Arch Linux

banksy

Member

Registered: 2011-03-15

Posts: 5

Firefox performance issues

So far I really like Arch... but any help with this problem would be great.

I have moved from Gentoo to Arch and so far really like it. I am using LVM on LUKS encrypted partition, with KDE base for a desktop manager.  This all works perfectly and I am using yaourt to install from teh AUR repos.

The only problem I have, and it is one that would possibly force me back onto another distro is; Firefox performance and website looks.

As a lot of work I do is through a web browser I need this to be working real well. These problems do not occur on a netbook I also have with Ubuntu 10.04 and Firefox installed.

The problems;

1) speed of browsing - This is very slow going to new pages and refreshing

2) some web pages do not display correctly, sections seem to be moved further down the page as though the frames don't all fit in properly.

This is what I have installed that is related to these problems;

firefox-branded (AUR)
openjdk6
icedtea-web
flashplugin
ttf-bitstream-vera
ttf-dejavu
xf86-video-intel
lib32-intel-dri

I have tried;
a) unticking 'allow pages to choose their own fonts' in Firefox preferences

b) changing layout.css.dpi from -1 to 0 in about:config

c) removing firefox-branded and using firefox-branded-bin

My environment;

2.6.37-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Mar 8 08:34:35 CET 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU P6100 @ 2.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

lspci |grep -i vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 18)

4 GB RAM

Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks

Last edited by banksy (2011-03-16 10:24:50)

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: Firefox performance issues

regarding your fonts(a.k.a website looks), firefox-branded is using our xulrunner which is not built with system cairo support.

your "speed" problems might come from that poor intel card that you have there

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Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: Firefox performance issues

I noticed that the speed increase of firefox-beta-bin from 4.0bxx to 4.0rc1 is very big.

The PGO packages could help further.

JokerBoy

Member

From: România

Registered: 2009-09-24

Posts: 641

Re: Firefox performance issues

give firefox-system-cairo a try. also, you could place your cachedir in shm.

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banksy

Member

Registered: 2011-03-15

Posts: 5

Re: Firefox performance issues

Thanks for reply,

Yes I realise its not the best video hardware! but only want to view 2D websites.  When Windows 7 was on this machine (before I installed Arch) Firefox did have a reasonable speed.

Are you saying I should not use firefox-branded and use a packages that using cario as a dependancy instead?

Is it just fonts that would push web page frames down/around the page?

chris-kun

Member

From: SF Bay Area

Registered: 2010-09-07

Posts: 235

Website

Re: Firefox performance issues

chrome ftw

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toad

Member

From: if only I knew

Registered: 2008-12-22

Posts: 1,775

Website

Re: Firefox performance issues

I use the normal firefox package on my T41 (similar specs to yours) and it runs perfectly. Perhaps you should give that a go...

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KlavKalashj

Member

Registered: 2008-10-09

Posts: 376

Re: Firefox performance issues

I can recommend firefox-pgo-beta from AUR. It's really fast, and it looks very good. I think it uses system cairo. I actually set firefox to use the Ubuntu font by default everywhere, and it works very good.

You could also try moving Firefox's cache to a ramdisk. That is supposed to increase speeds even more. Instructions are found in the wiki.

Also, since you are using KDE, you might wanna check out the 'Oxygen KDE' extension for firefox. It makes Firefox a bit slower, but on the other hand it blends in really well in KDE. This is found in kde-look.org. Here is my screenshot included as an example: http://i.imgur.com/UPkQi.png

rwd

Member

Registered: 2009-02-08

Posts: 664

Re: Firefox performance issues

Have  you tried using the firefox profile that you have on your Ubuntu laptop? Maybe Ubuntu packages have different  default profile settings.

jdarnold

Member

From: Medford MA USA

Registered: 2009-12-15

Posts: 485

Website

Re: Firefox performance issues

Have you turned off IPv6?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/IP … the_Module

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: Firefox performance issues

Welcome to the boards banksy. In order to make it easier for people to scan the threads and identify ones where they may be able to help, please change your thread title to something descriptive that better captures your issue:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ow_to_Post

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banksy

Member

Registered: 2011-03-15

Posts: 5

Re: Firefox performance issues

Thanks for all the replys. 

I will give firefox-pgo or  firefox-pgo-beta a try first to see if that improves things, if not I will try putting the cache to ramdisk.

I did not have IPv6 disabled so I will do this as well.

I will post back after I have tested and let you know how I got on.

stqn

Member

Registered: 2010-03-19

Posts: 1,191

Website

Re: Firefox performance issues

Maybe installing ttf-ms-fonts would help? I'm not using them myself but I think it could help with some web pages formating...

banksy

Member

Registered: 2011-03-15

Posts: 5

Re: Firefox performance issues

I have now installed firefox-pgo and disabled IPv6.

I have used this for the last few days and there is a definite improvement in speed.

Thanks all for your quick replys to my post!