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I'm using Unity and wine1.3. Spotify installs fine, but every click in the window slows the whole system down incredibly for a few seconds. System Monitor shows that suddenly Xorg starts using ~50% CPU.

I'm also using nVidia prop. drivers, but this issue probably has more to do with wine/unity

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I don't have answer for why Spotify is slow under Wine, but you should consider using the native Linux client.

You can find it at http://www.spotify.com/se/download/previews/

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When using Wine on Ubuntu, you should not use Compiz or Mutter. This means that if you're using Unity, you should switch to Unity 2D and if you're using Gnome Shell, then you should switch to Gnome Panel (Gnome Fallback). I can't say for sure that this is what's causing your particular issues, but it does cause many, so I would definitely try it.

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  • If that is so for you, fine, but it's not so for everyone else. I use Wine with Compiz just fine. Only with games (regardless of with Wine or not) do I sometimes disable Compiz or Mutter or Kwin for that matter - boost performance or avoid resolution changes affecting the system later.
    – RolandiXor
    Feb 11, 2012 at 18:16
  • This is the official recommendation from wine.org. I have tested this on at least 30 different machines, and all show radical decline in wine efficiency when using Compiz or Mutter. It shouldn't be dramatical to the extent that you can't use normal desktop apps, but for games the difference between Metacity and Compiz/Mutter is dramatic. I don't know how Spotify draws its GUI. But if the GUI is slow, the very first thing I would always do, is to see if a non-compositor will improve things. Because it is the most likely culprit. This is not just something I think or feel.
    – Jo-Erlend Schinstad
    Feb 11, 2012 at 18:24
  • you do know that much of the info on wine.org is terribly outdated though?
    – RolandiXor
    Feb 11, 2012 at 18:27
  • Can you explain why Compiz and Mutter no longer affects Wine? It was certainly so in December, but I haven't used it since then. If you reduce something by 50%, then what you have left may be quite sufficient. It depends on how much you had to begin with. We don't know this about the OPs computer. You may feel as if wine works well with Compiz enabled, because you don't notice the performance hit. That doesn't mean the hit isn't there. All we know, is that wine in this case is very slow. One possible reason is wine. It is easily tested. Provide other recommendations if you have them.
    – Jo-Erlend Schinstad
    Feb 11, 2012 at 18:39
  • Honestly, since it's a Saturday and I want to relax, I'm going to leave this alone. I have not had the slow down problem with Wine, and know of no one else who has (except with games, which as I said, happens with many 3D games on any window manager that utilizes OpenGL for compositing).
    – RolandiXor
    Feb 11, 2012 at 18:44

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