Poor desktop responsiveness

[Chris Tyler]

On Mon, 2009-06-22 at 13:21 -0700, Michael Eager wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> I'm running Fedora 10 with KDE on a quad-core Intel system
> (@ 2.4 Ghz), with 6Gb RAM.  I generally run Firefox with several
> open windows and/or tabs, as well as Adobe acroread, and I'll
> have a number of terminal windows open.  Zero swap is used
> and cpu load is nowhere close to 100%.
> 
> Frequently, when I switch windows, there is a significant
> delay in re-drawing the window and streaming audio stops
> for a few seconds.
> 
> Is there anything that I can do to improve performance in
> switching windows?

If your X driver supports it, you might find it useful to turn on
Desktop Effects (compositing). In Gnome, that's
System>Preferences>Desktop Effects.

Also, which video chipset and driver are you using?

-Chris