[SOLVED] Terminal lags

andrzej1_1 · 2017-11-30 07:44:43

Hello!
One month ago I installed Arch along with KDE, but I had had screen tearing problem in Google Chrome, so I switched to i3 + compton. That problem dissapeared, but there is a lot of new issues:
1) Not smooth fonts, not smooth cursor icons, missing icons in KDE apps like 'ark', glitters when launching/closing apps
2) Slow terminal performance
And the last is the most annoying: I am unable to use Vim or Ranger, because there is a noticeable lag after pressing keys. I was thinking that something is wrong with my vim/bash configuration, but after switching to tty1 I saw same low performance. Lastly I checked

journalctl -b -p4

and I probably found culprit of my issue:

Nov 30 07:59:59 archPC kernel: nvidia: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
Nov 30 07:59:59 archPC kernel: nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
Nov 30 07:59:59 archPC kernel: Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
Nov 30 08:00:00 archPC kernel: NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  387.34  Tue Nov 21 03:09:00 PST 2017 (using threaded interrupts)
Nov 30 08:00:02 archPC kernel: NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
                               on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
                               requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
                               drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
                               corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.

(Full journal log: https://ptpb.pw/7GGY)

I searched for similar threads, but none of solution helped. What should I do?

Last edited by andrzej1_1 (2017-12-02 09:13:25)

seth · 2017-11-30 09:33:58

No, the problem is that i3 is not KDE.

andrzej1_1 · 2017-11-30 13:48:31

seth wrote:

No, the problem is that i3 is not KDE.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

seth · 2017-11-30 13:59:31

You asked. And no: it's very unlikely the GPU and certainly not related to that error message.
KDE as most desktop environments does a lot of things automatically or providing a GUI for configs that do not impact other environments.
Also it (resp. Qt) largely plugin driven and the QT_QPA_PLATFORM setting as well as the corresponding plugin control things like the UI style and icons.
On top of that there's the kwin compositor and the compoton compositor. Both operate differently, use different settings and may or not have different glitches.

You could have read that and how to configure a system (eg. set the X11 cursor theme) yourself in the wiki.
Or you could have asked "why do my icons not show up", why does compton "glitter" (?) and provided details on your

But you asked "Graphic card issue" and suggested "I probably found culprit of my issue" and the answer to both is plain and simple: "no"
So actually I'm sorry to have made the extra effort in hinting that the different environment is the key here. Scratch that. The answer is just:

Not a graphics card issue and that message is totally unrelated, rtfw

andrzej1_1 · 2017-11-30 14:10:15

seth wrote:

You asked. And no: it's very unlikely the GPU and certainly not related to that error message.
KDE as most desktop environments does a lot of things automatically or providing a GUI for configs that do not impact other environments.
Also it (resp. Qt) largely plugin driven and the QT_QPA_PLATFORM setting as well as the corresponding plugin control things like the UI style and icons.
On top of that there's the kwin compositor and the compoton compositor. Both operate differently, use different settings and may or not have different glitches.
You could have read that and how to configure a system (eg. set the X11 cursor theme) yourself in the wiki.
Or you could have asked "why do my icons not show up", why does compton "glitter" (?) and provided details on your
But you asked "Graphic card issue" and suggested "I probably found culprit of my issue" and the answer to both is plain and simple: "no"
So actually I'm sorry to have made the extra effort in hinting that the different environment is the key here. Scratch that. The answer is just:
Not a graphics card issue and that message is totally unrelated, rtfw

WTF man, I only mentioned that icons and glitter issues, but the main problem is low terminal performance. Are you telling me it's not related to message from journactl?

V1del · 2017-11-30 14:46:12

That message from the journal is completely normal. You should ideally only handle one issue per thread, contemplating multiple ones in a single thread will only lead to a mess of answers. Since you mention the terminal being your main issue, elaborate here. Which terminal, how does it's configuration look like? In what way does "low performance" show itself? Also your suspicion of my vim/bash config (that is a good lead, can you post these?) does make sense, the conclusion of "I switched to TTY1 and the problems persist hence it isn't the vim/bash confi"g doesn't make much sense, since your TTY will also load your bash/vim config.

Last edited by V1del (2017-11-30 14:47:01)

seth · 2017-11-30 14:49:22

So the second item in your grabbag is the main problem - which we are likely supposed to guess...
And the answer is still "no", this error message appears when you're using a framebuffer console (which is mandatory for UEFI) alongside the nvidia blob and entirely unrelated to any terminal emulator you may use in a graphical session.
The predominant questions for the latter would be
1. which?
2. the same?

And obviously any kind of visual lag may be caused by the compositor, so you want to try w/o compton.

Also this

I am unable to use Vim or Ranger, because there is a noticeable lag after pressing keys. I was thinking that something is wrong with my vim/bash configuration, but after switching to tty1 I saw same low performance.

is obvious (sorry) logic nonsense. If the same behavior is exposed by a specific process on a terminal emulator and a linux console the obvious (sorry, again) implication is NOT that there's nothing wrong with your "vim/bash configuration".
If there's no lag in other processes input handling, the error is in ther resp. setup.
If there is a lag in other processes, there notion is a distraction.

And please stop fully quoting, this is pointless and just cluttering.

andrzej1_1 · 2017-11-30 19:33:44

Sorry, no more full quoting. Lets clarify the issue:
When I use terminal utilities like Vim or Ranger, often there is noticeable lag, like working over slow SSH connection.

Which terminal, how does it's configuration look like?

I observed this problem in all my terminals: Termite, Guake and standard tty. I will post config files at the bottom.

In what way does "low performance" show itself?

Like I said, it feels like slow SSH connection, for example:
- I press "o" to enter new line -> I take one second
- I press arrow to enter empty directory -> it appears after two seconds.

I agree my implication about/bash was wrong. Also I think issue is not related to compositor, because it is present after switching to TTY.

~/.bashrc: https://ptpb.pw/uf5B
~/.config/termite/config: https://ptpb.pw/TslA
~/.vimrc: https://ptpb.pw/xMyM
~/.tmux.conf: https://ptpb.pw/CHnR

Last edited by andrzej1_1 (2017-11-30 19:37:33)

seth · 2017-11-30 22:49:39

You should rule out powerline & tmux...

jasonwryan · 2017-11-30 22:54:28

Please edit your thread title and change it to one that a) is descriptive and, b) is relevant.

andrzej1_1 · 2017-12-01 18:47:39

I disabled tmux and powerline and it doesn't help

fsckd · 2017-12-01 19:22:51

This likely may turn out not to be a kernel or hardware issue. Moving to Newbie Corner.

seth · 2017-12-01 20:51:21

Well, virtualenvwrapper and then the broadsword to take your entire bashrc out of the chain. Resp. try the behavior with a fresh user account.

andrzej1_1 · 2017-12-01 21:41:42

I added 'test' user, then entered

sudo test

and issue was still present

Last edited by andrzej1_1 (2017-12-01 21:41:55)

seth · 2017-12-01 21:46:11

The issueis with vim and ranger, but not with eg. mc?

andrzej1_1 · 2017-12-01 21:50:25

I installed mc and it also work slowly.

Edit: I found out, that issue is not present with XTerm: ranger, vim and mc are responding without any lag.

Last edited by andrzej1_1 (2017-12-01 21:52:57)

seth · 2017-12-01 23:09:35

Well, that blames the TE, notably libvte - but somehow doesn't fit "because it is present after switching to TTY" - that did mean a linux console (ie. the DOS-alike fullscreen text terminal), did it?
Except for maybe an unhealthy (xterm specific escape code) setting in a global profile/bashrc?

What about eg. rxvt or st or konsole (since you've a KDE installation anyway)?

loqs · 2017-12-01 23:17:55

To try and remove the confusion about what you mean by tty. After you switched to tty2 and logged in what was the output of `tty`?

andrzej1_1 · 2017-12-01 23:50:31

Yes, by TTY I mean linux console and if memory serves me right, it had performance issue, but currently appears to be working fine.

I have KDE base and now I installed Konsole. Current status:
TTY [OK]
Xterm[OK]
Termite [Slow performance]
Guake [Slow performance]
Konsole [OK]

seth · 2017-12-02 00:11:36

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/comm … 4/yakuake/

Sounds as if VTE and VTE3-NG are affected...
vte-common provides an /etc/profile/vte.sh which will only apply on VTE based terminals ...

boojum · 2017-12-02 06:52:53

VTE-based terminal user here. Can you post output of:

pacman -Qs '^vte*'

and:

pacman -Qs termite

Is it only vim and ranger which are sluggish or other console tools are affected as well?

Last edited by boojum (2017-12-02 07:08:36)

andrzej1_1 · 2017-12-02 07:36:50

Yakuake is not affected.

pacman -Qs '^vte*'

local/vte 0.28.2-8
    Virtual Terminal Emulator widget for use with GTK2
local/vte-common 0.50.2-1
    Common files used by vte and vte3
local/vte3-ng 0.50.2.a-1

pacman -Qs termite

local/termite 12-2
    A simple VTE-based terminal
local/termite-terminfo 12-2
    Terminfo for Termite, a simple VTE-based terminal
    Enhanced Virtual Terminal Emulator widget for use with GTK3

Other console tools are sluggish, for example top - when I press 'R' to toggle, then it is not instant like in XTerm.

boojum · 2017-12-02 07:55:16

Hm, I'm sporting exactly the same version without any issues... Perhaps it is not VTE issue but something with termite? How about output of strace:

strace -rC termite

I won't pretend that I'll understand most of the output but the -C enables summary table at the end of the output, with the times various syscalls took. There might be something there (or not).

Another thing to try is starting termite from within other, not sluggish terminal, and see it there are any error messages.

Last edited by boojum (2017-12-02 08:00:14)

seth · 2017-12-02 08:06:58

Yakuake is basically konsole, just promoted it since you seem to be after a quake-style terminal.

About the VTE relation: does that issue also show in KDE.
@boojum what DE do you use on what which display server (wayland?)

andrzej1_1 · 2017-12-02 08:06:58

Output of 'strace termite' is quite long, despite I took only few seconds to enter vim and see that issue is present: https://ptpb.pw/CaSe

Arch Linux

#1 2017-11-30 07:44:43

[SOLVED] Terminal lags

#2 2017-11-30 09:33:58

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#3 2017-11-30 13:48:31

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#4 2017-11-30 13:59:31

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#5 2017-11-30 14:10:15

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#6 2017-11-30 14:46:12

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#7 2017-11-30 14:49:22

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#8 2017-11-30 19:33:44

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#9 2017-11-30 22:49:39

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#10 2017-11-30 22:54:28

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#11 2017-12-01 18:47:39

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#12 2017-12-01 19:22:51

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#13 2017-12-01 20:51:21

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#14 2017-12-01 21:41:42

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#15 2017-12-01 21:46:11

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#16 2017-12-01 21:50:25

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#17 2017-12-01 23:09:35

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#18 2017-12-01 23:17:55

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#19 2017-12-01 23:50:31

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#20 2017-12-02 00:11:36

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#21 2017-12-02 06:52:53

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#22 2017-12-02 07:36:50

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#23 2017-12-02 07:55:16

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#24 2017-12-02 08:06:58

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

#25 2017-12-02 08:06:58

Re: [SOLVED] Terminal lags

Board footer