Unity Dash is very slow with the OSS ATI driver

[LostinSpacetime]

With Ubuntu 11.04 the performance is good, but with 11.10 opening the dash and then using it is very slow and laggy. It doesn't matter if I'm using blur ore not.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: xorg 1:7.6+7ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-10.16-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-10-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,snap,mousepoll,place,regex,vpswitch,compiztoolbox,move,animation,expo,gnomecompat,imgpng,session,workarounds,grid,resize,wall,ezoom,staticswitcher,fade,scale,unityshell,scaleaddon]
CompositorRunning: compiz
Date: Thu Sep 8 13:53:25 2011
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2011-08-26 14:51:30.361243
DistroCodename: oneiric
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 3.0.0-10-generic, i686: installed
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 3.0.0-7-generic, i686: installed
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 3.0.0-8-generic, i686: installed
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 3.0.0-9-generic, i686: installed
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes, whatever it takes to get this fixed in Ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 ATI Technologies Inc RS780M/RS780MN [Radeon HD 3200 Graphics] [1002:9612] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:30e3]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Alpha i386 (20110803.1)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6735b
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_AT.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.0.0-10-generic root=UUID=94f561ee-38d6-4ec2-9cae-bbd4cde7919e ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-08-26 (12 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 12/08/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68GTT Ver. F.13
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: 30E3
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 96.24
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CNU91556Y3
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68GTTVer.F.13:bd12/08/2009:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaq6735b:pvrF.13:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30E3:rvrKBCVersion96.24:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq 6735b
dmi.product.version: F.13
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.5.92+bzr2791-0ubuntu3
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.26-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+7ubuntu6
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.6.0-1ubuntu13
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.99~git20110811.g93fc084-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.15.901-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110411+8378443-1

[Brendan Donegan (brendan-donegan)]

I have a very similar Radeon card to yourself (ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series) and don't notice any performance problems. Not to say you aren't having any of course - but is your system entirely up to date? I had some performance issues at one point but they cleared up quickly.

[LostinSpacetime (lostinspacetime)]

yes.. just updated before I sent the bug-report, but I will boot the beta1 from stick to check if something went wrong with the updates.

[LostinSpacetime (lostinspacetime)]

ok.. performance was ok when booting from usb so I've reinstalled Ubuntu and everything is fine :)

For the record: I had installed Ubuntu 11.10 alpha3 and the performance was bad and remained bad with all updates until I freshly installed beta1.

[LostinSpacetime (lostinspacetime)]

Well.. actually after I reinstalled, the performance got a bit better but it was still very sluggish. I've installed the proprietary driver (which wasn't possible before because of another bug) and the performance is muuuuuch better.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[LostinSpacetime (lostinspacetime)]

After the last compiz/unitiy updates the performance got much better. I would say it's how it should be, with one big exception. Dragging icons from the dash to the launcher is an almost impossible task since the drawing has a lag of a couple of seconds. Again, this is only with the OSS drivers.

[Chris D (cdekter)]

I had this same problem (HD5770 using OSS drivers). I found that if I disable the Workarounds plugin in CCSM, the lag completely disappeared. I highly recommend this as a possible workaround. Obviously you'd need to check that you don't have any applications that are 'debugged' by the Workarounds plugin. However, in 3 days of use I have yet to find any.

[trespasserw (trespasserw)]

Same thing (Radeon HD 5670). Enabling "Don't wait for video sync" option in CCSM / Workarounds helped a lot.

[trespasserw (trespasserw)]

Update: video sync option only seemed to help - Dash was more or less fluent immediately after login but quickly degraded after opening a Java program (namely IntelliJ IDEA).
But disabling CCSM Workarounds plugin really helps.

[trespasserw (trespasserw)]

Update: nope, nothing helps - neither disabling Workarounds plugin, nor switching off Dash Blur :/
fglrx seems to be the only option. So, the bug probably is not in Unity but in the driver?

[Mathieu Comandon (strycore)]

Still present in Saucy beta.

If there was at least an option to remove the fade in/fade out of the dash this bug would be much less aggravating.

[Rodrigo Lledó (rodhos-hp)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. We have tried to recreate this on the latest release of Ubuntu, but cannot reproduce it. This bug is being marked as Invalid. If you believe the problem to still exist in the latest version of Ubuntu, please comment on why that is the case and change the bug status to NEW.