Slow KDE / Plasma on Intel Integrated Graphics?

Got a laptop with an Intel GMA? Is Alt+Tab slower than you would like? Does Plasma take forever to move or resize an applet? Maybe you didn’t think it could get better?

Try playing with the options in xorg.conf. This is a good starting place.

In my case lspci shows ‘Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42]‘, and putting

Option  “AccelMethod”   “UXA”

in /etc/X11/xorg.conf has improved things significantly. UXA acceleration has been disabled by default in Ubuntu because it caused problems for some people, but in my case enabling it has made everything snappier, and also gotten rid of the drawing artifacts I used to see.

It also caused suspend to stop working (assert in X upon waking), but a recent fix to xserver-xorg-video-intel takes care of that. Distros might have released an update by now, but if you’re using Kubuntu and can’t wait, you can grab the packages from this ppa.

Snappy plasma, working suspend, happy user.

Update: Here is a post with another trick, using the -graphicssystem raster option of Qt programs. It makes switching tabs in Konsole faster, and it does wonders for long lines in Kate!

Deer Amaranth

keywords: unfinished, experimental, expired, extinct

In a forest with no mirror,
To the eyes of God none dearer,
Lives a lone fawn that fawns not.

Treading softly on the grass she’s
Crushed the rush and rushed the crushes,
Dreaming of her amaranth.

She knows not the rocks from flowers,
For amidst these early hours
She’s only been hit by one.

Her mind raced in thoughts confounded,
But despite heartthrobs unwanted,
Her step is again now calm.

Eyes dancing with joyous laughter,
She sings out her silent light that
Rocks and flowers like alike.

Looking high at heaven’s towers,
From afar she smells the flowers
Waiting to be kissed by one.

But my dear deer, not a flower
By its own will and its power
Ever leaves the land he loves.

They too wait for a desired
Brown-eyed fawn to quench their fire,
But alas they move cannot.

Thus Sisyphus’ sweet sweat showers
Brows of deer and crowns of flowers
In a world that’s wired weird.

Now the forest with no mirror
To the eyes of God none dearer
Witnesses the fawn’s first tear.

She will learn amid her hours
To dodge rocks and pluck the flowers
Till she finds her amaranth.

And the forest will behold her
Eyes of brown alone no longer
Grow old with her amaranth.

Today’s Random Firefox Trick…

… you can select non-contiguous regions of text by holding Ctrl while selecting with the mouse! (If you have a table, it will select a rectangle instead.)

QOTD

some days I want love and some days I don’t
sometimes I can feel it then suddenly it’s gone
some days I can tell you the truth and some days I just don’t

only a change of mood, sun goes down
someone says something too quick or too soon
a touch not made, one made too late
armies of words cannot hope to contain

that it comes and it goes and I have no control

some days I can think clear and some days I won’t
sometimes I can feel it then suddenly it’s gone
some days I’m strong and some days my skin’s broken and thin

it arrives when it feels and it takes what it needs
and it leaves before I get to know
it’s only a step away moments
that armies of words cannot hope to contain

that it comes and it goes and I can’t make it hold
and there’s nothing I own and it breaks me when it goes

some days I want love and some days I don’t
sometimes I can feel it and suddenly it’s gone
some days I can tell you the truth and some days I just don’t

only a change of mood, dream comes out
someone does something too quick or too soon
a move not made, one made too late
armies of words cannot hope to contain

that it comes and it goes and I can’t seem to hold
and there’s nothing I own and it breaks me when it goes

Dido – It Comes and It Goes

ingenting nej ingenting (and i love* you)

*wakeup wanttosleep
want nothing but
thedreamisdead longlivethedream
may be youll see her to day
so getup

bathroom disinfectant like putrid chestnuts
sit and shit and ponder the meaning of life
and forgodssakes keep your eyes closed when brushing your teeth
(thirld wolrld)
out

food minus taste
add mustard or ketchup or mayonnaise
not nonsweet sugar but
sweet sugarfree sweetener
and filteredwater with a distinct taste
the taste of chewinggum overchewed

blur
free hugs sorries and thanks no thanks
freewithafineprint
blur
unblur
her eyes smile
but she dreamsnot what youdream
(first world)
blur

outofphase ambulance wails
twelvestrobes in fivedirections
smilingfaces on the website
of a mental hospital
cheerful noises
onholdonthephone
and a twentyfourseven funeral service

albino squirrels
pin ging stree tlights
walk inwhite stop inred
newspeak in the t station

noise repeat
blur repeat
depth of field decrease
in stay(up)
and pull the shades down

planes taking off at threeinthemorning
surroundsound fire alarms
sweaty feet under nylon sheets
the sound of ventilation is your lullaby

overload not sensory synesthetic
colors of france britain russia and the czech republic
despair brown. cells abcdeeing you
hope not from above from the underground
from the grave of beethoven

stomach rumbling like a badharddisk
to forgetsomeone is as easy as removefromcontactlist
the wood texture on this nonwood desk is p i x e l a t e d
(beculeţeledelamodemclipesc) thereforeIam