Bug#348176: gnome-terminal: very slow at displaying STDOUT

[Stuart Rowan]

Package: gnome-terminal
Version: 2.12.0-2
Severity: normal

Gnome terminal has many good attributes, like a nice looking font so thank
you for all your packaging efforts. However speed of display is a bit
lacking. Other reports mention CPU usage, I actually found that to not be a
problem.


The following test illustrates the problem rather well I think:
/usr/bin/time zcat /var/log/syslog.[12345].gz 
 (N.B. not time the  bash builtin)
on xterm:
0.04user 0.06system 0:04.08elapsed 2%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+183minor)pagefaults 0swaps

on gnome-terminal:
0.05user 0.10system 0:19.68elapsed 0%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+184minor)pagefaults 0swaps


/usr/bin/time zcat /var/log/syslog.[12345].gz >/dev/null
on xterm:
0.03user 0.00system 0:00.03elapsed 94%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+183minor)pagefaults 0swaps

on gnome-terminal:
0.03user 0.00system 0:00.03elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+183minor)pagefaults 0swaps


So gnome-terminal with STDOUT redirected is as fast as xterm, with STDOUT to
the normal place, gnome-terminal is nearly 5 times slower. Obviously for the
test to be meaningful, one needs syslog.[12345].gz to exist and to have
permission to read them.

I suspect this result explains why tar xvf is so *much* slower than tar xf
as well. I'm sure this is an upstream bug, but hopefully there is an easy
benchmark that can be run now so that gnome-terminal can be improved :-)

Thanks,
Stu.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.14.5
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_GB.UTF-8)

Versions of packages gnome-terminal depends on:
ii  gnome-control-center      1:2.10.2-1     utilities to configure the GNOME d
ii  gnome-terminal-data       2.12.0-2       Data files for the GNOME terminal 
ii  libatk1.0-0               1.10.3-1       The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0              2.10.1-1       Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libc6                     2.3.5-11       GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgconf2-4               2.12.1-8       GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0               1:2.5.1-2      library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.8.5-1        The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0               2.12.0.1-4     The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomeui-0              2.12.0-2       The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.8.10-1       The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  liborbit2                 1:2.12.4-1     libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0             1.10.2-1       Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                  1.7-5          lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libstartup-notification0  0.8-1          library for program launch feedbac
ii  libvte4                   1:0.11.15-4    Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 
ii  libx11-6                  6.9.0.dfsg.1-3 X Window System protocol client li
ii  scrollkeeper              0.3.14-10      A free electronic cataloging syste

Versions of packages gnome-terminal recommends:
ii  yelp                          2.12.2-2   Help browser for GNOME 2

-- no debconf information