[linux-audio-user] Re: favorite window Manager for making music?

Jan Depner eviltwin69 at cableone.net
Mon Feb 20 17:10:58 EST 2006


On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 15:46 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 14:04 -0600, Jan Depner wrote:
> > This is all well and good but you're only talking about CPU.  Disk
> > I/O is another story entirely.  If your WM starts doing some I/O that
> > you weren't aware of you may get an xrun because you couldn't access
> > the
> > disk in time.  This is the reason that I kill syslogd before I record.
> > Granted, generally speaking you'll do OK due to the priority of your
> > process but disk I/O takes a certain amount of time and you can't
> > interrupt it once it's gone to the disk.
> > 
> 
> WM should do *very* little disk IO, and if disk access causes xruns, it
> means your recording app is VERY broken.  If disk access delays the RT
> thread it should be using bigger buffers or something.
> 

    Some window managers cause quite a lot of I/O.  KDE and Gnome being
the biggest offenders.  Generally any change in the window manager is
saved to disk somewhere.  This isn't the case with Fluxbox, fvwm,
Blackbox, etc.

> If your WM is so bloated that it causes disk IO then the best advice is
> to get a better WM.
> 

    This was the point of the entire thread.  I was pointing out that
CPU is not the only bottleneck and that is why I use a light WM instead
of KDE when recording.


-- 
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html


"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be 
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and 
this we should do freely and generously."

Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of 
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744




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