Wade, I think you need to first sort out whether this is an
Inkscape issue or an Ubuntu issue.
Could you perhaps find some other app that would substitute for Inkscape, and try loading that large jpeg image with it.
If it loads fast, the problem is in Inkscape
Needing to fiddle Ubuntu settings seems unlikely to me.
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Oh yeah - like I said in one of the other posts, Gimp, Vivaldi (browser) and Visual Studio all kinda have the same issue. I use Vivaldi all day every day with email, cal, 8 to 50 tabs open all the time, sometimes a few windows… etc. Facebook really eats up cpu so I dont keep that tab open. Video streams - sometimes 3 at a time - might eat a bit into performance. Gimp, while recently editing a jpeg to remove the background - 28.5 mb file - when doing foreground selection would take upwards of 50 seconds to do what I was doing in Windows on this same computer in say … less than 10. Visual Studio I recently reset entirely because even with just a few ext. it was running poorly computer to what I have on my laptop.
I agree - it feels more like a OS issue → Kubuntu 22.04 but Im just not sure. Oh, and its not loading the file is working with the file in inkscape. Loads in under 5 seconds … very fast… but if you have to do any simple operation like say clipping a path - it (might) take 5 to 10 sec after clicking to start and then another 10 or so to complete.
I am not sure what it is but on other files … Im working on two t-shirt designs for my soccer team for our upcoming season - those are just fine and they are around 60mb in total size.
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Hi Wade,
I asked you to show me the inxi -b command to find out which kernel and your graphics driver - I thought something might be wrong.
I ask: did this problem appear all of a sudden or have you always had it since you’ve been using Kubuntu 22.04?
Jorge
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It hasnt always been this slow to respond but it does seem to be lagging overall. My systems - almost all of them - are setup and leave because I have work to do so other than an update … which they do seem to happen more often now - Ive not noticed anything immediately after any updates to think it was that.
When I was building this computer it was right before Seti announced they were discontinuing their @Home software use and I was setup to run that more while doing some cad work. But most of the time, my cpu and ram are barely used so I just think my system could be more taken advantage of when working.
OK, other apps are slow too.
I wonder is it the jpeg libraries.
What happens if you load another image type… eg tiff
Then to prove it, you need to substitute another Linux. No need to install. Try some
live distro on a good fast usb 3 drive.
What happens if you simply cp a large file?
Is that slower than Windows.
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No. I can do that fine.
And - my current working file is 60mb for this other project and it
doesnt seem to be having a problem.
For a bit I thought… maybe it was the file I was working with so I tried it in both Gimp & Inkscape and while both were slow - I had to do two different things to get the same result so its not a good comparison.
I did use Neon on usb not long ago. I have it on another laptop I use for field work so downloaded the latest version to usb and then booted to that just to check it out before installing on the laptop. Not that I did to much of anything with it but, mostly browsing and spreedsheet work.
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Neville,
Couldn’t it have been a kernel update?
Shouldn’t Wade try the older kernel, selecting it in grub to see if it behaves the same way?
What’s your opinion?
Jorge
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You mean cp?
OK, that rules out a lot of OS issues.
What about changing the image type?
It certainly could. Good idea Jorge.
It is easier for Wade to try another kernel, than another whole OS.
Wade, if you look in /boot … see if there is more than one kernel.
If there is, you can select it in the grub menu under Recovery or Advanced .
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I have.
Most of the work lately has been with jpegs but Ive seen the same issue with png and svg.
Im running 5.15.0-106 and I see 105.
106 was created 5/7/24
105 was created 5/2/24
I dont see any others and the problems were def on and off before that… before both.
On which governor is your cpu?
Also, setting your system’s swapiness LOWER can help. Values from 20-30 tell the kernel to swap less often. A value of 0 means swapping will only happen when absolutely necessary, while a value of 100 means swap like there’s no tomorrow.
Finally, if you’re certain you’ll not use more RAM than you have in your system, you could do sudo swapoff. This’ll turn off swapping to disk altogether. However, if, in this situation, the computer runs out of memory and needs some, the OOM (Out Of Memory) killer will be activated, which will start axing processes to free up memory.
Oh, finally… you’re running Ubuntu, right? Are the offending packages you are having these problems with installed as snaps or as debs?
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Ive never seen my ram get above 20GB of use - ever.
I think I could def turn it off and not notice.
Governor is powersave though under Power Management Profile it says Performance - which may not take effect until after I reboot( ?? ).
Gimp is a snap, the rest are debs.
That is a rather old kernel. Most distros are in 6.x by now.
Is it perhaps a new Inkscape interacting with an old kernel?
To solve it you are going to have to substitute parts of the system. Try substituting a whole new OS, then narrow it down. Make a testbed that is as simple as possible but still exhibits the problem.
It is definitely wrong. Linux should be at least as speedy as Win doing a simple thing like loading an image.
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I show no updates available for 22.04
I dont think Inkscape has updated in quite a while - and neither has Gimp. Vivaldi does quiet often.
You need to… reboot… for this???
This might be useful to you too.
You could find a .deb on their official website, odds are there’s newer versions available than in your distribution.
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Is this a laptop.
Try replacing the battery.
A dud battery affects CPU performance enormously.
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@Wade_Smart ,
Is your root partition near full? Or maybe /tmp full.
Can you use top to see which process is consuming CPU
Is it set to software rendering, or does it use the GPU?
Look into graphics card drivers.
Is there a cooling problem. It may step down its speed when the cpu gets hot.
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@Wade_Smart ,
Do you really know if it is I/O or CPU
Use iostat and vmstat to be sure.
A failing disk or a full disk may be slow
A noisy interface or cable may be slow
Have you run a memory check?
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No desktop.
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