Weak processor + minimal DE = no miracle!

aluma · 2023-11-23 17:18:44

An illustration of my skepticism towards "minimal" DE.

We have a computer with an AMD E-300 processor (2*1.3GHz) and 4Gb of memory, Daedalus 5.0 with TDE.
This is CPU load when idle and opening applications in the form of peaks.

And this is real Internet surfing with the Brave browser in which up to ten tabs were opened.

In my opinion, even under pure X the situation will not get better.

I have been using this computer for three years and the problem of processor shortage is gradually growing.
Therefore, I am actively looking for a replacement.

Although colleagues may have a different opinion, it would be interesting to know their recipes.

P.S.I didn’t post a picture of the memory load, there’s nothing interesting there, it’s busy at the level of 50...60%

Last edited by aluma (2023-11-23 17:21:09)

mrnhmath · 2023-11-23 17:29:29

You're really pushing it by using a Chromium derivative with Brave-added garbage on top. Might have better luck with Pale Moon.

aluma · 2023-11-23 17:40:23

I have to, there is no sound in FF without pulseaudio, I asked for a recipe here on the forum, it doesn’t help.
And “garbage” in Brave is disabled in the settings, I also talked about this.

Here is another reason to use a Chrome based browser.
Because of its best video codec (Google's monopoly on YouTube), on my dead computer the video is played at a resolution a step higher than in FF, 720p without problems over the network.

But who prevents anyone from doing such a test with any browser?

P.S.About browsers.
In Chimaera 4.0 I used Iridium, pulled from PClinuxOS and converted into a deb package.
I tried it in Daedalus 5.0, the conversion ends with an error, although if you manually put the files extracted from the rpm package into the required folders, everything works.

Last edited by aluma (2023-11-23 17:50:56)

mrnhmath · 2023-11-23 18:10:27

Pale Moon doesn't require PulseAudio and permits disabling WebM directly in the settings. It's also inherently lightweight compared to Blink/Gecko/WebKit clones, that's why I suggested it, though YouTube will be just as a struggle as in a modern machine.

aluma · 2023-11-23 18:18:52

@мрнмат
I was quite happy with FF, I've been using it for a long time. And if it weren’t for the sound and video, I would have continued.

Continued about loads
This is the loading of a 2008 model processor with the same TDE (E8400, 2*3GHz) when idle.

And who cares about the “human” interface?

Last edited by aluma (2023-11-23 18:19:15)

Camtaf · 2023-11-23 18:25:09

Weak processor + minimal DE

Wyse Dx0Q 1.5GHz Quad Core AMD GX-415GA Radeon HD8330E graphics

Slow, but I still use XFCE & FF on it....

Last edited by Camtaf (2023-11-23 18:25:41)

aluma · 2023-11-23 18:27:00

Hobby is an irrational concept!

stopAI · 2023-11-24 12:26:25

if you really like browsers based on chromium, why not use qtebrowser?

aluma · 2023-11-24 14:34:36

Is this a misunderstanding?

The-Amnesiac-Philosopher · 2023-11-24 19:22:40

Uncle aluma,

I don't mean to overstep my bounds if what I say is for nought, but have you tried apulse to get sound working in Firefox?

aluma · 2023-11-25 08:52:41

@The-Amnesiac-Philosophe

I tried it.
Here I told you what I did and what I received
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=6118

Regards.

Last edited by aluma (2023-11-25 10:59:23)

aluma · 2023-11-26 06:51:39

This is the result of using FF under the same conditions.

P.S. Without any irony.
I can only wish my colleagues who offer some kind of “light” browser to test it.
Open a website page with a bunch of Java scripts in your browser and see the processor load

Last edited by aluma (2023-11-26 07:06:08)

Tatwi · 2023-12-09 14:11:11

I've found that the ASCII was the last version that ran well on my Celeron N3450 based laptop. I have Daedalus installed on it, but even disabling the mitigation protection, the standard suit of software for Xfce is pokey. I mean, it works, but it's slow for anything modern, especially Electron based apps.

That said, I'm old and I was thinking of this little machine in relation to the 8 bit computers of yore. In a way, running this Lenovo Ideapad 100e as a terminal-only computer, using Devuan 5, it's a Unix-like super computer compared to a 1980s machine. And this sturdy, small black chassis with its so-so quality 11" screen makes it feel a bit like a ZX Spectrum laptop. Very "retro"!

30 years on from the common use of windowing desktops, we tend to look at the terminal more as a command prompt to complete certain task rather than the complete computing environment that it is. Back on my Commodore 64 I could program in BASIC and that was about it for an average person. But with this terminal-only quad core system, which last 8+ hours on battery power, I can program in literally every language available to *nix based systems and it's fast! So that's something.

I bet that AMD E-300 would be pretty zippy in a terminal-only setup, where it was used as though it was the descendant of an early 80s Unix machine. Obviously that's not how we generally go about computing these days, but it's still a valid use case with an endless supply of genuine utility.

And all that said, I totally get ya man, it would be great if there were still a lightweight distro that could do all the modern things. Damn Small Linux and Salix were great for that when I played with them back in the mid 00s. Today it seems that everything is bloated, especially web pages.

Truly, it would be great to start a whole new "Internet", where the browser only supported Markdown text files and PNG image files. That's it, all the information, none of the kruft'n fluff!

Grumpy old man out!

Last edited by Tatwi (2023-12-09 14:15:05)

fsmithred · 2023-12-09 15:25:38

A friend was having an overheating problem with her computer. CPU activity was always high. She typically had more than a dozen tabs open in firefox.

I added NoScript and showed her how to use it. CPU activity and temperatures dropped immediately.

aluma · 2023-12-09 16:36:08

@Tatwi

..I bet that AMD E-300 would be pretty zippy in a terminal-only setup, where it was used as though it was the descendant of an early 80s Unix machine...

I took it 3-4 years ago as a replacement for a tablet (two in a row died after two years of use due to memory failure) and it was quite suitable for Internet surfing and other things. 1080p video offline and 720p online. SSD 128 Gb was enough for two OS. The brakes have become noticeable over the past six months, especially on online trading sites.

@fsmithred

A friend was having an overheating problem...

The first thing I did when I received this netbook was cleaned the cooling system and changed the thermal paste on the processor heatsink. There are no problems with overheating. regardless of the load.

Regards/

fsmithred · 2023-12-09 18:40:23

OK, that's nice that you don't have an overheating problem, but the point I was trying to make is that if you want to reduce cpu load, you can stop letting a bunch of strangers use your cpu. Javascript is executable code that gets run on your computer and is provided by people you don't know.

aluma · 2023-12-09 19:14:27

You can probably block Javascript on pages, but then the necessary functions will not work.
But, of course, everyone has their own preferences, desires and capabilities.
In general, this is a toy and they need to be changed sometimes, which is what I did.

Regards.

Last edited by aluma (2023-12-09 19:14:52)

Danielsan · 2023-12-10 07:15:48

I have a laptop with a slightly better APU (2011), and it performs worst than an experimental project I am doing with a cheap ARM SBC based on a RK3328 Rockchip SOC (2016).

Those APUs were just crappy.

On that board I am using LibreWolf, however to reduce dramatically the CPU consuming I use the following extensions:

Last edited by Danielsan (2023-12-10 07:25:04)

siva · 2023-12-10 22:40:36

aluma wrote:

You can probably block Javascript on pages, but then the necessary functions will not work.

Valid and unfortunate point. Dasein wrote a great post on this somewhere in FDN awhile back.

As a "mitigation," you could use an addon that disables JS by default, then "allow" scripts only for sites where you need it. For daily browsing on known-safe-enough websites, you could also take the opposite approach and disable scripts on sites where it becomes intrusive. uBlock Origin is useful for either case. uMatrix is a better option for aggressive filtering but you'll have to put some work into maintaining the rules over time.

Chrome may try to push out content blockers in future releases. Be careful if you find yourself too reliant on a Chrome-based browser, even Brave. I've also had ads leak through Brave, so make sure you're checking up on their filtering once in awhile. https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/c … ck_origin/

Gecko-based browsers are great but may not be compatible with every web app you use. Firefox is good enough for general-purpose browsing imo. Surf2 is also fun and I need to revisit that one.

Be careful about smaller projects as they often (unfortunately) lack the manpower to maintain a robust behind-the-scenes security team. "Big Tech" tends to tackle security but the tradeoff is usually privacy. https://www.zdnet.com/article/pale-moon … -versions/

aluma · 2023-12-11 09:08:48

Oh, choosing a browser is a fascinating process that occupies the minds of most users, judging by the number of publications.
I'm not a gourmet in this matter; for me there is not much difference between FF and Chromium.
As long as the processor does not hit the ceiling of its performance, everything works.

And a respected colleague @fsmithred correctly pointed out overheating.

The loading graphs presented above are very similar to the stress test graphs. The average desktop works in stress mode for several tens of minutes. Then it turns off due to overheating. In real life, a computer can lower its clock speed, further reducing performance

P.S. As an illustration, today's photo is Lenovo Y500.

Last edited by aluma (2023-12-11 10:08:18)

siva · 2023-12-11 15:31:52

aluma wrote:

choosing a browser

To clarify, my discussion was intended to build on the divide between your point about JS and application usability, versus other observations about how running arbitrary JS (tab count notwithstanding) can contribute to overhead or overheating.

Anyway, there's always curl.

zapper · 2023-12-12 01:01:59

Lumina Desktop + Acer Aspire with 1GB of ram. 1.66ghz processor.

I haven't done this persay, but I have run mate, lxde and xfce4, so I bet it would work with Lumina too.

It also requires the least bloat to use of the four...

I have run the other three desktop environments on that computer before just to clarify.

Although, this was around the days of debian 7... but I was using a linux distro with upstart and other ubuntu garbage, so... yeah.

Last edited by zapper (2023-12-12 01:03:23)

pcalvert · 2023-12-12 17:02:45

If you haven't done so already, try the Falkon web browser. For comparison sake (if you're so inclined).

# apt install falkon

aluma · 2023-12-12 18:36:46

I personally don't want to.
This is the KDE5 project, it is “heavier” than the Trinity I use. If I just install it, it will pull a bunch of Qt5 libraries with it

golinux · 2023-12-12 19:07:22

aluma wrote:

This is the KDE5 project, it is “heavier” than the Trinity I use. If I just install it, it will pull a bunch of Qt5 libraries with it

Falkon piqued my interest but as soon as I found out it was KDE that was it. I actually installed KDE once in its early days. It didn't last long for the reasons mentioned above and that everything was so 'twitchy' and I would be spending too much time turning off all that ADD-inducing garbage . . .

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#1 2023-11-23 17:18:44

Weak processor + minimal DE = no miracle!

#2 2023-11-23 17:29:29

Re: Weak processor + minimal DE = no miracle!

#3 2023-11-23 17:40:23

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