why is firefox such a CPU hog?

[john]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for your response, it's very enlightening.  I appreciate you
taking the time to put in some examples illustrating what you are
talking about as well.

> LTSP is NOT a panacea.  A thin client will never, EVER be 100% of the
> experience of a full workstation.  We've done lots of things to make LTSP as
> "like" a full workstation as we can, with things like Localapps, that allows
> you to offload some of the work on the thin client itself.  There's also
> Stephane's ltsp-cluster work which can also address this problem.

I understand what your saying, and I hope that  Local apps or
clustering or better switches
would help me out, but since flash-rich web content is apparently
going to be the predominate web experience
going forward LTSP basically has to do that well or become less
relevant. I understand what you mean about not being able to
manufacture cycles out of thin air. I am merely pointing out the kind
of push that teachers give me.


>
> Or, help out projects like Gnash which do the same thing for MUCH less cpu.  By
> way of a "single case" instance, here's a line out of top, with me viewing a
> youtube video using the adobe flash player:
>
> 2049 sbalneav  20   0  495m 120m  35m S   38  6.0   4:09.80 firefox
>
> The "38" column's important.  That's 38% cpu usage.  This is on a dual-core
> 3.0ghz workstation with 2 gigs of ram.  A not inconsiderable box.  38%, over a
> 1/3 busy.  So, if I hosted 2 other terminals, and THEY were watching youtube,
> I'd be at 100% util.

>
> Now, Here's me watching the same video, using Totem as my movie viewer:
>
> 4208 sbalneav  20   0  201m  43m  20m S    6  2.2   0:02.41 totem
>
> 6 percent.  So, if I had 15 other terminals hanging off my box, watching
> youtube videos, I'd be at 100%

Yes, but totem won't help out with Google APPs etc. Gnash is hopeful,
but wasn't ready for primetime
the last time I looked at it (several years back).  I guess it bears
another look.


> Because LTSP hasn't been brought to it's knees.  The SERVER has been brought to
> it's knees by flash.
>
> It's just that, WITHOUT ltsp, you never SEE the box being brought to it's knees
> because, well, while you're watching the video, you're not doing anything else.
>

So since flash is being called by Firefox would it be pointless to
script something where all users you ran firefox were automatically
nice'd to 15 or some such since I wouldn't have any power over the
flash instance?

I'll keep testing on my Karmic test box, maybe I can get this out
there faster than I think, and with out too many hiccups.

Thanks again!

John