From: "Klaasjan Brand" <kjb@xxxxxx> > Hi, > > I tried to 2.4.20-13.9 kernel after hearing about performance > improvements for interactive use. On both systems I use regularly I > experienced some "stutter" when loading big applications (evolution, > mozilla) which look to me like they're caused by heavy disk activity. > > On my work system, a P4/i850 system the new kernel seems to perform a > lot better. Random "pauses" don't occur anymore. > My home system (P3/i815) is not as happy with it though; it still > becomes unusable when starting a heavy application. Maybe mouse > "stutter" can be explained by the usb mouse (P4 has got PS/2), but it > still seems to me the disk load is killing interactive performance. > > Anyone care to share some experiences? Nothing scientific here either but, I have two boxes I use a lot both running RH9. One is a Dell PowerEdge 650C P4 2.4 with 512 ECC and two IDE drives. The other is a home made Athlon XP 1600 with 1G DDR and one WD JB120 Drive. On the athlon it works great, I have had no problems and it does seem snappier, less stutter etc. On the Dell, It didn't seem any better or worse until I realized that DMA had been disabled on one of the drives. I re-enabled it manually and now things seem to be smoother. Perhaps the new kernel is setting different hdparm settings than the old one, have you checked?
