[scribus] Speed and CPU

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:10:32 +1000 (EST)
"Owen" <rcook at pcug.org.au> dijo:

> > And it didn't make any difference in the performance. You said "or
> > higher." I note that when I look at running apps in System Monitor the
> > nice column shows 0 for all apps. I guess I need to learn what "nice"
> > does.
> >
> > It still seems to me that it ought to be faster than it is on this
> > computer. And when I watch System Monitor while waiting for Scribus to
> > do something that is probably pretty CPU intensive (e.g., grouping or
> > ungrouping complex objects), it doesn't take any more of the CPU.
> > Maybe it's being too nice.

I changed the nice from 0 to 1 and it didn't make any difference.

> You can run 'top' and see what is chewing up your resources.
> 
> However, you may prefer to install htop, and it will give you a better
> picture of what is going on

Thanks for the tip. Htop does seem to be an improvement over top,
although it is impossible to read the legends at the top and the bottom
of the display because the letters are black on dark green. Maybe
there's an option to change the color scream. I'll man-page it. Another
option I need to make it sit still. Trying to read it is like watching
a five-year old in church.

> You generally will find some program that is hogging resources and
> slowing down the others

The more I poke around the more I think the problem is that the CPU
speed is being throttled back by something in Linux. I looked in the
GUI for power management and found nothing. I don't understand why my
MHz applet stays at 800 even when Scribus is trying to do something
that must certainly be CPU intensive. I mean, occasionally it does go
to 2.0 GHz briefly, but usually it stays at 800 even when I am
patiently waiting for Scribus to do something.