Xfce spin Beta RC3 validation pass

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2010-09-27 at 09:32 +0100, Ron Leach wrote:
> Philip Rhoades wrote:
> > Guys,
> > 
> > 
> > On 2010-09-22 17:58, Adam Williamson wrote:
> >> On Wed, 2010-09-22 at 14:29 +1000, Philip Rhoades wrote:
> >>> People,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I find it boots OK with qemu and from a USB stick and, in fact, seems to
> >>> install OK to a HD but when running the resulting install, I find it is
> >>> deadly slow and unusable (I am using F13 on the same machine - a Gateway
> >>> LT30 netbook - with no problems).
> >> Like OtherAdam, I can't reproduce; I did all that validation testing
> >> from an installed copy of the live image (I installed it to a USB stick,
> >> in fact, on a Dell Inspiron 6400, so it's not exactly a fast
> >> environment, but it ran fine).
> >>
> 
> > 
> > Using top I found it is Xorg - taking up nearly 100% of CPU time . .
> > 
> 
> Phil, I realise you've already entered a bug for this, but I noticed 
> that your machine
> 
> http://support.gateway.com/s/notebook/2009/gateway/lt/lt30/LT30sp2.shtml
> 
> uses the Intel GMA500 chipset, with a quite modern screen geometry of 
> 1366 x 768.  So?
> 
> A recent post on the laptop list from another user with a GMA500
> 
> http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/laptop/2010-September/000926.html
> 
> is reporting 'slow performance' with F13 as well, suspected due to the 
> drivers.
> 
> I wonder whether F14 is running ok on other GMA500 machines, or 
> whether the chipset is causing problems?

Nice catch, Ron. This applies to Phillip and also the people from that
thread:

GMA 500 has no native driver in Fedora, for long and boring reasons. A
reasonably well working driver is available in the RPM Fusion
repository; note that the 3D and video playback acceleration functions
in this driver are enabled by a non-free X library which is installed by
default (if software freedom is an issue for you, you may choose to
forcibly remove the xpsb-glx package; this will mean you now have a
fully F/OSS driver, but you will lose 3D and video playback
acceleration). There is no legal issue with using this driver in any
jurisdiction of which I'm aware.

Instructions for installing the driver can be found at
http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/08/10/intel-gma500-poulsbo-on-fedora-11-repository-with-working-3d-compiz-support/ - though that post's name references F11, the repository should provide working packages for F12 and F13 too (and soon for F14). I run F13 on my own Poulsbo-based system.

This driver should provide reasonable performance, definitely better
than the default, which is to use the utterly unoptimised 'vesa' driver.

(Ron, if you could update the thread you referenced I'd appreciate it.
Especially, the stuff in my fedorapeople.org space simply doesn't work,
I should remove it. I maintain the RPM Fusion packages and they include
all the latest work, the stuff on fedorapeople.org is old, it's where I
kept my packages before they got into Fusion).
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net