MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 12:34 pm**

I'm streaming Sportsnet through this laptop via HDMI to our TV. Using Firefox it's a bit laggy. The GPU is near 100% and the temp rises to 87 degrees.

I'm looking for suggestions for a browser that will run lighter and that I can use exclusively for streaming.

I have found Falkon, which SN says is not supported and must be at least version 89. Obviously it thinks it's looking at Firefox, and I can't find a way to spoof it. I tried Palemoon, which is jerky. I'm currently on Waterfox, which is fairly smooth and also runs cooler than Firefox and uses less GPU. I also found Midori, Viper and Dillo, which I haven't tried yet because they're not in the package installer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a light browser?

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-18-amd64 [5.10.140-1] x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-18-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
           Distro: MX-21.2.1_KDE_x64 Wildflower October 20  2021 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP x360 310 G2 PC v: Type1ProductConfigId 
           serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 31 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: HP model: 8074 v: 66.40 serial: <filter> UEFI-[Legacy]: Insyde v: F.66 
           date: 06/08/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 47.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 47.2/47.2 Wh (100.0%) volts: 12.5 
           min: 11.4 model: 333-42-2A-A HV03048XL type: Li-ion serial: <filter> 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Pentium N3700 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Airmont family: 6 
           model-id: 4C (76) stepping: 3 microcode: 368 cache: L2: 1024 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 bogomips: 12800 
           Speed: 1064 MHz min/max: 480/2400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1064 2: 1085 3: 1140 4: 861 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations 
           Type: retbleed status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, 
           RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:22b1 
           class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP Truevision HD type: USB 
           driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5.2:8 chip-ID: 05c8:0379 class-ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.14 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: modesetting 
           unloaded: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") 
           s-diag: 414mm (16.3") 
           Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 136 size: 256x144mm (10.1x5.7") 
           diag: 294mm (11.6") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 405 (BSW) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 compat-v: 3.1 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series High 
           Definition Audio 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           chip-ID: 8086:2284 class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-18-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 
           chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl port: 2000 
           bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:095a class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
           bus-ID: 1-5.1:7 chip-ID: 8087:0a2a class-ID: e001 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 23 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2 
           sub-v: 1000 hci-v: 4.2 rev: 1000 
           Info: acl-mtu: 1021:5 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff 
           link-mode: slave accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 15.31 GiB (12.8%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: SanDisk model: SD7SN6S-128G-1006 size: 119.24 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> 
           rev: 1006 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 29.3 GiB size: 28.67 GiB (97.86%) used: 10.82 GiB (37.7%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda3 
           maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0 C mobo: 38.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 2381 lib: 1310 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           2: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bullseye ahs
Info:      Processes: 196 Uptime: 9d 20h 43m wakeups: 20 Memory: 7.63 GiB used: 1.74 GiB (22.8%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 
           alt: 10 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.4-release inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 1:16 pm**

I found that Viper is also unsupported, for the same reason. Midori and Dillo are reluctant to load the page. So far it looks like Waterfox is the best choice, unless I can find a way to spoof Falkon or Viper, unless there is a better suggestion.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 1:24 pm**

if you are streaming HD, I would look at seeting if you can drop the quality to 720p or even 480p (standard def)

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 2:10 pm**

Slimjet.

(In general.. It was in MXPI but was removed from Popular Apps due to some issues, you can simply install with the deb file)

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 2:20 pm**

I have been using Firefox for streaming YouTube videos on a 2016 laptop for some time now. Watching av1 videos at 480p generally had the CPU running at 43%.

About a week ago I started using the Brave browser, and I found that the same video codec & resolution playback on YouTube had the CPU running at 30%.

Brave may not be lightweight, but it does a better job when playing YouTube videos.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 3:30 pm**

Otter-Browser is light too.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 3:41 pm**

Turns out that Waterfox is failing on the DRM now. It's selected in preferences. It says it's installing the necessaries. Just fails.

I'll try Slimjet and Brave and Otter and 720p.

Are there any Chrome candidates?

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 4:39 pm**

I see that Brave and Vivaldi are chromium-based. Brave works as well as Waterfox and the DRM works, so good. Reducing the quality didn't seem to do much.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2022 9:33 pm**

Waterfox has been good for me, but I switched to Librewolf to try it out.
Librewolf works just fine for me; will stick with it for now.

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:50 am**

... Also try with 1-2 browsers what happens if you disable "Hardware Acceleration" within its preferences, (... better/worse ...)

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 10:55 am**

Huckleberry Finn wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:50 am ... Also try with 1-2 browsers what happens if you disable "Hardware Acceleration" within its preferences, (... better/worse ...)

I'll try that. Last night I watched a game where the lagginess was worse than what I first experienced. On every browser I tried and even on another computer. It felt like a slow internet, but I have 350 megabits. It's hard to troubleshoot when you get inconsistent results. I'll just keep hacking away at it.-)

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 10:56 am**

if you are using one, a vpn can impact as well. if you vpn, its not your connection, its the vpn's connection.

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 11:50 am**

I ran speed tests in Firefox, Brave and Vivaldi with h/w accel off (and on). Firefox showed a 50% improvement, while the other two came in at about 10% of FF's rate either way. Now I know that turning it off helps, at least in FF. Now to see if I'm VPNing and whether that makes a difference.

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:48 pm**

Chrome, chromium, and other Chrome based browsers are supposed to now support video hardware accelerated decoding via the va-api method, but it of course depends on the video codec being supplied, plus you must manually turn it on in the browser settings the last time I tried it.

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 1:09 pm**

Stevo wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:48 pm Chrome, chromium, and other Chrome based browsers are supposed to now support video hardware accelerated decoding via the va-api method, but it of course depends on the video codec being supplied, plus you must manually turn it on in the browser settings the last time I tried it.

I found where to turn off h/w acceleration in Brave and Vivaldi, but it didn't make any difference to my download speeds. I'll have to remember to check what it does next time I'm streaming a game, for the video. I don't know about the va-api method or the codec.

As for VPN, it doesn't look like I'm using it, as far as I know, but I have seen sites reporting my location wrong. Like telling me I'm in Singapore or Bruges, when I'm obviously not.

Posted: **Sun Oct 16, 2022 7:09 pm**

arjaybe wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 1:09 pm... but it didn't make any difference to my download speeds...

Normal. That's not the aim of hwa.

arjaybe wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 1:09 pm... seen sites reporting my location wrong. Like telling me I'm in Singapore or Bruges, when I'm obviously not.

https://ipinfo.io/

https://whatismyipaddress.com/

https://www.whatismyip.com/

Posted: **Fri Oct 21, 2022 12:10 am**

I managed to watch a complete game tonight and the video was good, with occasional juddering on pans. I tried many things and finally thought to try plugging in the ethernet. That reduced the load on the GPU enough for it to keep up. Who knew my wireless would be such a processor hog?

Thanks all for your help. Now I can relax and watch the game without twitching every few seconds.-)

Posted: **Fri Oct 21, 2022 2:09 am**

In general it depends on where you are and how you connect. I never turn my vpn off for streams, or anybody for that matter, but have found that servers overseas from the US generally give poorer results when trying to watch video here in the US. I use Basilisk generally but Falkon mostly with streams and I'm on a wifi 2.4G only network on my laptop. I have never seen cpu spiking whatsoever. It always depends on how you connect, and of course your hardware in general.

Posted: **Sun Oct 23, 2022 11:52 am**

Not so fast, I guess. I had a sticky game again last night. A few seconds of smooth action, then a freeze followed by a jump. I'm thinking now that the processor is just not strong enough in the laptop. (Pentium N3700) So I'm looking at refurbished mini computers to take its place beside the TV. (The Dells seem more likely to have the required HDMI than the Lenovos or HPs. Wireless not required) I could use your help finding something strong enough, but cheap enough. Something in the i5 family? i5 8250U, for instance? The "U" indicates the chip is for mobiles, though. Does that matter? Maybe an i5 in the 7000s or even 6000s.

As a side benefit, this would liberate the laptop for recording stories without having to keep unplugging and moving it.

Posted: **Sun Oct 23, 2022 12:37 pm**

There are a lot of inexpensive AMD Ryzen processors laptops out there. The Ryzen 5 5xxx series is really fast, but even the cheap Ryzen 5 3500u is ~5x as fast as your n3700.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/25 ... en-5-3500U

Posted: **Sun Oct 23, 2022 12:53 pm**

Lags are caused either by the

network:
variance in Round Trip Time or too low data rate so the internal data buffer runs "dry" and the browser needs to wait tilll it fills up again

processing power:
cpu or gpu struggle to support the video decoding
when using hw accelerated graphics the cpu load should be low since the gpu takes over the processing
for activating HW acceleration for FF i wrote an artice:
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 18#p697918

I would almost guess it's the network if it's working some evenings.
you could start a ping to a server IP (ideally to the streaming server but google.com will also do...) and let it run for 24h.
When you stop it (ctrl+c) you get a statistics like

Code: Select all

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 30.538/72.832/405.100/94.690 ms

which gives you insight into your Round Trip Time for that particular server.
What you are interested in is the difference between min and max - that tells you the variance in the RTT.
Ideally min=max=avg
So this is an example for an suboptimal connection with min: 30.5ms and max: 405.1ms

This is a better one:

Code: Select all

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 30.606/34.230/44.281/3.568 ms

What I found is, that when the cpu has high load, my internet RTT also varies a lot.
I guess it's due to processes the CPU has to do for the network connection.
So testing with high CPU loads is also advisable - and if that's the case reducing the CPU load by having the GPU do the graphics processing

Posted: **Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:26 pm**

yoshi wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 12:53 pm Lags are caused either by the

network:
variance in Round Trip Time or too low data rate so the internal data buffer runs "dry" and the browser needs to wait tilll it fills up again

processing power:
cpu or gpu struggle to support the video decoding
when using hw accelerated graphics the cpu load should be low since the gpu takes over the processing
for activating HW acceleration for FF i wrote an artice:
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 18#p697918

I would almost guess it's the network if it's working some evenings.
you could start a ping to a server IP (ideally to the streaming server but google.com will also do...) and let it run for 24h.
When you stop it (ctrl+c) you get a statistics like
Code: Select all
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 30.538/72.832/405.100/94.690 ms
which gives you insight into your Round Trip Time for that particular server.
What you are interested in is the difference between min and max - that tells you the variance in the RTT.
Ideally min=max=avg
So this is an example for an suboptimal connection with min: 30.5ms and max: 405.1ms

This is a better one:
Code: Select all
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 30.606/34.230/44.281/3.568 ms
What I found is, that when the cpu has high load, my internet RTT also varies a lot.
I guess it's due to processes the CPU has to do for the network connection.
So testing with high CPU loads is also advisable - and if that's the case reducing the CPU load by having the GPU do the graphics processing

Thanks, Yoshi. I have tried with H/W accel on and off several times with no appreciable difference. The problem might be the network speed, but my speed tests come in around 180-220 Mbps. Maybe the variable quality has to do with the wires being overloaded in my neighborhood at different times, like Saturday night when the game is on. Maybe it has as much to do with my weak processor.

I just tried brief pings on google and my streamer and the streamer did better overall. Maybe I'll try running one for longer.

edit: I ran ping for a day and got these results:
70173 sent, 70002 received.
19.737/24.364/78.533/2.904ms

I'm leaning heavily toward the processors being the problem. I'm looking at small form factor computers with processors in the i5 6000s or, better, 7000s, and Ryzen 5 3000 - 5000 and possibly even 3 3200.

Posted: **Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:30 pm**

timkb4cq wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 12:37 pm There are a lot of inexpensive AMD Ryzen processors laptops out there. The Ryzen 5 5xxx series is really fast, but even the cheap Ryzen 5 3500u is ~5x as fast as your n3700.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/25 ... en-5-3500U

Thanks, Tim. Those Ryzens do look a lot better, but I don't recall seeing any in the minis I've found available as refurbs. I'll try a specific search.

edit: Okay, I've got a lot to look at.-) The tricky part is remembering HDMI, but I can get an DP to HDMI adaptor.

Posted: **Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:35 pm**

arjaybe wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 11:52 am Not so fast, I guess. I had a sticky game again last night. A few seconds of smooth action, then a freeze followed by a jump. I'm thinking now that the processor is just not strong enough in the laptop. (Pentium N3700) So I'm looking at refurbished mini computers to take its place beside the TV. (The Dells seem more likely to have the required HDMI than the Lenovos or HPs. Wireless not required) I could use your help finding something strong enough, but cheap enough. Something in the i5 family? i5 8250U, for instance? The "U" indicates the chip is for mobiles, though. Does that matter? Maybe an i5 in the 7000s or even 6000s.

As a side benefit, this would liberate the laptop for recording stories without having to keep unplugging and moving it.

The reason those tiny computers use the Ultrabook CPUs is because they have very little room for cooling and so they need a CPU with minimal heat generated, some are even passively cooled.
The wattage is expressed in TDP which is actually a measurement of heat potential.

Posted: **Mon Oct 24, 2022 2:33 pm**

What about this mini computer?

Lenovo Think Center M700 Tiny Desktop PC,Intel Quad Core I5-6500T 2.5GHz up to 3.1G,16GB,256GB SSD

I can get it refurbed on Amazon for $240CDN.

Posted: **Mon Oct 24, 2022 3:30 pm**

Just a note in case it may widen your choices... SFF (small form factor) computers that have DisplayPort Video ports can also be used for HDMI, an inexpensive DisplayPort to HDMI cable from Amazon will work. I have an i5 SFF HP reseller computer I use in an outbuilding here for a cheap HTPC and it works just fine from it's Displayport to an HDMI TV input. Office reseller computers from HP and Dell are easy to find and often are around $200 CDN usually with a registered copy of Win10 included, of course you can install Linux as well (or instead) since both HP and Dell hardware are very Linux-friendly..

Posted: **Mon Oct 24, 2022 3:42 pm**

AVLinux wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 3:30 pm Just a note in case it may widen your choices... SFF (small form factor) computers that have DisplayPort Video ports can also be used for HDMI, an inexpensive DisplayPort to HDMI cable from Amazon will work. I have an i5 SFF HP reseller computer I use in an outbuilding here for a cheap HTPC and it works just fine from it's Displayport to an HDMI TV input. Office reseller computers from HP and Dell are easy to find and often are around $200 CDN usually with a registered copy of Win10 included, of course you can install Linux as well (or instead) since both HP and Dell hardware are very Linux-friendly..

Thanks. $13 on Amazon, but the Lenovo above comes with one. It's good to hear that they work okay, though. Yeah, they all seem to come with Windows. First thing will be to install MX, of course, over top if it.-) The HPs I've looked at don't have HDMI, but they do have DP. The Dells tend to have HDMI. I'm liking that Lenovo because it's about 7" square.

Posted: **Tue Oct 25, 2022 8:27 pm**

How about a Raspberry Pi?
They do video decoding in HW (can do HD) and were super cheap in comparison.
There is even MX Linux for RPi AFAIK.

Posted: **Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:51 pm**

Got a nice little mini delivered today. Lenovo Thinkcenter 700 i5 6500T 16GB. Came with DP - HDMI adaptor. Installed MX and tried it out. Runs smoothly, no stress on the processor, nice and cool. Speedtest results double what they were. Streaming flawlessly.

Seems the browser is not the issue. It's the strength of the machine.

Now I've got a dedicated streaming machine and the laptop can be free for recording. All good. Thanks everyone.

rjb

edit: Acid test. Saturday night game. Perfect. Also getting my normal 350 Mbps, double what it was with the laptop. I feel good.

MX Linux Forum

Lightweight browsers

Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers

Re: Lightweight browsers or Stronger processor? [Solved]