http://blog.iqbalir.com

Do you running compositing window manager like this?

Yes, it’s very good compositing window manager, called Compiz-Fusion. If you are using this compositing window manager, you must have sufficient enough hardware resources. For example VGA type and RAM sufficient enough on your system to make it works perfectly.

I’m using HP Compaq Presario V3660TU, a Core 2 duo processor with 4GB of RAM and Intel 965 VGA Card. I’m using the maximum RAM that can be used on this machine. Even the RAM is already on maximum, but it’s still slow when running Compiz with enabling the best plugins on compiz. Then it’s come to the slowest machine ever. Do you see this picture…??

You can see in that picture, CPU temperature already at 64 degree, RAM already used 93 percent, and swap memory already used 96 percent. To make it details, this the output when checking memory usage:

iqbalir@unknown-localhost:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4046228 3973492 72736 0 15576 141220
-/+ buffers/cache: 3816696 229532
Swap: 2015544 1959116 56428

What application is actually using a lot of resources? You can see on that picture, It’s 3 of them, Xorg, Firefox and Flock. You can’t imagine how slow this machine was when three of them is used together and both browser was opening many pages.

So, to avoid this, here’s what I do:
1. Tune my Firefox & Flock to use minimal plugins, you can use Firefox profile changer plugins to switch between profile. You can create many profile and use it only when you need it.
2. Make 2 types of compiz profile. One is the maximum plugins and using the best plugins to show off to your friends and another one is your light version of compiz that is not require much resources. You can saved each profile and load it anytime when you need it.
3. Use Compiz Fusion icon to switch easily to metacity (vice-versa) when you don’t need compiz for a while.

I think that’s all, I hope it’s usefull.