Gnome 2.2 gets very sluggish on FreeBSD 7

sirbijan · #1 (**permalink**) 09-04-2008

hello guys & gals

I know this question was asked thousands of times and there are lots of solutions out there, I tried them all, but with no luck.

Symptoms
It takes about 3 to 5 minutes for Gnome to start up, I'm asked for my username/password and then the Gnome splash screen comes up, but it stays there for god damn 3-5 minutes!
Another thing is that running gnome programs takes a long time, like if you wana open the terminal, you have to wait for couple of minutes for it to come up after you click on its icon

What did I do?
Well, I googled and found several solutions, like adding "gnome_enable='YES'" to /etc/rc.conf file, which I did. Another solution was to make sure your hostname is like your machines name, since I'm not connected to any DNS, it can not be an issue, but if you insist, here is my untouched default /etc/hosts file:

Code:

# $FreeBSD: src/etc/hosts,v 1.16 2003/01/28 21:29:23 dbaker Exp $
#
# Host Database
#
# This file should contain the addresses and aliases for local hosts that
# share this file.  Replace 'my.domain' below with the domainname of your
# machine.
#
# In the presence of the domain name service or NIS, this file may
# not be consulted at all; see /etc/nsswitch.conf for the resolution order.
#
#
::1                     localhost localhost.my.domain
127.0.0.1               localhost localhost.my.domain
#
# Imaginary network.
#10.0.0.2               myname.my.domain myname
#10.0.0.3               myfriend.my.domain myfriend
#
# According to RFC 1918, you can use the following IP networks for
# private nets which will never be connected to the Internet:
#
#       10.0.0.0        -   10.255.255.255
#       172.16.0.0      -   172.31.255.255
#       192.168.0.0     -   192.168.255.255
#
# In case you want to be able to connect to the Internet, you need
# real official assigned numbers.  Do not try to invent your own network
# numbers but instead get one from your network provider (if any) or
# from your regional registry (ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC, RIPE NCC, or AfriNIC.)
#

I also did whatever was suggested in this thread, i.e. I executed the following command:

Code:

find /usr -name "index.theme" -execdir gtk-update-icon-cache -f . \;

But things are still terribly slow. I was thinking about forgetting Gnome and seeking solace in KDE! I don't know if you ppl have any practical advice for this newbie.

Regards,
bijan

era · #2 (**permalink**) 09-04-2008

Do you get anything in your .xsession-errors during the long time it's thinking? I used to have something like that which I think I traced to a startup sound which wouldn't play because the sound config was hosed.

sirbijan · #3 (**permalink**) 09-04-2008

hey

this is the content of my .xsession-errors:

Code:


(process:899): Gtk-WARNING **: This process is currently running setuid or setgid.
This is not a supported use of GTK+. You must create a helper
program instead. For further details, see:

    http://www.gtk.org/setuid.html

Refusing to initialize GTK+.
/usr/local/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
You can look through a file in a nice text-based interface by typing

	less filename
/usr/local/etc/gdm/Xsession: Setup done, will execute: /usr/bin/ssh-agent -- gnome-session
GConf Error: Bad key or directory name: "/desktop/gnome/screen//0/resolution": Can't have two slashes (/) in a row
SESSION_MANAGER=local/:/tmp/.ICE-unix/896
Window manager warning: Failed to read saved session file /home/bijan/.metacity/sessions/default0.ms: Failed to open file
 '/home/bijan/.metacity/sessions/default0.ms': No such file or directory

** (gnome-session:896): WARNING **: Host name lookup failure on localhost.
Initializing gnome-mount extension

** (nautilus:956): WARNING **: Failed to initialize libhal context: (null) : (null)

** (nautilus:956): WARNING **: Could not initialize hal context

Shutting down gnome-mount extension
seahorse nautilus module initialized

As you can see I have a "Host name lookup failure on localhost" error, how can I solve it? I think it's pretty much the culprit!

era · #4 (**permalink**) 09-05-2008

Looks like something in your gnome-session is attempting that, do you have funny stuff in ~/.gnome2/session or /usr/share/gnome/default.session or whatever your version uses?

As a workaround, maybe you can add 127.0.0.1 localhost to your /etc/hosts file. (In fact it should already be there, and lost of other things probably expect it to be there, too.)

janez · #5 (**permalink**) 12-10-2008

cd /usr/local/share/xsessions
edit gnome.desktop

replace (at the end of the file)
Exec=gnome-session
TryExec=gnome-session
with
Exec=gnome-session --purge-delay=5000 --warn-delay=5000
TryExec=gnome-session --purge-delay=5000 --warn-delay=5000

Janez

thenrie · #6 (**permalink**) 01-19-2009

After getting gnome2 by pkg_add -r or through ports, all you have to do to enable it is add the line:

gnome_enable="YES"

to /etc/rc.conf.

Your hostname issue can be resolved by adding your machine's name to /etc/rc.conf:

hostname="your machine's name"

and to /etc/hosts by adding your machine's name to the local host line, such as:

::1 yourmachine yourmachine.local locallhost localhost.my.domain
127.0.0.1 yourmachine yourmachine.local localhost localhost.my.domain

You can also set up gnome to start only for specific users, in case some users might wish to use other windows managers, by creating the file ~/.xinitrc in the user's home directory and adding the line

start gnome-session

Then the user types "startx" (or is it "xstart"?) at login to start the gnome session.

I think that will do what you need. I think you can also go back to the FreeBSD installer by typing the command "sysinstall" and use the options there for setting up your Internet connections. The wizard asks you to set your machine's name and automatically sets up the hostname and /etc/hosts file. Maybe that would do it.

Tony

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