Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3354 mails)
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Re: [opensuse] Beagle Configuration
- From: Adam Tauno Williams <adamtaunowilliams@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 16:59:01 -0400
- Message-id: <1175374741.4534.13.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > > though I think there should be options to control WHEN the
> > > > initial and on-going indexing occurs. Basically, we should easily
> > > > be able to get to menus that let us control all aspects of both
> > > > services.
> > > I second that!
> > > Although beagled-helper runs with nice of 15 (it is at zero now,
> > > but I remember it was 15 when it was working) it still competes
> > > with other resources. And on a laptop, you want to have complete
> > > control because of the power usage too and maybe set the indexing
> > > when the laptop is plugged in, in addition to a particular time
> > There is an option in the Beagle preferences to turn off all indexing
> > when on battery power. I believe this is in the version that shipped
> > with 10.2.
> Oh, I see that now. So, this aspect should be covered.
> But the default seems to be to keep search while on battery (at least on
> my desktop; I don't have my laptop with me now) and I would definitely
> suggest this to be reverted, because the hard disk is a big battery
> consumer.
Since Beagle will be indexing only files that just changed, my
experience is that with sufficient RAM the I/O load increase cause by
Beagle is pretty trivial. If your system is starved for RAM then of
course if will grind the drives.
A previous message in this thread mentions two machines each with 256Mb!
Of course Zen and/or Beagle thrash such a machine. Maybe the sanity of
systems with 900MHz/1GHz processors having only 256Mb should be what is
in question.
The openSUSE manual says: "At least 256 MB; 512 MB recommended" If
someone is at the "least" end of the scale they should expect
concomitant performance.
> > Maybe we can add additional control to this. What did you guys have
> > in mind?
> OK, here are my thoughts.
> The instantaneous search feature looks cool, but has very little
> practical relevance IMHO.
> I think I'll never really need to search the e-mails, or the IM chats or
> documents I'm writing right now. If I want to search a new document I
> just obtained, usually the built-in search in the document viewer is
> good enough. The only case that comes to mind, when I would need Beagle
> to search something right away, is the case of data mining many new
> docs, such as the 1600 PDFs I mentioned before. Beagle becomes most
> useful when I am trying to find old documents or messages, that I don't
> know where I have placed.
I think this depends on how you use Beagle. Beagle is most useful if it
is the first place you go rather than trying to browse to a file. If I
start downloading documents in a web browser, Beagle knows about them,
and their contents, right away.
> For these cases, it would be enough for the
> indexer to run in preset times as a cron job.
You'd have to create a cron-job for each user; which would mean the
user would have to be in the cron/at group, etc... And for laptop users
where the system is erratically booted it would be problematic.
> In addition, right-clicking in the taskbar icon (Kerry in my case)
> should offer the option to start and to stop the deamon immediately.
I agree here.
> This would allow me to have those 1600 new files indexed right away in
> that one case I needed it, while the usual indexing happens when I
> sleep.
> I think these 2 additional features would satisfy the increased control
> that Peter mentioned and I supported above.
I don't think there is any real serious problem desperate to be solved.
It seems to be working very well with minimal impact on systems with
sufficient resources.
> I don't see the size of TextCache as a problem on my desktop, but
> definitely on the laptop, where disk space is tight. May I suggest
> another option in the settings, where I can choose not to keep a
> TextCache (with a nice help info explaining to the user its
> consequences).
Agree.
> Couldn't it also be mildly compressed, so that
> decompression time is negligible, but space requirements are improved?
> Another thing that could definitely be cleaned up is the Log. I have
> logs of a week or so (oldest is March 24) and the Log directory is
> 250MB big!
My .beagle/Log is a scant 8Mb on my Laptop which I use all the time.
--
--
Adam Tauno Williams
Network & Systems Administrator
Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com
Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > initial and on-going indexing occurs. Basically, we should easily
> > > > be able to get to menus that let us control all aspects of both
> > > > services.
> > > I second that!
> > > Although beagled-helper runs with nice of 15 (it is at zero now,
> > > but I remember it was 15 when it was working) it still competes
> > > with other resources. And on a laptop, you want to have complete
> > > control because of the power usage too and maybe set the indexing
> > > when the laptop is plugged in, in addition to a particular time
> > There is an option in the Beagle preferences to turn off all indexing
> > when on battery power. I believe this is in the version that shipped
> > with 10.2.
> Oh, I see that now. So, this aspect should be covered.
> But the default seems to be to keep search while on battery (at least on
> my desktop; I don't have my laptop with me now) and I would definitely
> suggest this to be reverted, because the hard disk is a big battery
> consumer.
Since Beagle will be indexing only files that just changed, my
experience is that with sufficient RAM the I/O load increase cause by
Beagle is pretty trivial. If your system is starved for RAM then of
course if will grind the drives.
A previous message in this thread mentions two machines each with 256Mb!
Of course Zen and/or Beagle thrash such a machine. Maybe the sanity of
systems with 900MHz/1GHz processors having only 256Mb should be what is
in question.
The openSUSE manual says: "At least 256 MB; 512 MB recommended" If
someone is at the "least" end of the scale they should expect
concomitant performance.
> > Maybe we can add additional control to this. What did you guys have
> > in mind?
> OK, here are my thoughts.
> The instantaneous search feature looks cool, but has very little
> practical relevance IMHO.
> I think I'll never really need to search the e-mails, or the IM chats or
> documents I'm writing right now. If I want to search a new document I
> just obtained, usually the built-in search in the document viewer is
> good enough. The only case that comes to mind, when I would need Beagle
> to search something right away, is the case of data mining many new
> docs, such as the 1600 PDFs I mentioned before. Beagle becomes most
> useful when I am trying to find old documents or messages, that I don't
> know where I have placed.
I think this depends on how you use Beagle. Beagle is most useful if it
is the first place you go rather than trying to browse to a file. If I
start downloading documents in a web browser, Beagle knows about them,
and their contents, right away.
> For these cases, it would be enough for the
> indexer to run in preset times as a cron job.
You'd have to create a cron-job for each user; which would mean the
user would have to be in the cron/at group, etc... And for laptop users
where the system is erratically booted it would be problematic.
> In addition, right-clicking in the taskbar icon (Kerry in my case)
> should offer the option to start and to stop the deamon immediately.
I agree here.
> This would allow me to have those 1600 new files indexed right away in
> that one case I needed it, while the usual indexing happens when I
> sleep.
> I think these 2 additional features would satisfy the increased control
> that Peter mentioned and I supported above.
I don't think there is any real serious problem desperate to be solved.
It seems to be working very well with minimal impact on systems with
sufficient resources.
> I don't see the size of TextCache as a problem on my desktop, but
> definitely on the laptop, where disk space is tight. May I suggest
> another option in the settings, where I can choose not to keep a
> TextCache (with a nice help info explaining to the user its
> consequences).
Agree.
> Couldn't it also be mildly compressed, so that
> decompression time is negligible, but space requirements are improved?
> Another thing that could definitely be cleaned up is the Log. I have
> logs of a week or so (oldest is March 24) and the Log directory is
> 250MB big!
My .beagle/Log is a scant 8Mb on my Laptop which I use all the time.
--
--
Adam Tauno Williams
Network & Systems Administrator
Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com
Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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