[Gllug] Transparent Terminal

[Nix]

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004, Ashley Evans uttered the following:
> There's no need to use a disparaging tone to dismiss something that you don't 
> use.  It's so clearly obvious that the likes of Konsole have a larger code 
> overhead that in many tests they will be slower.  But is anybody really 
> saying that you should stop using xterm or similar just because there's a 
> "better" terminal around? Just use whatever you like! (with some possible 
> exception. closed source, for example)

The sloth only shows up if you're running something that's spraying so
much over the screen that you can't *read* it anyway. It seems to me
that konsole could reduce this sloth by simply skipping displaying some
stuff: IIRC, from old profile runs, that most of the overhead is in Xft,
so skipping rendering several whole screens (but putting them in the
scrollback and so on as usual) if ridiculous amounts of stuff are
shooting by will both be undetectable to the unaided eye and make
konsole appear faster and reduce its CPU hit.

> Konsole and the like are not /perceivably/ slower than the more lightweight 
> terms IF YOU ALREADY HAVE THE REQUIRED LIBS LOADED.  This is surely the crux 
> of the matter.  If you have the libs loaded, why not use a term that take 
> advantage.

Yes. KDE stuff is a complete sod if you're not already running KDE, because
it *does* take a good few seconds to fire up all the infrastructure. Still,
at least it does it automatically.

(Now for my next wish: a way to shut up some of its less relevant babblings!
My X stderr log grows by >30Mb a day, and I don't even use KDE that heavily.
99% of this is KDE, mostly dnotify and ksycoca babbling about configuration
changes, kio_http logging pretty much the entire contents of every page
it ever reads, and a bunch of panel applets screaming their heads off
continuously for no obvious reason.

Oh, and a huge great screaming warning when the CD panel applet starts,
whatever it's called: on my box, the silly thing polls the CD drive
every second to see if it's mounted. Alas, that leads to a kernel log
every second...

Dec  6 15:54:17 hades info: kernel: sr1: CDROM not ready.  Make sure there is a disc in the drive.

... which fairly rapidly floods the logs with megabytes of crap.

> I'm very surprised that somebody who clearly has as much IT experience as 
> yourself can have what seems to be a very narrow view on bulkier desktop 
> software.

You should hear his opinion of OpenOffice. ;)

> Cycle for cycle, I'm sure konsole is slower, it *must* be, for plainly
> obvious reasons.  In many cases, I don't care.

Exactly: CPU time is terribly cheap. So cheap that I'm spending much of
it on rolling compilations and the rest on helping break the Met
Office's HADSM3 simplified one-oceanic-slab weather model. :)

> I'm happy that you're happy with your choice of operating environment but 
> please don't bitch about mine.

Isn't opinionation what this list is all about? :)

-- 
`The sword we forged has turned upon us
 Only now, at the end of all things do we see
 The lamp-bearer dies; only the lamp burns on.'
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