CentOS - Jul 2018 - Desktop lag with CentOS7/Mate and high CPU usage

We have noticed significant desktop/UI lag on CentOS7 workstations using 
Mate when the CPU usage is high - i.e. the mouse pointer lags and moving 
windows (e.g. terminal windows) become jumpy (not smooth)

We didn't see (or notice) this issue with CentOS6/Gnome2

This can easily be shown by running something like 'cpuburn' 
(https://patrickmn.com/projects/cpuburn/) and moving a mate-terminal 
window around the screen

We can make things 'better' by running CPU intensive apps via
'nice'
(without any noticeable performance hit to the CPU intensive app) - but 
this is a rather messy way of fixing the issue

We can also make things better by renice'ing X to a negative nice level

However, both these approaches seem wrong to me - as I'm probably 
missing something straightforward here

Does anyone know of any CentOS7/Mate settings that could be used to 
improve desktop/UI responsiveness with high CPU usage ?

Thanks

James Pearson

On 07/18/2018 10:31 AM, James Pearson wrote:
> We have noticed significant desktop/UI lag on CentOS7 workstations using 
> Mate when the CPU usage is high - i.e. the mouse pointer lags and moving 
> windows (e.g. terminal windows) become jumpy (not smooth)
> 
> We didn't see (or notice) this issue with CentOS6/Gnome2
> 
> This can easily be shown by running something like 'cpuburn' 
> (https://patrickmn.com/projects/cpuburn/) and moving a mate-terminal 
> window around the screen
> 
> We can make things 'better' by running CPU intensive apps via
'nice'
> (without any noticeable performance hit to the CPU intensive app) - but 
> this is a rather messy way of fixing the issue
> 
> We can also make things better by renice'ing X to a negative nice level
> 
> However, both these approaches seem wrong to me - as I'm probably 
> missing something straightforward here
> 
> Does anyone know of any CentOS7/Mate settings that could be used to 
> improve desktop/UI responsiveness with high CPU usage ?
> 
Personally, I would just move to gnmoe3 and use the Gnome Classic desktop.

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On 07/18/2018 08:40 AM, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> Personally, I would just move to gnmoe3 and use the Gnome Classic desktop.
FWIW I recently found that starting from CentOS 7.5, gsd-account/polkitd 
have been constantly using 10%-15% CPU.

I dug it a little bit yesterday and found the cause:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1600161#c3

Workaround is to disable account password expiration check by removing
/etc/xdg/autostart/org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Account.desktop

If you are switching too/using GNOME3 and see high CPU usage. This might 
be a cause.

-- 
Yan Li

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 10:40:15AM -0500, Johnny Hughes
wrote:
> On 07/18/2018 10:31 AM, James Pearson wrote:
> > We have noticed significant desktop/UI lag on CentOS7 workstations
using
> > Mate when the CPU usage is high - i.e. the mouse pointer lags and
moving
> > windows (e.g. terminal windows) become jumpy (not smooth)
> > 
> > We didn't see (or notice) this issue with CentOS6/Gnome2
> > 
> > This can easily be shown by running something like 'cpuburn' 
> > (https://patrickmn.com/projects/cpuburn/) and moving a mate-terminal 
> > window around the screen
> > 
> > We can make things 'better' by running CPU intensive apps via
'nice'
> > (without any noticeable performance hit to the CPU intensive app) -
but
> > this is a rather messy way of fixing the issue
> > 
> > We can also make things better by renice'ing X to a negative nice
level
> > 
> > However, both these approaches seem wrong to me - as I'm probably 
> > missing something straightforward here
> > 
> > Does anyone know of any CentOS7/Mate settings that could be used to 
> > improve desktop/UI responsiveness with high CPU usage ?
> > 
> 
> Personally, I would just move to gnmoe3 and use the Gnome Classic desktop.
> 
you're making a couple of assumptions here:
1. that Mate is the cause, and
2. Gnome 3 with the Gnome Classic add-ons is just as good and easy to
use as is Mate. I can assure you that it isn't. It is still Gnome 3
with all the horribleness thereof.


-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us
-----------------------------
               Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;
                     Guide me in your truth and teach me,
                         for you are God my Savior,
                    And my hope is in you all day long.
-------------------------- Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV) --------------------------------

James Pearson wrote:
> 
> We have noticed significant desktop/UI lag on CentOS7 workstations using
> Mate when the CPU usage is high - i.e. the mouse pointer lags and moving
> windows (e.g. terminal windows) become jumpy (not smooth)
> 
> We didn't see (or notice) this issue with CentOS6/Gnome2
> 
> This can easily be shown by running something like 'cpuburn'
> (https://patrickmn.com/projects/cpuburn/) and moving a mate-terminal
> window around the screen
> 
> We can make things 'better' by running CPU intensive apps via
'nice'
> (without any noticeable performance hit to the CPU intensive app) - but
> this is a rather messy way of fixing the issue
> 
> We can also make things better by renice'ing X to a negative nice level
> 
> However, both these approaches seem wrong to me - as I'm probably
> missing something straightforward here
> 
> Does anyone know of any CentOS7/Mate settings that could be used to
> improve desktop/UI responsiveness with high CPU usage ?
Just to follow up on this - we think this issue _might_ be self 
inflicted ...

When we started moving users to CentOS 7 from CentOS 6, we had reports 
that things like opening shells, running scripts and similar non-CPU 
intensive everyday tasks were generally 'slower' - this turned out to be
a result of the default 'tuned' policy ('balanced') using the 
'conservative' CPU governor setting (we didn't have any similar CPU 
throttling set up on CentOS 6) - and switching to the 
'throughput-performance' tuned policy 'fixed' this issue for us
- as it
uses the 'performance' CPU governor

However, it looks like something else in the 'throughput-performance' 
policy is causing (or contributing to) the desktop lag issues we've been 
seeing - and switching to a custom tuned profile (based on 'balanced' 
but using the 'performance' CPU governor) appears to fix our desktop lag
issues ...

James Pearson