Hi Aidar, On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 12:09:36PM +0600, Aidar Kultayev wrote: > QUOTE:*** > And yes, we'd very much like to fix such slowdowns via heuristics as > well (detecting large sequential IO and not letting it poison the > existing cache), so good bugreports and reproducing testcases sent to > linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and people willing to try out > experimental kernel patches would definitely be welcome. > > Thanks, > > Ingo > > *** http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/10/23/1828251/The-State-of-Linux-IO-Scheduling-For-the-Desktop#commentlisting > > I'll be rather quick & to the point here. > > I get & run stable kernels the same day they appear on kernel.org in > hope to get away from these annoying, ignored, neglected slowdowns. > > .config attached - I have Lenovo ThinkPad T400, Core2Duo T9400, 4Gb > DDR2, w/integrated GM45 - xf86-video-intel, iwlagn for the intel 5300 > wifi, CFS, ext2 for > swap partition - 4Gb, ext3 for boot, ext4 - 400Gb for everything else. If possible I'd suggest to turn off the swap and check if it helps. Some people reports(*) desktop responsiveness problems that can be poor-man-fixed by disabling swap. (*) https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12309 > All the hardware I have runs linux natively. > No kernel helped me from the days of 2.6.28.x upto 2.6.36. The dubbed > slowdown fixes never worked for me. There are multiple causes of slowdown. 2.6.36 includes some easy fix. The swap problem is (maybe partly) root caused(**), however will need a rather complex and intrusive patch to fix. (**) http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-fsdevel/msg35397.html Thanks, Fengguang > The kernel config choices are rather typical : NO_HZ, I don't go crazy for > 1000Hz and use 100 or 250Hz and voluntary preemption. > Regarding the userland: > Love choices, hence nothing but Gentoo + KDE4. Multilib. Some relevant > info here: > > ============================================================================================== > emerge --info > Portage 2.1.8.3 (default/linux/amd64/10.0/desktop, gcc-4.5.1, > glibc-2.11.2-r0, 2.6.36 x86_64) > ================================================================= > System uname: Linux-2.6.36-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_Duo_CPU_T9400_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Timestamp of tree: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:30:01 +0000 > app-shells/bash: Â Â 4.1_p7 > dev-java/java-config: 2.1.11 > dev-lang/python: Â Â 2.5.4-r4, 2.6.5-r3, 3.1.2-r4 > dev-util/cmake: Â Â Â2.8.1-r2 > sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.13 > sys-apps/sandbox: Â Â2.3-r1 > sys-devel/autoconf: Â2.13, 2.65-r1 > sys-devel/automake: Â1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r4, 1.9.6-r3, 1.10.3, 1.11.1 > sys-devel/binutils: Â2.20.1-r1 > sys-devel/gcc: Â Â Â 4.5.1 > sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 > sys-devel/libtool: Â 2.2.10 > sys-devel/make: Â Â Â3.81-r2 > CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" > CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=native" > CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" > CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/lib/hsqldb" > CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d > /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf > /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ > /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d > /etc/terminfo" > CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=native" > ============================================================================================== > > Now, I know, Ingo said he wants : "good bugreports and reproducing > testcases" and my testcase is very real life and rather replicates my > typical use of computer these days: > > - VirtualBox running XP only to look at some 2007 ppts ( the Ooo3 > doens't cut it ) > - JuK ( or VLC ) KDE's music player - some music in the background > - Chromium browser, with bunch of tabs with J2EE/J2SE javadocs, eats > out some significant swap space > - bash terminals > - ktorrent > - PDFs opened in okular, Adobe reader > - sync'ing portage tree & emerging new ebuilds ( usually with gentoo ) > - Netbeans, Eclipse, apache, vsftd, sshd, tomcat and the whole 9 yards. > > How do I notice slowdowns ? The JuK lags so badly that it can't play > any music, the mouse pointer freezes, kwin effects freeze for few > seconds. > How can I make it much worse ? I can try & run disk clean up under XP, > that is running in VBox, with folder compression. On top of it if I > start copying big files in linux ( 700MB avis, etc ), GUI effects > freeze, mouse pointer freezes for few seconds. > > And this is on 2.6.36 that is supposed to cure these "features". From > this perspective, 2.6.36 is no better than any previous stable kernel > I've tried. Probably as bad with regards to IO issues. > > > Find attached screenshot ( latencytop_n_powertop.png ) which depicts > artifacts where the window manager froze at the time I was trying to > see a tab in Konsole where the powertop was running. > > At the time, in the other tabs of the Konsole the following was running : > .dd if=/dev/zero of=test.10g bs=1M count=10000;rm test.10g > .cp /home/ak/1.distr/Linux/openSUSE-11.2-DVD-x86_64.iso > /home/lameruser/;rm /home/lameruser/openSUSE-11.2-DVD-x86_64.iso; > .dd if=/dev/zero of=test.10g bs=1M count=10000;rm test.10g > .cp /home/ak/funeral.avi /home/ak/0.junk/;rm /home/ak/0.junk/funeral.avi > .the XP under VBox was compacting its old files. > > the iso is about 4Gb, the avi is about 700Mb > > I do follow the problem here : > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12309 > > This is a monumental failure for kernel development project andÂFLOSS > in general. > Poor management,Âno leadership/championship,Âno responsibility, neglect -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxx For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom policy in Canada: sign http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/ Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>