Dave Chinner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I think anyone reporting a interactivity problem also needs to > indicate what their filesystem is, what mount paramters they are > using, what their storage config is, whether barriers are active or > not, what elevator they are using, whether one or more of the > applications are issuing fsync() or sync() calls, and so on. Good idea. The filesystems are all ext3 with default mount parameters. The dmesgs say that the filesystems are mounted in ordered data mode and that barriers are not enabled. mount says: /dev/sda2 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0) /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,commit=0) /dev/sda3 on /home type ext3 (rw,commit=0) > storage config Do you mean the partition sizes? Here's that: $ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 72G 52G 17G 77% / tmpfs 755M 4.0K 755M 1% /lib/init/rw udev 750M 212K 750M 1% /dev tmpfs 755M 0 755M 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 274M 117M 143M 45% /boot /dev/sda3 74G 37G 33G 53% /home > elevator CFQ > sync-related calls I don't have a test from the time I ran rsync (but I'll check that tonight), but I traced the currently running emacs and iceweasel (a.k.a. firefox) with "strace -p PID 2>&1 | grep sync". That didn't turn up any sync-related calls. (I checked the firefox because I seem to remember that it used to do fsync absurdly often, but I also seem to remember that the outcry made them stop.) -Sanjoy `Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.' --African Proverb -- 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>