FINALLY!

user · External Since: Jul 24, 2006 Posts: 20

Opera 9 has been one of the most miserable software
experiences of my life. Nothing topped the slowness
of opening or changing Windows for pure agony.

On my machine, it would take Opera about twenty
seconds to create a new blank window (on a 3.0 GHz
Pentium 4 with 2 GB of RAM and NOTHING else running).
It would take about fifteen seconds after closing a
window (or changing to another window) to regain
control (being able to click, scroll, or type in the
new active window).

Somebody finally decided to fix this in 9.22. Opera
works normally again (like version 8 did). Whoever
solved this problem, I thank you, and if anyone here
could explain what the hell caused it, I would most
certainly appreciate it (just for my own curiosity).

David W. Hodgins · External Since: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 251

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:14:52 -0400, 0 <root.TakeThisOut@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> Somebody finally decided to fix this in 9.22. Opera
> works normally again (like version 8 did). Whoever

The changelog stated that by default, the use of shared X memory
is now disabled. I.E. OPERA_NUM_XSHM is now set to 0, instead
of its previous default of 100 (Max value allowed 4096).

I guess you missed the last two messages shown in
http://groups.google.ca/group/opera.linux/search?group=opera.linux&q=O...A_NUM_X

Turning it back on, actually speeds things up on my system
X Window System Version 7.2.0
Kernel 2.6.17-14mdvcustom

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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Robt. W. Fletcher Jr · External Since: Jun 02, 2004 Posts: 260

"David W. Hodgins" <dwhodgins.RemoveThis@nomail.afraid.org> writes:

> Turning it back on, actually speeds things up on my system
> X Window System Version 7.2.0
> Kernel 2.6.17-14mdvcustom

This really begs the issue, "Why is it turned off by default in 9.22"
I suspect Opera is 'hiding' something.

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David W. Hodgins · External Since: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 251

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:14:35 -0400, Robt. W. Fletcher Jr <me.RemoveThis@wa.us> wrote:

> This really begs the issue, "Why is it turned off by default in 9.22"
> I suspect Opera is 'hiding' something.

As I understand it, it was causing major problems with a few configurations.
as posted earlier, in this newsgroup.

I don't think they've figured out exactly why, or what to change, so
they've opted to keep it turned off by default.

To re-enable it, add
export OPERA_NUM_XSHM=4096
to your bash profile, or to /usr/bin/opera (Use 100, if you want the
old default).

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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user · External Since: Jul 24, 2006 Posts: 20

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:09:42 -0000, David W. Hodgins <dwhodgins.TakeThisOut@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:14:52 -0400, 0 <root.TakeThisOut@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

An aside first, where did this weird time (zone) come
from? I only use UTC on the system, and used Opera to
send this.

> The changelog stated that by default, the use of
> shared X memory is now disabled. I.E. OPERA_NUM_XSHM
> is now set to 0, instead of its previous default of
> 100 (Max value allowed 4096).

I don't know why that would matter so much, but it sure
seems like it did. I will test other values the next
time I start Opera.

> I guess you missed the last two messages shown in
> http://groups.google.ca/group/opera.linux/search?group=opera.linux&q=O...A_NUM_X

Indeed I did miss them.

> Turning it back on, actually speeds things up on my system
> X Window System Version 7.2.0, Kernel 2.6.17-14mdvcustom

It made Opera almost unbearable to use on my system. I came
close (numerous times) to giving it up.

This happened under various versions of X and the kernel -
xorg-x11 from 6.8.2 to 7.2 and gentoo-sources from 2.6.16 to
2.6.21.

David W. Hodgins · External Since: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 251

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:56:29 -0400, 0 <root RemoveThis @mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:56:29 -0000
> X-Trace: news.opera.com 1185231392 29401 124.197.45.87 (23 Jul 2007 22:56:32 GMT)
> NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:56:32 +0000 (UTC)
>
> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:09:42 -0000, David W. Hodgins <dwhodgins@nomail..a=
> fraid.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:14:52 -0400, 0 <root RemoveThis @mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
> An aside first, where did this weird time (zone) come
> from? I only use UTC on the system, and used Opera to
> send this.

That came from my system. I'm in London, Ontario, Canada, which is
currently Eastern Daylight Saving Time, -0400. So it translated
the gmt time to edt time, and added the time zone.

>> I guess you missed the last two messages shown in
>> http://groups.google.ca/group/opera.linux/search?group=3Dopera.linux&q=
> =3DOPERA_NUM_XSHM
>
> Indeed I did miss them.
>
> It made Opera almost unbearable to use on my system. I came
> close (numerous times) to giving it up.
> This happened under various versions of X and the kernel -
> xorg-x11 from 6.8.2 to 7.2 and gentoo-sources from 2.6.16 to
> 2.6.21.

I don't know whether the problem is caused by Xorg, Qt, or some
video drivers. There were only a couple of posts about it causing
problems, while on systems where it does work, it sped things up
noticably.

Until they find a fix/workaround, and/or a way to figure out which
systems it will not work on, I agree with their choice to disable
it by default.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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Jan Ritzerfeld · External Since: Mar 28, 2004 Posts: 35

This message is not archived

David W. Hodgins · External Since: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 251

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:28:55 -0400, Jan Ritzerfeld <dont.use.this DeleteThis @nospam.and.noreply.ritzerfeld.net> wrote:

> Many thanks! I did not know what happened to my opera installation, it was
> much slower than it used to be. Setting OPERA_NUM_XSHM to 100 made it as
> fast as usual. Smile

I've set it to the max value, 4096, and it does make a noticable difference.
Glad it helped.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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