[Dillo-dev] Startup time of the latest dev versions.

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John Found

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Sep 3, 2016, 2:14:53 PM9/3/16
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I am using Dillo as a help viewer of my IDE, because it has really short startup times and pressing F1 I get instant access to the documentation.

Recently I tried to compile and use the recent development versions from the hg repository, because of the recent changes in the rendering and the general improvements in the browser.

But unfortunately, the startup time seems to be increased and now I have to wait 2..3 seconds for browser to start and to show my help files.

Is such slow startup time side effect of some changes that will be fixed some day, or it is kind of compromise, because of other improvements and this way will persists in the project from now on?

Or (what is pretty possible) I messed something with the compilation?

--
http://fresh.flatassembler.net
http://asm32.info
John Found <john...@asm32.info>

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Nick Warne

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Sep 3, 2016, 4:32:23 PM9/3/16
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Hi John,

On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 21:12:46 +0300
John Found <john...@asm32.info> wrote:

> I am using Dillo as a help viewer of my IDE, because it has really
> short startup times and pressing F1 I get instant access to the
> documentation.
>
> Recently I tried to compile and use the recent development versions
> from the hg repository, because of the recent changes in the
> rendering and the general improvements in the browser.
>
> But unfortunately, the startup time seems to be increased and now I
> have to wait 2..3 seconds for browser to start and to show my help
> files.

Is that not fast? You blink and miss it.

> Is such slow startup time side effect of some changes that will be
> fixed some day, or it is kind of compromise, because of other
> improvements and this way will persists in the project from now on?
>
> Or (what is pretty possible) I messed something with the compilation?

What ./configure line do you use, and what install options? (I use
make install-strip)

Nick
--
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
time travel, you never can tell."
-- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"

walt...@waltdnes.org

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Sep 3, 2016, 11:11:03 PM9/3/16
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On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 09:12:46PM +0300, John Found wrote

> Or (what is pretty possible) I messed something with the compilation?

I use...

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fno-unwind-tables -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables"
CXXFLAGS=${CFLAGS}

...for a binary that will be running on the same machine.

--
Walter Dnes <walt...@waltdnes.org>

John Found

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Sep 4, 2016, 2:12:55 AM9/4/16
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On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 21:30:07 +0100
Nick Warne <ni...@linicks.net> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 21:12:46 +0300
> John Found <john...@asm32.info> wrote:
>
> > I am using Dillo as a help viewer of my IDE, because it has really
> > short startup times and pressing F1 I get instant access to the
> > documentation.
> >
> > Recently I tried to compile and use the recent development versions
> > from the hg repository, because of the recent changes in the
> > rendering and the general improvements in the browser.
> >
> > But unfortunately, the startup time seems to be increased and now I
> > have to wait 2..3 seconds for browser to start and to show my help
> > files.
>
> Is that not fast? You blink and miss it.

Well, no, I don't blink for 2..3 seconds. More like 300ms; :)
The official Dillo 3.0.5 always starts instantly.

I made some more tests and found that the "big wait" is actually the first time
you start Dillo - there is an intensive hard disk activity (swap?) without any messages in the console.

The next times, Dillo starts faster, but still noticeable slower than v 3.0.5

v3.0.5 always starts instantly, at least I can't see any delay or difference between the first start and the next.

>
> > Is such slow startup time side effect of some changes that will be
> > fixed some day, or it is kind of compromise, because of other
> > improvements and this way will persists in the project from now on?
> >
> > Or (what is pretty possible) I messed something with the compilation?
>
> What ./configure line do you use, and what install options? (I use
> make install-strip)
>

I am using "./configure --enable-ssl", then "make", "strip ./dillo" and then copy the browser manually in "/usr/local/bin"
I will attach the "config.log" file to this message for details.
config.log

Ben Woolley

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Sep 4, 2016, 2:45:24 AM9/4/16
to John Found, dill...@dillo.org

> On Sep 3, 2016, at 11:10 PM, John Found <john...@asm32.info> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 21:30:07 +0100
> Nick Warne <ni...@linicks.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 21:12:46 +0300
>> John Found <john...@asm32.info> wrote:
>>
>>> I am using Dillo as a help viewer of my IDE, because it has really
>>> short startup times and pressing F1 I get instant access to the
>>> documentation.
>>>
>>> Recently I tried to compile and use the recent development versions
>>> from the hg repository, because of the recent changes in the
>>> rendering and the general improvements in the browser.
>>>
>>> But unfortunately, the startup time seems to be increased and now I
>>> have to wait 2..3 seconds for browser to start and to show my help
>>> files.
>>
>> Is that not fast? You blink and miss it.
>
> Well, no, I don't blink for 2..3 seconds. More like 300ms; :)
> The official Dillo 3.0.5 always starts instantly.
>
> I made some more tests and found that the "big wait" is actually the first time
> you start Dillo - there is an intensive hard disk activity (swap?) without any messages in the console.
>
> The next times, Dillo starts faster, but still noticeable slower than v 3.0.5
>
> v3.0.5 always starts instantly, at least I can't see any delay or difference between the first start and the next.
>

Can you go into more detail on what constitutes "first" here? Maybe disk cache explains most of that. Are the two binaries on the same disk? Maybe one on an SSD system disk, and another in some home folder on a spinning disk? There could be lots of different things at play here. Are you rebuilding 3.0.5 in the same way, in the same parent folder?

>>
>>> Is such slow startup time side effect of some changes that will be
>>> fixed some day, or it is kind of compromise, because of other
>>> improvements and this way will persists in the project from now on?
>>>
>>> Or (what is pretty possible) I messed something with the compilation?
>>
>> What ./configure line do you use, and what install options? (I use
>> make install-strip)
>
> I am using "./configure --enable-ssl", then "make", "strip ./dillo" and then copy the browser manually in "/usr/local/bin"
> I will attach the "config.log" file to this message for details.
>
> --
> http://fresh.flatassembler.net
> http://asm32.info
> John Found <john...@asm32.info>

> <config.log>

John Found

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Sep 4, 2016, 3:53:50 AM9/4/16
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"First" means first after restart of the computer. I am not sure if later, after some other programs started the startup time is not again slow. You know, such things are pretty hard to track. But even after the "first" startup, the subjective impression is that the dev versions starts much slower than 3.0.5; But once started, they render (and generally browse) faster than 3.0.5.

There is only one hard disk (not SSD) on the computer. The different Dillo versions are on the same hard disk. The v3.0.5 has been installed from the applications repository (Manjaro/Arc Linux).

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Jeremy Henty

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Sep 4, 2016, 9:53:42 AM9/4/16
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John Found wrote:

> "First" means first after restart of the computer. I am not sure if
> later, after some other programs started the startup time is not
> again slow. You know, such things are pretty hard to track. But even
> after the "first" startup, the subjective impression is that the dev
> versions starts much slower than 3.0.5; But once started, they
> render (and generally browse) faster than 3.0.5.

This is a *wild* guess, but the dev versions have a different ssl
library now. Perhaps it is trying to collect entropy when the
programs starts? You would expect that to take longer immediately
after a reboot.

Crypto libraries have been known to do surprising things to gather
entropy, such as reading /etc/passwd !

Regards

Jeremy Henty

Nick Warne

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Sep 4, 2016, 11:39:48 AM9/4/16
to dill...@dillo.org
On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 14:51:32 +0100
Jeremy Henty <onep...@starurchin.org> wrote:

> This is a *wild* guess, but the dev versions have a different ssl
> library now. Perhaps it is trying to collect entropy when the
> programs starts? You would expect that to take longer immediately
> after a reboot.
>
> Crypto libraries have been known to do surprising things to gather
> entropy, such as reading /etc/passwd !

I think I found a build bug here. I was going to experiment and build
Dillo without ssl supoort, but no matter what I do (make clean;
autogen.sh; --disable-ssl etc. et al) the builds fails every time:

src/IO/http.c:520: undefined reference to `a_Tls_connect'
src/IO/http.c:950: undefined reference to `a_Tls_connect'

Nick
--
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
time travel, you never can tell."
-- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"

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John Found

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Sep 4, 2016, 1:30:16 PM9/4/16
to dill...@dillo.org
On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 14:51:32 +0100
Jeremy Henty <onep...@starurchin.org> wrote:

>
> John Found wrote:
>
> > "First" means first after restart of the computer. I am not sure if
> > later, after some other programs started the startup time is not
> > again slow. You know, such things are pretty hard to track. But even
> > after the "first" startup, the subjective impression is that the dev
> > versions starts much slower than 3.0.5; But once started, they
> > render (and generally browse) faster than 3.0.5.
>
> This is a *wild* guess, but the dev versions have a different ssl
> library now. Perhaps it is trying to collect entropy when the
> programs starts? You would expect that to take longer immediately
> after a reboot.
>
> Crypto libraries have been known to do surprising things to gath

> entropy, such as reading /etc/passwd !
>

This guess sounds very plausible. At least it is something that has been changed in Dillo.

Can we stop the library from such actions or to postpone it until it is really needed?
It is not said, it will be needed instantly after the start.

> Regards
>
> Jeremy Henty
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dillo-dev mailing list
> Dill...@dillo.org
> http://lists.dillo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dillo-dev

--

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Nick Warne

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Sep 19, 2016, 1:41:19 PM9/19/16
to dill...@dillo.org
On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 20:28:03 +0300
John Found <john...@asm32.info> wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 14:51:32 +0100
> Jeremy Henty <onep...@starurchin.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > John Found wrote:
> >
> > > "First" means first after restart of the computer. I am not sure
> > > if later, after some other programs started the startup time
> > > is not again slow. You know, such things are pretty hard to
> > > track. But even after the "first" startup, the subjective
> > > impression is that the dev versions starts much slower than
> > > 3.0.5; But once started, they render (and generally browse)
> > > faster than 3.0.5.

Completed going off tangent here. I had a day off work today, and was
just messing around, and found something amazing - dwm - a single
binary windows manager!

http://dwm.suckless.org

I am using it now. I just timed my lowly notebook, [6 years oldish]
from turning on, entering BIOS password, boot up (no X), start X into
dwm and then launch Dillo on the Internet... 38 seconds (timed from my
new Seiko watch as my old watch got smashed when I was knocked of my
bicycle on the way from work 7 weeks ago).

Took me a hour or so to get the hang of the thing how it works though:

http://dwm.suckless.org/tutorial

Had to alter config.h to use 'xterm' and not 'st' terminal.

38 seconds... bloody ridiculous! God knows how fast it is on a modern
day desktop.

Nick
--
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
time travel, you never can tell."
-- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"

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