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I'm astonished again. Linux isn't designed as GUI OS - where Windows has dynamic thread priorities for freshly woken up threads as to increase GUI snappiness.

Now, my CPU has four physical and eight logical cores for SMT. I'm running eight worker threads of some parallel testing stuff, and I'm glad that I chose the AMD 3400G over the 3200G. The CPU load is 100%. On top of that, MP3 audio, the browser, and I'm dd'ing an external USB3 HDD.

Holy shit, the browser is just as smooth as if the CPU were idle. No perceivable lag. I hadn't expected desktop Linux to be that great.

I'm also surprised that the CPU temperature doesn't exceed 44°C despite full load at 21°C ambient, and the cooling is inaudible. Sure, my cooler is massively over-dimensioned to achieve exactly that, but it's still amazing.

It's what I would have wanted ten years ago and only could approach somewhat, but now the tech is actually there.

Comments
  • 2
    I suspect a lot of your issues with desktop Linux were because of an aging CPU

    With enough power to spare a lot of stuff doesn't matter.
  • 2
    @RememberMe Well yeah, but the load is 100% so that there's nothing to spare, and the desktop is still totally smooth. It's not even like a 3400G were high-end.
  • 0
    So lucky you. Since Ubuntu-era my Linux GUI experience has worsen. My +10 years old laptop with 4GB ram and embedded Intel graphics has a smoother experience with any Windows version I install in it.

    Yeah, I can have "smooth" experience if I use a basic DE like Mate, XFCE or alike. But damn... is it too hard to have window effects (shadow, some title bar transparency hipster shit...) in Linux without a shitty experience?
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop 100% load doesn't necessarily mean it's struggling, it just means that the schedulers always have work to throw into the CPU, afaik?

    I suspect you'll also be a lot more forgiving of slower websites now that your machine will just chew through them :p (not deliberately slow or animation heavy ones tho, fuck them)
  • 4
    @yamlbreakfast In my previous story, I installed Mint 20 with full-blown Cinnamon on an ancient machine with Core2 Duo 4400, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, and mobo integrated graphics. Even that works much better than its original Vista.
  • 1
    @RememberMe Well it's not like my 1100T had serious performance issues. It was the second fastest desktop CPU of its era, after all. Its singlethread performance was 63% of my current CPU, so not that much slower. Plus that CPU performance doesn't address network latency - which is where web devs routinely screw up.
  • 4
    Thank the devs behind the scheduler you're using.
  • 7
    I was always confused as to "why do PCs freeze up when one application is doing something intensive?".

    Then I used a Linux desktop for a while and realized, this was just a Windows thing, computers are actually useful.
  • 0
    @LotsOfCaffeine Do you mean windows with the first 'PC' word?
  • 1
    But yep, it's getting better and better. Also as for devices that literally just came into existence, devs are already creating fully featured distro's for them, it's amazing (the PineTab for example)
  • 1
    linux desktop sucks? such news.
  • 4
    @MaxDeepfield reading comprehension lvl 0
  • 2
    I have Ryzen 2700X and it is also very snappy when the CPU usage is 100%. I think this actually has something to do with AMD, because my 2 Intel machines I used before were always laggy under load.
  • 1
    But I can't say the same about CPU temps. Don't ask me how high is it.
  • 0
    @lamka02sk Well yeah my CPU has 65W TDP, yours has 105W. And my CPU has a non-AMD cooler that is good for 150W while I don't know what your cooler is rated for.
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop oh, trust me, my cooler is very fine, it is just probably not seated properly and I didn't find time to fix it in 2 years
  • 0
    @devnulli Also, that's without AC or heating. ^^
  • 0
    @devnulli No, it's just that it's 17°C outside. But the house is also pretty well insulated.
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