On Saturday 14 August 2004 08:19 pm, Pierre-Philippe Coupard wrote:

I'm having a problem that prevents me from using Gimp-2 altogether: whenever I use any input device to do something with the pen down, such as draw or erase, the cpu load shoots up and the system becomes quickly unusable. The processes that generate the load are the X server and kdeinit.

It is definitely related to X or kde (most likely both) not able to "digest" all the incoming events from the input device, because when I draw very slowly, the load stays reasonable, and also because the more I draw, the more events seem to be queued up and the more I have to wait for the queue to clear up, the cpu load to go back down and kde to become usable again. Typically, if I draw briskly for 30 seconds, I have to wait 2 or 3 minutes for kde to start processing my clicks on the desktop.

This happens with the tablet or the mouse, and whether the tablet devices are in "screen" or "window" mode makes no difference. The size of the canvas doesn't make a difference either. I don't recall this ever happening with Gimp-1.2. It only happens with Gimp-2, I've tried to reproduce the problem with other programs, and with xev, to no avail. My configuration is the following:

Athlon 1.8GHz, 512M, Linux 2.6.7, XFree86 4.3.0, linuxwacom-0.6.4, kde-3.2.3, Gimp-2.0.4.

Anybody knows what the problem could be?

Greetings,

I have had challenges with a Wacom tablet and Linux also. Try this link http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/ it will give you step-by-step instructions to set up a Wacom tablet properly in Linux.

Good Luck! Gail

Pierre-Philippe Coupard wrote:

I'm having a problem that prevents me from using Gimp-2 altogether: whenever I use any input device to do something with the pen down, such as draw or erase, the cpu load shoots up and the system becomes quickly unusable. The processes that generate the load are the X server and kdeinit.

It is definitely related to X or kde (most likely both) not able to "digest" all the incoming events from the input device, because when I draw very slowly, the load stays reasonable, and also because the more I draw, the more events seem to be queued up and the more I have to wait for the queue to clear up, the cpu load to go back down and kde to become usable again. Typically, if I draw briskly for 30 seconds, I have to wait 2 or 3 minutes for kde to start processing my clicks on the desktop.

This happens with the tablet or the mouse, and whether the tablet devices are in "screen" or "window" mode makes no difference. The size of the canvas doesn't make a difference either. I don't recall this ever happening with Gimp-1.2. It only happens with Gimp-2, I've tried to reproduce the problem with other programs, and with xev, to no avail. My configuration is the following:

Athlon 1.8GHz, 512M, Linux 2.6.7, XFree86 4.3.0, linuxwacom-0.6.4, kde-3.2.3, Gimp-2.0.4.

Anybody knows what the problem could be?

What window manager and video card are you using? KDE? Nvidia-based?

I'm having exactly the same problem here, on Slackware 9.1... The strange thing is, gimp2 works fine with KDE, Gnome, and WindowMaker, but I have the described problem with Fluxbox (my window manager of choice). I have considered asking about it here before, but I thought it was just a Fluxbox problem. Obviously I'm wrong...

I have _both_ gimp-1.2.5 and gimp-2.0.1 installed. Gimp1 never had this problem, but gtk2 based gimp has always had, since version 1.3.

I have traced the problem to be related with the X RENDER extension. Because of this problem, I have used gimp2 inside a nested X server, which doesn't have RENDER extension enabled. There it works fine, regardless of the window manager. Also, if I compile Fluxbox without render support, gimp2 works fine, but then I lose many of the finer features of the WM, like AA fonts and transparent menus. With the Nvidia drivers I'm using it is also possible to turn off RENDER extension from the XF86Config, but then I lose _all_ antialiasing... well, at least gimp2 works then properly ;). By the way, it doesn't matter whether I use the open source 'nv' driver or Nvidia's own binary driver, the problem still persists.

So, what should I do? Dump gimp2 and continiue using the old gimp1? (No, I _don't_ give up Fluxbox :) ). I emphasize that gimp2 is the only program which has the described problems, so something should be done about it!

And my configuration: Duron 850MHz, 256M, Linux 2.4.26, XFree-4.3.0, Logitech PS/2 mouse, kde-3.2.2, gimp versions 1.2.5 and 2.0.1, fluxbox-0.9.9

Regards Jouni Rinne, Finland

Hi,

Jouni Rinne writes:

So, what should I do? Dump gimp2 and continiue using the old gimp1? (No, I _don't_ give up Fluxbox :) ). I emphasize that gimp2 is the only program which has the described problems, so something should be done about it!

You tracked the problem down to your window manager and X server and now you want the GIMP developers to do something about it? You must be kidding. Please file a bug report against that window manager and get the fluxbox developers to fix up their code.

Sven

Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

Jouni Rinne writes:

So, what should I do? Dump gimp2 and continiue using the old gimp1? (No, I _don't_ give up Fluxbox :) ). I emphasize that gimp2 is the only program which has the described problems, so something should be done about it!

You tracked the problem down to your window manager and X server and now you want the GIMP developers to do something about it? You must be kidding.

Actually, yes, a bit ;)

Please file a bug report against that window manager and get the fluxbox developers to fix up their code.

I discussed this with the Fluxbox developers some months ago, and they said they were totally unable to reproduce the problem, so I was stumped there. As far as I know I'm the only one who's having this problem with gimp2 under fluxbox, and I thought I was the only one having problems at all, until I saw Pierre-Philippe Coupard's mail. (It's always nice to know you're not alone). I'm trying real hard to find the real cause for this gimp2 problem, but it seems to me that it's some quite rare combination of software/ (possibly) hardware, which triggers this problem. I'm sorry if I poked a wrong anthill...

Jouni Rinne

Hi,

Pierre-Philippe Coupard writes:

The real question I guess is: what is it that GIMP-2 does that GIMP-1 didn't do with regard to the input devices that triggers this?

I don't think there's any substantial difference on the GIMP level. If at all the change is introduced by the switch to GTK+-2.0.

Don't get your pants in a knot, not everybody who posts on a list is complaining. I was just pinging other GIMPers to see if they knew something about it. With success it seems, since Jouni came out.

You could have looked at Bugzilla also where this problem is being tracked already.

Sven

Hi,

Jouni Rinne writes:

I discussed this with the Fluxbox developers some months ago, and they said they were totally unable to reproduce the problem, so I was stumped there. As far as I know I'm the only one who's having this problem with gimp2 under fluxbox, and I thought I was the only one having problems at all, until I saw Pierre-Philippe Coupard's mail. (It's always nice to know you're not alone). I'm trying real hard to find the real cause for this gimp2 problem, but it seems to me that it's some quite rare combination of software/ (possibly) hardware, which triggers this problem. I'm sorry if I poked a wrong anthill...

I'd suggest you try to disable the XRender extension and see if that makes a difference.

Sven

Pierre-Philippe Coupard wrote:

I use the nVidia driver and the S3 Trio driver (dual-headed, but not xinerama).

Me too, GeForce2 and Riva TNT2, both nVidia-based, dual-head but not xinerama. Maybe here's a start of a clue?

> I'd suggest you try to disable the XRender extension and see if that > makes a difference.
>
> Sven

As I said, I tried it already. I'm now quoting myself: "...With the Nvidia drivers I'm using it is also possible to turn off RENDER extension from the XF86Config, but then I lose _all_ antialiasing... well, at least gimp2 works then properly ;) ..."

Jouni Rinne