[K12OSN] Re: tuxpaint and others running slow

[Dan Kegel]

On 10/25/05, Justin Paulsen <paulsenj at frederic.k12.wi.us> wrote:
> top - 10:03:37 up 3 days, 21:42,  2 users,  load average: 0.51, 0.41, 0.47
> Tasks: 229 total,   1 running, 228 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
> Cpu(s): 11.6% us,  6.3% sy,  0.0% ni, 79.4% id,  0.0% wa,  2.7% hi,  0.0% si
> Mem:   4091532k total,  1381188k used,  2710344k free,   134052k buffers
> Swap:  2031608k total,        0k used,  2031608k free,   756124k cached
>
>   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
>  6724 elem_14   11  -4 19480 5984 2336 S  1.7  0.1   0:09.72 tuxtype2
>  6688 elem_03   11  -4 19392 5908 2336 S  1.3  0.1   0:13.09 tuxtype2
>  6706 elem_09   11  -4 19428 5884 2332 S  1.3  0.1   0:12.02 tuxtype2
>  6712 elem_10   11  -4 19428 5884 2332 S  1.3  0.1   0:11.27 tuxtype2
>... [about 20 tuxtype2's running]

OK!  Looks like you're not swapping, and you're not hurting
overall for CPU time.

> [root at Ayumi ~]# ping -c 100 192.168.0.254
> PING 192.168.0.254 (192.168.0.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
> 64 bytes from 192.168.0.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.039 ms
> ... [No packet loss in 10 tries, very fast]

And you don't have very high packet loss (though I can't tell
for sure since you didn't include the statistics at the end)

> I heard about a ULIMIT setting that caps memory or cpu usage, could
> dissabling it help with this problem?  And if so where is this setting?

That probably won't help.  It just kills the app if you go too high.
(See 'man ulimit'.)

> I will try tweaking verynice and let you know what it does, but I must
> say I don't have a lot of hope for it.  Still it is worth a try.

I'd say there's a very good chance that it will help!
Your apps appear to be starved for CPU for no good reason.
Let us know if shutting verynice down helps.

Last question: what kernel are you running?
- Dan