Re: Why is Emacs so slow when used remotely?

[David Kastrup]

"Russ P." <russ.paielli@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sep 20, 6:40 pm, des...@verizon.net wrote:
>> "Russ P." <russ.paie...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > As I explained a few days ago, I am trying to switch from XEmacs to
>> > Emacs so I can use Ensime (an Emacs-based IDE for Scala). I finally
>> > got my .emacs file debugged, but now I am finding that Emacs seems to
>> > be very slow when used remotely.
>>
>> > When I work from home, I login from one Linux machine to another using
>> > ssh -X over a high-speed Internet connection, using my home machine as
>> > an X terminal for my work machine. I am using Emacs 23.2.1 on Red Hat.
>> > I am finding that opening a file or switching buffers by middle-
>> > clicking in dired or the buffer menu takes approximately 20-30
>> > seconds. With XEmacs it takes less than one second. I hope I am doing
>> > something wrong that can be corrected, because I'll grow old sitting
>> > around that long every time I open a file or switch buffers. Any
>> > suggestions? Thanks.
>>
>> Did you file a bug report?
>
> No. I don't  know if this behavior is a bug or just poor performance.
> (Nor do I know, off hand, how to file a bug report.)
>
> This is disappointing. As far as I can tell, Emacs seems to be
> essentially unusable for remote usage. I can't believe I am the only
> one who has noticed this problem. Am I the only one who uses Emacs/
> XEmacs to work remotely over ssh -X?

For a distant machine with an ssh connection, you are usually quite
better off running Emacs on your _own_ machine and just accessing files
remotely.

Something like

C-x C-f /username@my.remote.host:local.filename RET

This will open an ssh session under username on my.remote.host and use
shell commands for transferring the file to your local Emacs.

Even things like
M-x compile RET

should work reasonably well (executing on the remote host with output to
a window in your local Emacs).

Much better than having to update a graphical display, and you need not
bother installing and maintaining an Emacs on the remote site.

-- 
David Kastrup