Installing Severn on a Sony 505VE laptop - broken?

[Alan]

On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 14:25, Alan Cox wrote:
> > I have noticed a problem with performance. Linux used to have a reputation 
> > for performance; I can see this clearly in services like DHCP, DNS, and 
> > untill recently apache (Win2003 IIS is faster). But on the desktop I have 
> > experienced the oposite:
> 
> Apache has never been a speed demon - its very flexible instead. For speed
> try thttpd  - especially on a low end box. I've seen thttpd on a Macintosh II
> survive a slashdotting

Also remember that Apache 1.3.x is a different code base than Apache
2.0.x.  I am not quite comfortable with 2.0.x yet.  Maybe I just need to
work with it more.

> > 1. Bootup time: 	Windows 98, ME and XP boot up in almost half the 
> > time. Timings are more or less the same with Win2000. 
> 
> Yep

There is also a lot more that goes on a a boot of Linux.  There tend to
be more services started than in a Windows box.  (At least on mine.)

> > on a dell Lattitude, RAM:128, CPU:333MHZ, Disk:10GIG;
> > RHL is usable but verry slow (even after running hdparm). The end 
> 
> Gnome/KDE is a bit fat - 2.4 is better but I'm not happy with its 128Mb
> performance. If you want to get involved in profiling and tuning that
> the gnome project itself is the best base point. 2.4 is faster than 2.2
> for me and there are people benching.

On the Dell, check to see if X is eating up lots of CPU.  If it is, turn
off acpi.  (On the kernel load line in /etc/grub.conf add "acpi=off".) 
If the machine does not do acpi and the acpi support is active, X tends
to eat a great deal of CPU and things are SLLLOOOWWW.  I had to do that
on my Sony Vaio 505VE.

> Alternatively swap Gnome/KDE/Evolution for Xfce/ROX/Sylpheed and your
> desktop will suddenely be blindly fast but a little less featured.
> I use the Xfce/ROX/Sylpheed setup on 32 and 64Mb boxes and its fast
> on both.
> 
> > So the question follows, ofcource: hos do you report this type of 
> > information and is any one at RH working on performance? 
> 
> The oprofile tools will let you get a lot of info, vmstat 5 will let
> you watch the rate of disk I/O and tools like strace can identify delays
> and syscall waits. Its a kind of forensics at time but a lot of fun

I need to do that for some other bugs.  (On Redhat 9 I have seen
XScreensaver go into an infinite timer wait loop.  I have been trying to
track down why.)

-- 
Alan <alan at clueserver.org>