Tiny Core Linux

General TC => General TC Talk => Topic started by: mcouper on August 06, 2013, 06:17:16 AM

Title: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: mcouper on August 06, 2013, 06:17:16 AM
Recently I got the Tiny Core Linux forum community to help me configure a dual screen setup so I could use rdesktop on my Wyse 9450xe thin client to connect on the LAN to the work Windows 2008R2 server.

The only problem I now have is that some applications via rdesktop (especially scrolling in Excel) cause CPU usage to get past 70% (per htop) and things go sluggish.

My video card is a radeon 7000VE series and I have installed the ati video extension.

I am (still) very much a noob at linux, so if you need any logs etc you may have to explain in detail (or steps) how I go about getting this information.

Any idea how I can tackle this high CPU usage problem?
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: curaga on August 06, 2013, 06:46:33 AM
It's a very weak cpu. It's possible scrolling is a bad case for remote desktop, and that cpu just cannot handle it - if you test on a more powerful machine with the same setup, does the cpu spike there too when scrolling?
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: mcouper on August 07, 2013, 02:32:14 AM
Hi curaga

My comparison would be against our previous hardware, being Wyse S10 thin clients with an even lower spec CPU that Remote Desktop had no problems with.

Any other suggestions?

Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: curaga on August 07, 2013, 07:15:36 AM
Was that with the same software?
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: Rich on August 07, 2013, 10:14:13 AM
Hi mcouper
It's possible scrolling is a bad case for remote desktop, ...
Scrolling is a bad case for a remote desktop connection. It is video intensive due to all the repainting going on. It can
also be network intensive when scrolling through a large file by grabbing and dragging the scrollbar. Less so when
using the mouses scroll wheel.
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: mcouper on August 07, 2013, 06:42:37 PM
Hi curaga and Rich,

The Wyse S10 (SX0) uses its own proprietary software to RDP (looks like some form of Linux).

It has 128Mb RAM and a AMD Geode GX 366MHz processor.


The Wyse 9450xe has 256Mb RAM (I actually have 2x256MB RAM in mine) and uses a VIA 550MHz processor. I am running Tiny Core 3.0.21 and using the latest xorg and rdesktop extensions. My video card is PCI Radeon 7000 VE and I have installed xf86-video-ati and firmware-radeon extensions.


My scrolling issues in Excel are even for small files and I mainly use the mouse scroll wheel.

I have googled the issue and wonder if there is some sort of rendering or acceleration issue? (not sure as most of this video stuff is well over my head)
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: mcouper on August 09, 2013, 11:34:53 PM
Just getting back to some basics for comparison;

With a fresh TC install, no Xorg or ati video drivers, but rdesktop loaded: function of redesktop is pretty fast and scrolling in Excel not bad (still a little bit of latency for large mouse scrolls, but short scrolls instantaneous).

Of course this is with having the two monitors showing the same mirrored screen.

So at this stage I would have to presume the difference between the basic setup and my Xorg Radeon 7000/VE dual screen setup must be something to do with either the video driver or something in Xorg?

Is there anything else like Xfree86 that I could try instead?
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: curaga on August 10, 2013, 06:55:23 AM
Well, there are some tunables in xorg.conf you can try, like Option "NoAccel" "on".
Title: Re: High xorg CPU usage
Post by: mcouper on August 13, 2013, 07:56:36 PM
I have tried Option "NoAccel" "true"  and Option "NoAccel" "on" in my xorg.conf file but both cause the monitors to go black with no output (turn off).