Re: [STUMP] profiling StumpWM

[Shawn Betts]

If it is a paging issue then the problem is that parts of sbcl are
being paged in when you hit a key. You can't really plan ahead for a
sudden key press except to say "never page sbcl to disk" which, if
such a way exists, is a really ugly hack. It should be easy enough to
verify: disable swap and see if it gets snappy. Aren't there OS tools
to tell you when a process gets swapped around? Another way to see
where the time is being spent is to write a program that uses the
XTest extension to generate key events. Print the system time at that
point from the test program and from stumpwm as soon as it gets an
event and after it's handled.

-Shawn

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:35 AM, David Bjergaard <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
> If this is really a paging issue (as hinted by Shawn), maybe there's a
> way to force StumpWM to start swapping. I use SBCL and StumpWM is pretty
> snappy.  Maybe there's a controlled way to force an application to use
> swap?
>
> Also, if you come up with a profiling procedure I'm happy to try it as
> well and contribute another data point.
>
> Cheers,
>
>     Dave
>
>
> Eric Abrahamsen <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Evan <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> I run SBCL and don't notice this problem in general. If you'd like some
>>> system stats as a sanity test, or as a way to perhaps rule out some
>>> things, let me know.
>>
>> Please do!
>>
>> As I said in the first message, I don't know enough to figure this out
>> single-handed, but I'm interested in learning. I'd be happy to undertake
>> exploration, do grunt work, and maintain momentum, but I'd need a bit of
>> direction from people who know where to look.
>>
>> Would the profiling results I linked to in my first message contain any
>> useful clues?
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>> Evan
>>> On 03/25/2014 11:08 AM, Shawn Betts wrote:
>>>> Hi Eric,
>>>>
>>>> I've found the same thing with SBCL, which is why I switched to clisp.
>>>> If you can discover the issue, that would be amazing. This was all
>>>> years ago when 256M of ram was "enough". I sort of had a hunch that it
>>>> was paging related.
>>>>
>>>> -Shawn
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 2:30 AM, Eric Abrahamsen
>>>> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>>> I'm constantly getting laggy prefix-key detection (I thought it had
>>>>> gotten better, but it hadn't). I hit "C-t", and then the next keypress
>>>>> or two goes to the active window, not StumpWM. My girlfriend has already
>>>>> learned that when I send her "go" in Pidgin, I'm not actually telling
>>>>> her to go anywhere, I was just trying to switch to the other group.
>>>>>
>>>>> Plenty of other commands, particularly frame- and group-related
>>>>> commands, take a very user-visible chunk of time to execute. Resuming
>>>>> from hibernation, it can take seven or eight seconds before StumpWM
>>>>> starts seeing the prefix key.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm quite sure that the problems aren't Stump-only problems, but
>>>>> something going on with the stump/SBCL on my machine (arch linux, as I
>>>>> mentioned), but I hope that profiling would help uncover those issues as
>>>>> well.
>>>>>
>>>>> E
>>>>>
>>>>> On 03/25/14 16:39 PM, Ivan Kanis wrote:
>>>>>> March, 25 at 11:50 Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I still can't get rid of the idea that Stump is slow, both in reaction
>>>>>>> to input and in its own operations. I know very little about profiling,
>>>>>>> but I thought I'd take a whack at it and see if I could learn anything.
>>>>>>> So far I haven't learned very much.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What kind of slowness? I use it at work and it's snappy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ivan
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> You must no lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few
>>>>>> drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
>>>>>>     -- Gandhi
>>>>>
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