Why does mint performance improve over time?

[converse]

What does Mint do to improve its performance over the first few days of running? I'm asking because I've found that if I shut my machine down and then restart it, it will initially perform much worse than it was before closing it down. This primarily relate to the graphics performance. Video replay and cursor movements after a restart are very draggy and glitchy initially. After a couple of days running, they are fine. It's not really a problem, but I'd like to understand whats going on. Presumably it is optimising itself in some way but I'd like to understand exactly what it's doing as a learning point.

Machine is a macpro 1.1 2.66 quad core with 32GB of RAM and radeon 5770 card, but my question is a more general one about self optimising generally.

[Pjotr]

Strange.... Please generate an overview of your system like this:
- Launch a terminal window (this is how to launch a terminal window);
- make the terminal window full screen, to avoid chopped lines;
- Copy/paste this command into the terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter)

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.

[zcot]

Presumably it is optimising itself in some way

That's not a real thing, at least as far as interactive optimisation based on some happens of the what you are doing with the computer or something.

A gpu driver in this example will set up the way it sets up, in the beginning at boot. After that, it's not doing AI.

And the same goes for the rest of the system, there's no particular "AI" happening.

The system runs as it is designed and set up to do. I'm just saying there's no particular underlying interactive magic.

I suspect you are experiencing some thing, and it is giving the impression that this thing is coming across like something skynet.

When you reboot the update manager is likely to check for updates, if you have a variety of programs that need connections or to do some activity those are likely all doing their thing. This should only be happening within that first minute or so at boot though.

[converse]

andrewssd@andrewssd-MacPro:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:
Host: andrewssd-MacPro Kernel: 5.3.0-46-generic x86_64 bits: 64
compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.8
Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
Machine:
Type: Unknown System: Apple product: MacPro2,1 v: 1.0 serial: <filter>
Mobo: Apple model: Mac-F4208DC8 v: PVT serial: <filter> BIOS: Apple
v: MP21.88Z.007F.B06.0707021348 date: 07/02/07
Battery:
Device-1: hid-e8:06:88:44:e8:03-battery model: andrewhockley’s keyboard
charge: N/A status: Discharging
CPU:
Topology: 2x Quad Core model: Intel Xeon X5365 bits: 64 type: MCP SMP
arch: Core Merom rev: B L2 cache: 8192 KiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 47881
Speed: 2993 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2993 2: 2979 3: 2980
4: 2992 5: 2992 6: 2987 7: 3060 8: 2997
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X]
vendor: PC Partner Limited driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 08:00.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: amdgpu,ati
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 2560x1440~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon RX 470 Graphics (POLARIS10 DRM 3.33.0
5.3.0-46-generic LLVM 9.0.0)
v: 4.5 Mesa 19.2.8 direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 631xESB/632xESB High Definition Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0
Device-2: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 580] vendor: PC Partner Limited
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 08:00.1
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.3.0-46-generic
Network:
Device-1: Intel 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k
port: 2020 bus ID: 05:00.0
IF: enp5s0f0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Intel 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k
port: 2000 bus ID: 05:00.1
IF: enp5s0f1 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-3: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n
vendor: Apple AirPort Extreme driver: wl v: kernel port: 1000
bus ID: 0f:00.0
IF: wls6 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 18.29 GiB (3.9%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 840 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 232.61 GiB used: 18.29 GiB (7.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0 C mobo: N/A
Use of uninitialized value $val2 in string eq at /usr/bin/inxi line 5759.
Use of uninitialized value $val2 in split at /usr/bin/inxi line 5764.
Use of uninitialized value $val2 in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/bin/inxi line 5766.
Use of uninitialized value $val2 in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/bin/inxi line 5767.
Use of uninitialized value $val2 in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/bin/inxi line 5768.
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 786 gpu: fan: 684
Info:
Processes: 347 Uptime: 1d 24m Memory: 27.42 GiB used: 4.59 GiB (16.7%)
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.5.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20
inxi: 3.0.32
andrewssd@andrewssd-MacPro:~$

Above is output from the command you asked for. I've tried rebooting again, and same behaviour - its really slow for maybe 6 or 7 hours, then speeds up noticeably. I haven't noticed this on other machines we use, so don't think its a network time of day effect.

Thanks for any thoughts, I'm curious more than anything else.

[converse]

I believe this problem was due to an issue with the wifi drivers, though I don't really understand exactly what was going on. I am using a wired connection. But a wifi process starts up whenever the machine is booted. With this wifi process running, the machine crawls. If I kill the process off the machine runs well - its been problen free for at least a fortnight, and I can replicate the problem by rebooting it and leaving the Wifi process running. If you have one of these early macpros and are having these symptoms, it's worth trying this.

[old_noob]

I believe this problem was due to an issue with the wifi drivers, though I don't really understand exactly what was going on. I am using a wired connection. But a wifi process starts up whenever the machine is booted. With this wifi process running, the machine crawls. If I kill the process off the machine runs well - its been problen free for at least a fortnight, and I can replicate the problem by rebooting it and leaving the Wifi process running. If you have one of these early macpros and are having these symptoms, it's worth trying this.

I had a similar issue with one of my work laptops (Windows, unfortunately). My default while in the lab is Ethernet, but it would also access facility wifi, and conflicts ensued. Had to manually disable wifi every time I booted. That machine is gone and the new one behaves.

[converse]

Thanks for this. I'm still plugging away for a permanent fix. I changed to XFCE Mint 20 and it's been better. I've also managed to download and run the Broadcomm wifi card firmware update. The thing that's frustrating is that 10% of the time, the machine is super fast, which stops me scrapping it. Then it will suddenly go gloopy for a bit. Its just the inconsistency that's weird.

[antikythera]

Check if file indexing is taking place when the machine is sluggish.

[zcot]

Oh! I didn't even notice the info.

So, all cpu cores are maxed when you posted this info, so that's something to check, but maybe it's just something related to wifi that is causing that.

CPU:
Topology: 2x Quad Core model: Intel Xeon X5365 bits: 64 type: MCP SMP
arch: Core Merom rev: B L2 cache: 8192 KiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 47881
Speed: 2993 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2993 2: 2979 3: 2980
4: 2992 5: 2992 6: 2987 7: 3060 8: 2997

I would try to get Jeremy to take a look at the wifi driver scenario. He's on the IRC channel typically somewhere between maybe 4-7pm Eastern time most any day. You could also post here trying to see if there's some obvious issue with that wifi device and driver.

[converse]

Sorry, missed your reply.
I changed the network card, and this has made a very big difference. I just went for a PCI-E Intel adapter, which worked first time with no drivers issues. The old card is still plugged in but disabled - when I get some time I'll remove it entirely. Its not very accessible.

[Termy]

I sometimes get those sort of graphical issues you mentioned if I've not set up compton or similar properly, which is a screen space compositor that handles things like vertical synchronisation (vsync), transparency, and effects like fading. Actually, I've noticed some of this issue lately, because I likely haven't properly corrected compton's settings after I switched from a proprietary driver to Nouveau.