system? *This could be a case of
> * * * * too little memory and a lot of swapping.
>
> 2) * * *What window manager are you using? *Solaris 10 gives the
> * * * * choice of Gnome or CDE (before going into what is packaged
> * * * * in the Software Companion CD). *Of the two, Gnome is much more
> * * * * resource hungry, so you might improve the speed by switching
> * * * * to CDE -- in spite of their warnings that CDE might go away
> * * * * soon. *It won't go away from your current install at least.
>
> 3) * * *What framebuffer are you using? *I'm not sure whether the
> * * * * SB-150 has a built-in framebuffer, or whether you are using one
> * * * * in either a UPA slot or a PCI slot.
>
> * * * * O.K. *Looking at my FEH, (which only covers the SB-100,not the
> * * * * SB-150) it appears that there is a built-in framebuffer, and
> * * * * only *PCI slots for other framebufers.
>
> * * * * The choices appear to be (from an on-line FEH page for the
> * * * * SB-150):
>
> * * * * XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator (64MB)
> * * * * XVR-600 Graphics Accelerator
> * * * * XVR-500 Graphics Accelerator
> * * * * PGX64 8/24-Bit Color Frame Buffer
> * * * * XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator (32MB)
>
> * * * * With the last three described as "supported by can no longer be
> * * * * ordered with the system.
>
> * * * * I suspect that any of these would be faster than the built-in
> * * * * one which is what I suspect that you are using.
>
> 4) * * *What resolution are you set to? *fbconfig lets you selectthe
> * * * * resolution (among other things) and you may get faster operation
> * * * * by selecting a lower resolution.
>
> * * * * Good Luck,
> * * * * * * * * DoN.
>
> --
# prtdiag -v
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Blade 150
(UltraSPARC-IIe 650MHz)
System clock frequency: 93 MHZ
Memory size: 1GB

==================================== CPUs
====================================
E$ CPU CPU
CPU Freq Size Implementation Mask Status
Location
--- -------- ---------- --------------------- ----- ------
--------
0 650 MHz 512KB SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIe 3.3 on-line
+-board/cpu0

================================= IO Devices
=================================



> *Email: * <dnich...@d-and-d.com> * | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
> * * * * (too) near Washington D.C. |http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
> * * * * * *--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 2009-03-18, Moody <> wrote:
> On Mar 17, 4:24*am, "DoN. Nichols" <dnich...@d-and-d.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-03-16, Moody <nasir.mahm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Hello,
>>
>> > I've just installed a sunblade-150 with solaris-10. Problem is with X-
>> > Display being veryslowto scroll even the terminal in windowing
>> > environment with half the screen displaying old contents and rest with
>> > new and after 1-2 seconds it goes normail when I scroll. Can someone
>> > help me how to fasten the fresh rate or get rid of this veryslow
>> > scroll issue in X
>>
>> * * * * I don't have a SB-150, nor any experience with ones displaying
>> that slow behavior, but I have a few questions which might help others
>> lead to a solution.
>>
>> 1) You answered this one -- the memory.
>>
>> 2) * * *What window manager are you using? *Solaris 10 gives the
>> * * * * choice of Gnome or CDE (before going into what is packaged
>> * * * * in the Software Companion CD). *Of the two, Gnome is much more
>> * * * * resource hungry, so you might improve the speed by switching
>> * * * * to CDE -- in spite of their warnings that CDE might go away
>> * * * * soon. *It won't go away from your current install at least.
>>
>> 3) * * *What framebuffer are you using? *I'm not sure whether the
>> * * * * SB-150 has a built-in framebuffer, or whether you are using one
>> * * * * in either a UPA slot or a PCI slot.
>>
>> * * * * O.K. *Looking at my FEH, (which only covers the SB-100, not the
>> * * * * SB-150) it appears that there is a built-in framebuffer, and
>> * * * * only *PCI slots for other framebufers.
>>
>> * * * * The choices appear to be (from an on-line FEH page for the
>> * * * * SB-150):
>>
>> * * * * XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator (64MB)
>> * * * * XVR-600 Graphics Accelerator
>> * * * * XVR-500 Graphics Accelerator
>> * * * * PGX64 8/24-Bit Color Frame Buffer
>> * * * * XVR-100 Graphics Accelerator (32MB)
>>
>> * * * * With the last three described as "supported by can no longer be
>> * * * * ordered with the system.
>>
>> * * * * I suspect that any of these would be faster than the built-in
>> * * * * one which is what I suspect that you are using.
>>
>> 4) * * *What resolution are you set to? *fbconfig lets you select the
>> * * * * resolution (among other things) and you may get faster operation
>> * * * * by selecting a lower resolution.
>>
>> * * * * Good Luck,
>> * * * * * * * * DoN.
>>
>> --
> # prtdiag -v
> System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Blade 150
> (UltraSPARC-IIe 650MHz)
> System clock frequency: 93 MHZ
> Memory size: 1GB
>
>==================================== CPUs
>====================================
> E$ CPU CPU
> CPU Freq Size Implementation Mask Status
> Location
> --- -------- ---------- --------------------- ----- ------
> --------
> 0 650 MHz 512KB SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIe 3.3 on-line
> +-board/cpu0
>
>================================= IO Devices
>=================================

O.K. You've answered the questions of how much memory and the
unasked one of how fast a CPU, but not what window manager (Gnome vs
CDE) and what framebuffer (graphics card). I'm not sure whether
"prtfru" will work on a SB-150 to tell you -- and you have to interpret
which Sun part number is the framebuffer. (Or are you using the built-in
one -- the VGA connector on the system board instead of a VGA or 13W3 on
a PCI card somewhere in the system.

If all else fails -- open the box, pull the framebuffer, and
note the 501-???? or 370-???? barcode number on it. It looks as though
prtfru only identifies the system board, the CPUs, and the DIMMs, and
ignores the PCI cards -- at least without options.

If you need the number of a PCI framebuffer translated to a
model -- post it and whe can probably look it up. (Or it likely will
match one of the five which I posted -- except that I didn't bother
typing the barcode numbers when I had them in front of me. :-)

Note that the barcode number may or may not have the '-' after
the first three digits, and there will be more digits after the next
four. Thost last digits make up the serial number of the card.

If you're running Gnome as your window manager, log out and log
back in selecting CDE instead and you will probably find it to be a much
faster system.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: <> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---