Draft: Don't link!

(Note: We need numbers and/or graphics here, otherwise we should drop this page this time.)

Performance improvements

GNOME 2.16 continues to tune many parts to be as fast as possible. At the same time, memory usage is reduced whenever possible.

Get mails faster, Part 1

For the GNOME 2.16 release our email client, Evolution, received special attention to make it more responsive. First, if you're using Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) to access your e-mail on a remote server, Evolution will now only fetch a minimal but functional subset of the email headers. This results in a reduction of intitial loading time by about 48%, compared to Evolution's previous version.

• // image 'header load time' about here.

Second, if you're using Novell GroupWise on the remote server, Evolution will now use a more efficient algorithm to synchronize with the server, thereby eliminating frequent CPU spikes during periodic refresh operations.

Get mails faster, Part 2

Not just Evolution, also its back-end, Evolution Data Server, was examined and improved. First, it uses less memory. Second, it's also faster behind the scenes when used with Novell GroupWise on the remote server: due to smarter sequencing, it takes longer to fetch all items into the cache but the overall user experience, as measured by the time taken to load or display events closer to current date, improved by a whopping 94% on average.

// image 'Calendar loading time' about here

// image 'Calendar responsivness' about here

GNOME performance tweaks continue

Several GNOME modules recieved attention during the 2.16 developement schedule:

• The starting time of GNOME's terminal was reduced, again.
• The starting time of Nautilus, GNOME file manager, was also reduced. Additionally, it now uses less memory while generating thumbnails of your images.
• The starting time of Yelp, GNOME help browser, was reduced too. Help documents will also load faster now. Additionally, several memory leaks were fixed.