Worst web surfing experience with Strecht

[Maikel]

Hi. I am very dissapointed because my use of the Raspberry is as a normal PC, for surfing, facebook and music. And all that was a very good experience with the Raspbian Jesse, but I am having a lot of problems with the Strecht version when its time to web surf.

I tried to change the CHROMIUM for the VIVALDI browser, but when I have aa lot of pages open at the same time I have to unplug the Raspberry. Maybe you can say I am expecting too much effort from the raspberry, but with jesse I had no problem.

Now, after two days of several times the same freeze, I am going to start to not open more than 5-6 web at the same time and I will tell to you the results, but there is someone who is experiencing the sme problems than me?

Thanks

[gkreidl]

Hi. I am very dissapointed because my use of the Raspberry is as a normal PC, for surfing, facebook and music. And all that was a very good experience with the Raspbian Jesse, but I am having a lot of problems with the Strecht version when its time to web surf.

I tried to change the CHROMIUM for the VIVALDI browser, but when I have aa lot of pages open at the same time I have to unplug the Raspberry. Maybe you can say I am expecting too much effort from the raspberry, but with jesse I had no problem.

Now, after two days of several times the same freeze, I am going to start to not open more than 5-6 web at the same time and I will tell to you the results, but there is someone who is experiencing the sme problems than me?

Thanks

It's the way many "modern websites" are built: Take as many resources as possible!
I've seen websites needing 100-300 MB in the browser.
And the RPi will soon start to swap because it simply doesn't have enough memory. You should never "pull the plug".

In fact, there is no difference between Jessie and Stretch in this area, simply more websites wanting to be "modern".

[LTolledo]

Right now am using chromium to access this forum from my RPi3B+ Raspbian Stretch with Desktop. There are 8 tabs open, among those are facebook (a known resource hog website), youtube, several news sites, etc. I can go as much as 12, maybe higher.

Just dont include google map. Even with just it open it'll crawl.

This RPi3B+ is a native USB boot (32GB) with swap file changed from default of 100 to 1000. Swap file usage can go up as much as 500+ MB at times.
Before I changed the swap, I loathed how slow webpage browsing was on RPi3B and RPi3B+. Using htop command showed me some info...

if you are booting your RPi from microSD then modifying the swap is NOT RECOMMENDED as it will shorten the usable life of the microSD card (will become read only sooner or later)

[Maikel]

Sorry but I can't not agree with the hipotesis about how are made the modern webpages. With jesse it work like a charm. Never had any problem, but with strech is an agony

LTolledo, I am going to try what you say, and hope it is going to help. Otherwise my Raspberry will be worthless.
Thanks

[Imperf3kt]

When you upgraded to Stretch, did you keep any config settings from Jessie?
Personally, I always increase the GPU memory to 224MB out of necessity for other uses, but like this the browser works great.
Whenever I forget to do so, the browser crashes even simply opening YouTube.

[LTolledo]

I always increase the GPU memory to 224MB out of necessity for other uses, but like this the browser works great.

I always set mine to 192MB , the minimum required by Kodi. (or is it the max actually used by Kodi...)

I am going to try what you say, and hope it is going to help.

if you're going to try what I mentioned, I suggest doing a native USB boot on a good USB3.0 rated USB pendrive or better yet a USB HDD.
with the USB HDD, you can set the swap at a higher value.
and I mentioned on another forum topic, if the swap is sort of "swamped".... resetting it will recover back the speed as if you just rebooted your RPi.

[sora03]

If you are going to browse youtube, just use the mps-youtube in python. It is a command line interface but will work without any trouble. For facebook messenger use the fb-messenger-cli python package it is also a command line interface so your RAM should not be full. Putting the root FS to a USB SATA-HDD or an SSD can make the Pi2B, Pi3B or 3B+ faster. The hog is the 1GB RAM.

[Maikel]

Much better now! I extended the GPU memory to 128GB and also the swap, first to 250, then to 350 and finally to 500MB. Strangly, it seems the raspberry used more swap when it was 250/350MB.

I am not sure if the increase of the GPU memory did something. Maybe I don't need it if I don't see videos. If someone can clarify this to me it would be perfect, because having back the extra 64MB of RAM I gave to the GPU it would be nice.

Is there a faster way to "reset" the swap memory rather than the "swapoff -a --> swapon -a" command?? The only time I tried it take a couple of minutes to delete the swap, and when it happend the systems got freeze.

Thanks for the clever advices!!

[jahboater]

Is there a faster way to "reset" the swap memory rather than the "swapoff -a --> swapon -a" command??

Code: Select all

sudo sed -i 's/^CONF_SWAPSIZE=[0-9]*$/CONF_SWAPSIZE=1024/' /etc/dphys-swapfile
sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile stop
sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile start

Change the 1024 to the new swapfile size.

[LTolledo]

Is there a faster way to "reset" the swap memory....

This is the only command that I use whenever I have a "need for speed"....

Code: Select all

~ $ /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile restart

[Yotaphoner]

Now I am surfing with a swap file of 500MB and GPU memory of 128MB. I will check another options, but if I want to use youtube while I am browsing it seems I have to increase the size of the swap file. And the command "sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile restart" does nothing. It appears this "OK" message: "Restarting dphys-swapfile (via systemctl): dphys-swapfile.service.", but nothing happens to the swap file

But I am not sure if attaching a SSD will speed up the system, because even if the SSD is lighting fast it has to pass through the USB 2.0, so it will be the same speed. Despite that, the SDcard will last much more if I attach an SSD, but I don't care so much about the SDcard at the moment.

Sora03, It seems interesting the options you say. I will take a closer look in some days. Now i can't spend more time in this.

I would love a USB 3.0... that could make the raspberry pi 3B+ a limitless device (I just bought the "plus" version xD )

It seems surprising for me how at this level didn't appeared any adaptor that can be insert in the microSD slot and end in a USB/SATA/SSD connector. The microSD card reader is, at least, able to write at 40MB/s, so it worth. Maybe there is some technical info I just don't know.

Thanks to all for the help

[Imperf3kt]

The USB is able to transfer data at up to 480 megabits per second
The MicroSD interface on the Pi is capable of roughly 200 megabits per second

You are better off using USB if the device is suitably fast.
But do remember that the USB bus is shared with the ethernet. Any devices you plug in will also use part of that 480 megabits, so it really depends on your use case.

[LTolledo]

the command "sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile restart" does nothing.

before running the command, did you run htop on a separate terminal window? you will see the change there before and after running the command.

[Yotaphoner]

You are better off using USB if the device is suitably fast.
But do remember that the USB bus is shared with the ethernet. Any devices you plug in will also use part of that 480 megabits, so it really depends on your use case.

Sorry I don't understand that. How is shared the USB bus with ethernet? Anyways I am not using ethernet and I am always using WIFI, but I would love to understand it.

I think I am going to buy an SSD for the Raspberry... soon

[ghans]

Ethernet is actually connected via USB (internally) on all Raspberry Pis.
So if you copy things from a pendrive over network onto another computer, both times USB is used, cutting throughput in half (in truth it is even worse, but those bottlenecks also exist on "normal" computers).

ghans

[Yotaphoner]

Ok Ghans, now I get it.

About if it's worth or not to buy a SSD, I checked the web about that, and found many people sayint it really worth, so I search for a benchmark and found this one: https://www.jamesachambers.com/2018/03/ ... enchmarks/ . As we can see, the SSD is extremly more faster than the microSD or the pendrives, but it's the same on reading. On the dd test is much faster also, but I am asking myself if the reading speed is the same speed as a good microSD card (like mine) I will notice a really big difference.

Tomorrow I am going to receive the Raspberry pi 3 B+, which I read it has a improved USB boot capabilities so probably I am going to buy the SSD tomorrow, but just want to know if I am going to notice a big difference or not.

Someone knows if it exist a way to not have to power also the SSD? I mean just connecting it to the USB and no extra power

[Imperf3kt]

Usually you would use a USB to SATA cable.
Note that the cable design may impede performance, so be sure to check out the specs of it before you buy.

[DarkPlatinum]

Ok Ghans, now I get it.

About if it's worth or not to buy a SSD, I checked the web about that, and found many people sayint it really worth, so I search for a benchmark and found this one: https://www.jamesachambers.com/2018/03/ ... enchmarks/ . As we can see, the SSD is extremly more faster than the microSD or the pendrives, but it's the same on reading. On the dd test is much faster also, but I am asking myself if the reading speed is the same speed as a good microSD card (like mine) I will notice a really big difference.

Tomorrow I am going to receive the Raspberry pi 3 B+, which I read it has a improved USB boot capabilities so probably I am going to buy the SSD tomorrow, but just want to know if I am going to notice a big difference or not.

Someone knows if it exist a way to not have to power also the SSD? I mean just connecting it to the USB and no extra power

I use an external 1 TB HDD sea gate expansion drive. This works fine with my Raspberry Pi 3b+ PINN setup. My SD card holds boot file systems and HDD has OSes. A SSD should work fine since SSD take less power draw then HDD. Some SATA cables do not work though. Try and find a external SSD with USB capabilities.

[Yotaphoner]

About the extra power plug for the SSD, it seems I only have to be sure my SATA to USB is for a USB 2.0 and not 3.0. Also saw there are some SSD that don't work, but I can't find a list of them, so I will tell to the guys of the computer shop about that and if it not works to change it

I use an external 1 TB HDD sea gate expansion drive. This works fine with my Raspberry Pi 3b+ PINN setup. My SD card holds boot file systems and HDD has OSes. A SSD should work fine since SSD take less power draw then HDD. Some SATA cables do not work though. Try and find a external SSD with USB capabilities.

Sorry but what is the "PINN setup"?

[LTolledo]

I have an RPi3B+ natively booting (no microSD in microSD slot) from a 1TB HDD connected via a SATA to USB adapter. No other power required to power the drive, just coming from RPi's USB port. Tried a seagate 2TB barracuda drive as well, works like a charm!

Raspbian Stretch with Desktop image (not NOOBS nor PINN) flashed using Etcher was used to setup the 1TB drive as boot drive.

I think its a bit faster than this USB thumbdrive boot RPi3B+ am currently using now.
SSD will be much faster, but I like the "spinning rust" drives (as one forum member calls it). Its cheaper and hold more capacity, and "swap friendly"

With that setup, I can have as much as 15 active tabs (probably more) open on Chromium (still excluding google maps!).

[Yotaphoner]

Well I just bought the SATA to USB 2.0 cable. It isn't so easy to find, especially if you don't want that double USB end. I bought one with two male USB, and I hope plugging just one it is going to work. The normal cable would arrive at my house on first week of november, so I am going to try.

Now, with the U1 microSD card and the swap memory set to 800MB i can run backgorund music with youtube and to have 11 tabs on Chromium almost without problems, only some microsecond lagging when I open a webpage full of images.

I think with the upgrade I am going to do in the next days (plus raspberry version and the SSD) my raspberry is going to (almost) fly.

Many thanks for everything and to everyone who had posted info here!