[desktop-discuss] CDE removal ?

[Brian Nitz]

Thanks Darren, excellent idea.  I've added it to the list I'll post on a 
twiki as soon as I can find an appropriate home.

Darren Kenny wrote:
> With regards to Flash - even on a single user system it can cause very heavy
> loads - most web-sites use it for advertising, etc and it can really get out of
> hand.
>
> This is why I always use the flash block add-on - it blocks flash, but provides
> the user with a "button" which they can click if they *really* want to see the
> flash (e.g. if it's core to the site), some screenshots can be seen here:
>
> 	http://flashblock.mozdev.org/screenshots.html
>
> I certainly think that this would be a *very* welcome addition in a Sun Ray context.
>
> If needed you can also set up a "White List" of sites you would like to always
> allow.
>
> Darren.
>
> Bob Doolittle wrote:
>   
>> Brian Nitz wrote:
>>     
>>> The intended scope is "JDS" which does include firefox and 
>>> staroffice.  But the original optimization configuation settings for 
>>> JDS2 were focused on components of the base GNOME desktop.  So more 
>>> work will need to be done.  Do you have any suggestions for firefox?  
>>> Turn off flash animations? reduce the default cache size?  
>>> Configuration settings don't exist for all of these and some that do 
>>> exist aren't yet available to the Java Desktop Configuration Manager.
>>>       
>> I don't think config settings exist yet which would be interesting here 
>> - the work has to happen in the firefox community first.  My first vote 
>> would be for firefox to do less aggressive retention of pixmaps for 
>> non-visible pages (e.g. pages "Back" in the URL history several steps, 
>> and possibly hidden tabs).  This could have a profound effect on the 
>> memory footprint of the X server, which is one of the biggest culprits 
>> in desktop resource consumption.  Perhaps we could have a multi-level 
>> setting (e.g. 1-5) where one extreme is what we have today, maybe the 
>> next level is to free up pixmaps which are at least 5 steps back in 
>> history (I don't know where the limit is today, and am guessing its 
>> higher than this), and finally maybe the other extreme might be 
>> non-visible tabs and any history.  Or maybe an idle timeout could be 
>> applied (but beware of chewing up CPU in order to save resources ;-).
>>
>> I wouldn't recommend anything heavy-handed like disabling flash 
>> animations unless it was simply influencing a default that the user 
>> could override if they chose to do so (in a fairly obvious way). We 
>> don't want to limit function (unless we have a very extreme 
>> circumstance, and I'm not convinced flash is so bad that one or two 
>> people can't use it now and then), we only want to reduce impact.
>>
>> Simple stuff could be done right off the bat.  I think I still see 
>> staroffice doing spin loops. That's bad citizenship.  Everything should 
>> be done off of timers or events of some sort so that the CPU can be shared.
>>
>> A bit OT: I'd love to see JDS pick up and refine xautolock 
>> http://freshmeat.net/projects/xautolock/ so that it's a good multi-user 
>> citizen (i.e. remove spin loops).  We have many customers who would like 
>> to have a desktop session terminate if it's been idle for a certain 
>> period of time. That's about maximizing desktop resource utilization 
>> also, but on an aggregate server basis vs an individual desktop basis.
>>
>> -Bob
>>
>> Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this mail are my own,
>> and are not necessarily shared by my employer
>>
>>     
>>> I intend to gather Sun Ray performance enhancement requests which are 
>>> not yet configurable into a proposal for the "Gnome lite" project.
>>>
>>> Bob Doolittle wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Hi Brian,
>>>>
>>>> First off - kudos for dusting off the perf doc and making it current.
>>>> That'll be a big help to folks.
>>>>
>>>> Comment inline:
>>>>
>>>> Brian Nitz wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>>>> And even better if that configuration were visible and could be 
>>>>>>> leveraged
>>>>>>> by higher-level apps :-)     
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> I agree.  It might be helpful if we talked through how we think this
>>>>>> should work.  
>>>>>>             
>>>>> Most if not all of the performance related gconf keys are now 
>>>>> exposed via Sun Java Desktop System Configuration manager (was 
>>>>> APOC).   This document 
>>>>> (http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/jds_optimize.html) 
>>>>> was written for JDS2 linux, but the changes necessary to make these 
>>>>> policies work went into the codebase for JDS3 on Solaris 10.
>>>>>           
>>>> Since "JDS" encompasses some pretty pertinent higher-level apps,
>>>> as well as the desktop, I wonder what scope you're describing here?
>>>> When you say "changes necessary to make these policies work"
>>>> are you suggesting that firefox (for example) is now looking at
>>>> these keys and changing its behavior?
>>>>
>>>> That's the sort of thing I was imagining with my comment, but
>>>> I'd be (very pleasantly! :-) ) surprised to hear that such work has
>>>> already been done.
>>>>
>>>> -Bob
>>>>
>>>>         
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