fedora-list Digest, Vol 10, Issue 167

[Kshitij Velhal]

Thanks Ed for the prompt reply. Please check the additional comments.

> On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 12:32:36PM -0800, Kshitij Velhal wrote:
> > I have a m/c with following config
> > Intel Celeron 500MHz
> > 450 MB RAM
> > ATI 3D Rage Pro 1x/2x AGP
> > Microtek 17" Monitor
> >
> > I am running FC2 as downloaded from Fedora site. No kernel updates done yet.
> 
> Step 1 - upgrade everything.  There have been many performance
> improvements made in the last year.
> 
I would rather like to pin-point the exact problem and if necessary
upgrade/patch only the concerned programs. Reason being I am short on
disk space and don't want to install stuff (that might have to be
installed to satisfy dependencies) which I may not use.

> > The system runs fine except the performance in GUI mode is very very poor.
> > In command line mode and through remote SSH logins performance is
> > relatively much better.
> >
> > I have installed both GNOME and KDE. KDE is the defualt environment
> > and I generaly login as root.
> 
> Step 2 - don't log in as root.  This is not Windows and you will
> eventually shoot yourself in the foot.
> 
I think I am fine with root login as I am not messing around the
system configs. I may change to normal user. But I don't think that
will make any difference with my problem. Anyways I know its good idea
to use system as normal user.

> Step 3 - performance is "very very poor" is not a descriptive problem.
> What *exactly* is slow?  Is the disk thrashing trying to launch
> applications?  Wich applications?  Is the cpu going to 100% for an
> extended period of time?  Do applications launch slowly but then run
> normally?
> 

By term very very poor I mean:
1. Can't switch between applications using Alt+Tab instantly (min 1 sec)
2. Minimize/Maximize of window takes time > 3 sec
3. If more than 3-4 applications are running it takes >5 sec to show K
Menu after clicking panel button
4. GNumeric Save takes 2-3 sec and more as you use it for sometime
5. In Openoffice apps opening Presentations, Docs, Spreadsheets takes
time 2-3 sec
6. If system is running for long time, VLC, Mplayer fail to show video
only audio is available. Need to restart XServer or sometimes reboot
to resolve this issue.
. . .

 I do see a large Hard disk activity (HDD LED) while doing any of
these tasks. But CPU usage never goes to 100% and I don't think
anything hangs... Just the response is very slow.

> > The memory usage is always around 400MB. And I don't think there are
> > may services running in background.
> 
> Most people unfortunately read this wrong and telling us you're at 400MB
> unfortunately doesn't mean much since we don't know if you're reading it
> right.  Buffers and cached memory should be treated as "free" memory.
> 

Memory usage I mentioned was from output of top command
---Sample output---
Tasks:  76 total,   2 running,  74 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  5.2% us,  4.9% sy,  1.0% ni, 88.9% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:    452204k total,   441960k used,    10244k free,    31304k buffers
Swap:   473876k total,      912k used,   472964k free,   238196k cached

I am worried about physical memory usage.
I know that SWAP should be double the Physical RAM but I don't have
space on my HDD. 448MB is I think decent amount of RAM for my work
habits.

> > ON same machine I have Windows 2000 (dual boot) and it works pretty
> > well. For normal operations memory usage is around just 100-150MB.
> 
> That could simply be because Windows reports it differently.
> 
> --
> Ed Wilts, RHCE
> Mounds View, MN, USA
> mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
> Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
>