First up, sorry for going off topic a bit. On Sunday 10 April 2011 19:42:57 Arthur Titeica wrote:
Add this to the fact that the kernel isn't exactly desktop optimized (stuff like let me move the mouse while I extract that damn 4G archive) and you'll probably get what feels like a slow system.
This is a good point. 2.6.38 should help with this issue under high load. Out of interest are there any distros that customize the default kernel for desktop usage? If so, is there arch documentation on this(perhaps I should search first).
Now what could a DE could do in this situation? I know that kwin does extensive checks in regards to video driver capabilities and maybe Gnome just isn't that far on this.
That said, KDE SC with the free radeon driver in 2.6.38 is outperforming the catalyst driver with 2.6.37 in regards to desktop effects (I can't say anything about nouveau).
I have a Mobility Radeon HD 3650 and since 2.6.37 + xf86-video-ati=6.14.0 graphics are more stable and faster than catalyst. Open source video drivers are really getting there. Thank goodness no more catalyst driver for me. -- Divan Santana