Display performance regression in Xubuntu 13.10 and 14.04 as VirtualBox guest

[Ed Schofield]

I have been using Xubuntu 13.04 with good performance.

Recently I have tested Xubuntu 13.10 and Xubuntu 14.04 LTS beta. I see noticeable performance regressions on these with display updates. Merely typing in the terminal has noticeable screen lag.

I have tested Lubuntu 14.04 beta and the display performance is markedly better than that in Xubuntu. The procedure I used to migrate was:

    sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop
    sudo apt-get purge xubuntu*
    sudo apt-get purge xfce*

and a reboot.

This is not a performance bug in xubuntu-terminal. Display responsiveness with LXTerminal and other terminals and text editors is consistently slow under xubuntu-desktop on 14.04 (and 13.10) whereas the display is responsive under lubuntu-desktop. There is also no problem with display performance when typing in the console (Ctrl-Alt-F1) on Xubuntu 14.04.

I am using the x86_64 versions of Xubuntu 13.10 and 14.04 running as a guest under VirtualBox 4.3.10 on a Mac OS X 10.9.2 host. The VirtualBox guest additions are installed correctly. The effect of the 3d acceleration option in VirtualBox makes no difference, nor does the VirtualBox version (tested back to 4.2.22).

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. Can you please turn off XFCE's built-in compositor (Settings Manager > Window Manager Tweaks > Compositor) and test if this change improves the overall performance?

[Ed Schofield (ed-1)]

Thanks very much for your response, Thaddäus! I can confirm that turning off the display compositor drastically improves Xubuntu's display performance so it’s on a par with Lubuntu.

I would like to propose that the documentation for Xubuntu include this simple suggestion in big, bold letters on its own page (so search engines can index it well):

    “If you are using Xubuntu as a virtualized guest under VirtualBox and you see slow display performance, turn off the compositor by going to Settings Manager > Windows Manager Tweaks > Compositor."

I suspected that some simple solution such as this would exist but I didn’t know what to search for, and I wouldn’t have known how to find . Googling “Xubuntu slow display” and “Xubuntu improve display performance” didn’t turn up anything useful.

Thanks again,
    Ed

On 29 Mar 2014, at 9:18 pm, Thaddäus Tintenfisch <email address hidden> wrote:

> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. Can you please turn
> off XFCE's built-in compositor (Settings Manager > Window Manager Tweaks
>> Compositor) and test if this change improves the overall performance?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1299286
>
> Title:
> Display performance regression in Xubuntu 13.10 and 14.04 as
> VirtualBox guest
>
> Status in “xubuntu-meta” package in Ubuntu:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I have been using Xubuntu 13.04 with good performance.
>
> Recently I have tested Xubuntu 13.10 and Xubuntu 14.04 LTS beta. I see
> noticeable performance regressions on these with display updates.
> Merely typing in the terminal has noticeable screen lag.
>
> I have tested Lubuntu 14.04 beta and the display performance is
> markedly better than that in Xubuntu. The procedure I used to migrate
> was:
>
> sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop
> sudo apt-get purge xubuntu*
> sudo apt-get purge xfce*
>
> and a reboot.
>
> This is not a performance bug in xubuntu-terminal. Display
> responsiveness with LXTerminal and other terminals and text editors is
> consistently slow under xubuntu-desktop on 14.04 (and 13.10) whereas
> the display is responsive under lubuntu-desktop. There is also no
> problem with display performance when typing in the console (Ctrl-
> Alt-F1) on Xubuntu 14.04.
>
> I am using the x86_64 versions of Xubuntu 13.10 and 14.04 running as a
> guest under VirtualBox 4.3.10 on a Mac OS X 10.9.2 host. The
> VirtualBox guest additions are installed correctly. The effect of the
> 3d acceleration option in VirtualBox makes no difference, nor does the
> VirtualBox version (tested back to 4.2.22).
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xubuntu-meta/+bug/1299286/+subscriptions

--
Dr. Edward Schofield
Python Charmers
[phone]
http://pythoncharmers.com

[Pasi Lallinaho (knome)]

A realistic target for the documentation fix is 14.04.1.

[Pasi Lallinaho (knome)]

Moving this to xubuntu-website as the website is our preferred way to inform people about potential performance issues. Practically, we should write a general FAQ article about Xubuntu in virtualized environments.

[Pasi Lallinaho (knome)]

Ed, could you confirm if the performance regression is still happening with later Xubuntu versions or if it seems to have gone away?