From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG  Fri Sep  9 18:46:53 2011
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Received: by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix, from userid 1233)
	id B2BA91065670; Fri,  9 Sep 2011 18:46:53 +0000 (UTC)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 18:46:53 +0000
From: Alexander Best <arundel@freebsd.org>
To: Dieter BSD <dieterbsd@engineer.com>
Message-ID: <20110909184653.GA64971@freebsd.org>
References: <20110909162537.183770@gmx.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <20110909162537.183770@gmx.com>
Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: excessive use of gettimeofday(2) and other syscalls
X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD
	<freebsd-hackers.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-hackers-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-hackers-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers>,
	<mailto:freebsd-hackers-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:46:53 -0000

On Fri Sep  9 11, Dieter BSD wrote:
> >> Firefox 5 and 6 has more gettimeofday call than 20000 per second on my
> >> amd64-8.2-stable box.
> 
> > i don't see why chromium needs
> > to call gettimeofday(2) or any library function that triggers it more
> > than 3000 times a second.
> 
> What the <BLEEP> are web browsers doing that they "need" the clock
> so often?
> 
> I suspect the answer is the same as why firefox uses significant amounts
> of CPU when it should be idle, why it uses memory without bound
> (I actually had to add ulimit to my shell's rc file :-( ), and
> so on.
> 
> Using "links -g",
> "ktrace -di -tc -p6951; sleep 1; ktrace -C; kdump|wc -l"
> gives a typical count of 300-400, highest count seen: 1454.

well that measurement is probably unfair. my measurements included all opened
tabs (~ 15), running plugins and extensions. if i disable all of those extra
stuff and use only a single tab, chromium produces less syscalls than links:

270

cheers.
alex

> 
> What we need, is a sanely written web browser that has the
> features we need. Unfortunately the last time I checked,
> links and dillo both lacked features needed for online
> shopping/banking.