Posts Tagged ‘BD-thing’

Intel Graphic cards, Linux, Xorg and UXA performance boost

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

For people having Intel graphic chipset under Gnu/Linux, performance using 3D applications or Compiz-* window manager effects has always been a problem. Intel drivers for Xorg never gave problems but have also never been brilliant. I always looked around searching for xorg.conf tuning configuration entries.
Today I was simply browsing Ubuntu Wiki and discovered the UxaTesting page. I wanted to know something about UXA and Intel drivers, so I found a Wikipedia definition:

In computing, UXA is the reimplementation of the EXA graphics acceleration architecture of the X.Org Server developed by Intel. Its major difference with EXA is the use of GEM, replacing Translation Table Maps.

Yeah cool, the official Xorg Wiki Intel Graphics Driver page Gives also some more information, so if you've got one of these chipsets (you can verify using lspci | grep VGA ):

  • i810 and variants thereof
  • i815
  • i830M
  • 845G
  • i852GM
  • 855GM
  • 865G
  • 915G and variants (GMA 900)
  • E7221
  • 945G and variants (GMA 950)
  • 946GME
  • G33
  • Q33
  • Q35
  • 965G/Q
  • G35
  • G41
  • G43
  • G/GM/Q45

You may want to try out the new acceleration method by adding this line


Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"

To your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, in section "Device".

Please note that:

  1. UXA is not yet stable as EXA. Try it out, signal your experience on the Ubuntu wiki page and fill out a bug if necessary
  2. You will need at least Xorg server 1.6.0
  3. You will need at least xf86-video-intel-2.6.2 drivers
  4. I don't think this is mandatory, but please tell me if you encounter differences when updating to 2.6.30.x kernel. I already have 2.6.30.0 on Sid so I don't know if with a previous version this is working

On Debian Sid I just had to add the Option line to my xorg.conf file.
The performance differences are noticeable and incredible. Everything runs faster and smoother.
My glxgears output went from 60 FPS (using EXA) to 425 FPS (using UXA).
This is a 700% performance improvement!

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Introduction to Aspect-Oriented Programming

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Like I did for Functional Programming, this post contains the mindmap that covers the basic elements of Aspect-Oriented Programming.
This is just a tiny summary of the most important points of AOP, and uses AspectJ in the examples.

Topics covered:

  • Definition
  • Response to Object-Oriented crosscutting concerns
  • Aspects
  • Advices
  • Inter-Type Declarations
  • Join Point Model: Join Points, Pointcuts, Advices
  • AspectJ tiny example

You can reach a browsable HTML export of the mindmap
You can download a PNG export of the MindMap.
You can download Freemind sources of the MindMap

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A major revision for my publication about Object-Oriented Memory Management

Friday, April 10th, 2009

It took about a year for a major revision of my document about memory management in object oriented programming languages.

This major revision adds C++ in addition to Java.

The paper is about a model for memory management during the execution of programs written in Java and C++.

The number of pages grew from 17 to 28.

You can see more information and download the pdf on this page.

I hope you will find it useful to model your programs and know how memory is handled.

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Introduction to HTTP mind-map

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

As I promised about 4 hours ago, here is my introduction to Hyper Text Transfer Protocol in form of a mind map.
It is to be intended as a really short introduction to this protocol. Like the previous one about computer networks, the mindmap summarizes materials copyrighted by Tanenbaum and also material taken from Wikipedia.

The topics covered are:

  • Scope of the protocol
  • HTTP connection
    • HTTP/1.0
    • HTTP/1.1
  • HTTP request methods:
    • GET
    • HEAD
    • PUT
    • POST
    • DELETE
    • TRACE
    • CONNECT
    • OPTIONS
  • Message Headers
    • Request Headers - all
    • Response Headers - all
  • Status Codes:
    • 1xx Information
    • 2xx Success
    • 3xx Redirection
    • 4xx Client error
    • 5xx Server Error
  • Sessions:
    • Cookies
    • Server-Side sessions
  • Secure HTTP - HTTPS:
    • By URI scheme
    • HTTP Upgrade Header
    • SSL/TLS

You can browse an HTML version online.

You can download:

As always, you are free and encouraged to contact me in case of errors or anything else.
Hope you like it!

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Introduction to Network Organization mind-map

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

For Internet Technologies and Distributed Systems courses we have to study some basics about network organization and architecture. The most interesting book on the topic is the one written by Tanenbaum (Computer Networks ). I have to study the parts about network organization and HTTP. For my studies I sometimes make use of mindmaps, so here I provide my mindmap that summarizes an introduction about network organization.

The topics covered are:

  • Layers (or levels):
    • Advantages
    • Services
    • Quality
    • Primitives
  • Protocols
  • Models:
    • OSI ISO
    • TCP/IP

Please note that the mindmap summarizes materials copyrighted by Tanenbaum and also material taken from Wikipedia.

You can browse an HTML version online.

You can download:

2009 is a Zen year! Announcing BD-theme Zen

Monday, January 5th, 2009

2008 has been a

chaotic, beautiful, uncertain, loving, annoying, sad, inciting, exciting, claustrophobic, happy, insecure, agoraphobic, free, ugly, closed, wild, lonely, impetuous, serene, safe

year for me. It has been a year of changes.

I would like to enter this new year in a Zen way. I would like 2009 to be a year of tranquillity and serenity.
I want to free me from heavy, non-important details. I want to be more minimalist.

I want to focus on essence rather than on appearence.

While I'm preparing to act in this way, you can enjoy mi first step, the most easy one: a new Wordpress theme.
You can see BD-theme Zen working on my blog, but you can also download it and modify it under the Gnu GPL license (v.3)

Enjoy.

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