We are having some repeated problems with our LTSP installation. We run a Suse 8.1 based server, running icewm, openoffice 1.0.2 and Galeon for a web browser. The server spec is 1Gb ram, Athlon 1.6Ghz ide hard disk. and has anywhere from 1 to 20 clients. We are seeing frequent freeze ups while browsing the web, leaving stuck processes that need be killed. Other than nightly reboots, are there any other low processor load browsers that might be better than Galeon or do we just need a newer version? I have been using Mozilla Firebird on our win32 boxes, does this work well with ltsp? What are others experiences? Getting some flack from our SMT about removing the linux solution, which is not a good sign. Thanks Rob Keeling Network Manager Queen Elizabeth`s Grammar School -- I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. - Douglas Adams
--- Rob Keeling <rob@rjkeeling.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
We are seeing frequent freeze ups while browsing the web, leaving stuck processes that need be killed.
An indication as to their state when the freeze is of importance here: ps aux | awk '/Z/ {print $11}' ps aux | awk '/D/ {print $11}' This would help us determine if the process is merely zombing is really is being killed. Galeon isn't segfaulting is it?
Other than nightly reboots, are there any other low processor load browsers that might be better than Galeon or do we just need a newer version?
Galeon is far too over-loated, relying on the core set of GNOME libs to get the damn thing going. Mozilla-firebird is quite good, I would go with that. There is also dillo <www.dillo.org>, but that is not quite as featureful.
I have been using Mozilla Firebird on our win32 boxes, does this work well with ltsp?
I think you're confusing the issue. LTSP provides a means to an end. Having your web-browser freeze like that is not really related, IMO. -- Thomas Adam ===== "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net "TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net "<shrug> We'll just save up your sins, Thomas, and punish you for all of them at once when you get better. The experience will probably kill you. :)" -- Benjamin A. Okopnik (Linux Gazette Technical Editor) ________________________________________________________________________ BT Yahoo! Broadband - Free modem offer, sign up online today and save £80 http://btyahoo.yahoo.co.uk
On Tuesday 27 January 2004 19:10, Thomas Adam wrote:
Galeon is far too over-loated, relying on the core set of GNOME libs to get the damn thing going. Mozilla-firebird is quite good, I would go with that.
I haven't tried Firebird on LTSP but I suspect it may perform worse than Galeon. My experience is with Mozilla, but the reasoning is the same: For Mozilla and Firebird, the user interface uses XUL, whereas Galeon uses 'real code' (even if it is bloated). Consequently, when multiple instances of Galeon are running, all this code is shared, whereas with Mozilla and Firebird, the user interface code is interpreted separately, and stored separately in memory for each instance. This made a dramatic difference in the memory demands on the server for us . Sorry I can't remember how much, but it was an extremely significant improvement when we moved from Mozilla to Galeon. Cheers -- Phil Driscoll
On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 19:30, Phil Driscoll wrote:
On Tuesday 27 January 2004 19:10, Thomas Adam wrote:
Galeon is far too over-loated, relying on the core set of GNOME libs to get the damn thing going. Mozilla-firebird is quite good, I would go with that.
I haven't tried Firebird on LTSP but I suspect it may perform worse than Galeon. My experience is with Mozilla, but the reasoning is the same: For Mozilla and Firebird, the user interface uses XUL, whereas Galeon uses 'real code' (even if it is bloated). Consequently, when multiple instances of Galeon are running, all this code is shared, whereas with Mozilla and Firebird, the user interface code is interpreted separately, and stored separately in memory for each instance. This made a dramatic difference in the memory demands on the server for us .
This is interesting. Have you or has anyone else tried Epiphany? It was started also by Marco Pesenti Gritti (apologies if I spelled that incorrectly) after he moved on from Galeon, and seems lighter and faster than Galeon, whilst not being based on the XML User Interface, so should be able to take advantage of code sharing, like Galeon.
Sorry I can't remember how much, but it was an extremely significant improvement when we moved from Mozilla to Galeon.
Cheers -- Phil Driscoll
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Adam" <thomas_adam16@yahoo.com> To: "Rob Keeling" <rob@rjkeeling.freeserve.co.uk> Cc: <suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 7:10 PM Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Any ideas on LTSP?
--- Rob Keeling <rob@rjkeeling.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
We are seeing frequent freeze ups while browsing the web, leaving stuck processes that need be killed.
An indication as to their state when the freeze is of importance here:
ps aux | awk '/Z/ {print $11}' ps aux | awk '/D/ {print $11}'
suse-6thltsp:~ # ps aux | awk '/Z/ {print $11}' COMMAND awk suse-6thltsp:~ # ps aux | awk '/D/ {print $11}' COMMAND /usr/lib/samba/classic/nmbd /usr/lib/samba/classic/smbd /usr/sbin/squid (squid) /sbin/mount.smbfs /sbin/mount.smbfs /sbin/mount.smbfs /sbin/mount.smbfs /sbin/mount.smbfs /sbin/mount.smbfs /sbin/mount.smbfs suse-6thltsp:~ #
This would help us determine if the process is merely zombing is really is being killed. Galeon isn't segfaulting is it?
Top Lists 7:29pm up 1 day, 1:51, 1 user, load average: 1.14, 1.08, 1.01 83 processes: 80 sleeping, 3 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped CPU states: 99.8% user, 0.1% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% idle Mem: 999988K av, 985596K used, 14392K free, 0K shrd, 37864K buff Swap: 514040K av, 0K used, 514040K free 719744K cached PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND 17609 8PotterC 25 0 25952 25M 16568 R 99.8 2.5 315:20 galeon-bin 19646 root 15 0 1060 1060 820 R 0.1 0.1 0:00 top 1 root 15 0 240 240 204 S 0.0 0.0 0:04 init 2 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 keventd 3 root 34 19 0 0 0 SWN 0.0 0.0 0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0 4 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kswapd 5 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 bdflush 6 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kupdated 7 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kinoded 9 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 mdrecoveryd 73 root 0 -20 0 0 0 SW< 0.0 0.0 0:00 lvm-mpd 343 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 eth0 389 root
Other than nightly reboots, are there any other low processor load browsers that might be better than Galeon or do we just need a newer version?
Not sure what the ps aux | awk '/Z/ {print $11}' ps aux | awk '/D/ {print $11}' Mean, but this is pointing to a possible samba problem? What do you think? Thanks Rob Keeling Network Manager Queen Elizabeth`s Grammar School
On Tuesday 27 January 2004 19:00, Rob Keeling wrote:
We are having some repeated problems with our LTSP installation.
We run a Suse 8.1 based server, running icewm, openoffice 1.0.2 and Galeon for a web browser. You should upgrade to SuSE 9 since just about everything is loads better than it was in 8.1.
The server spec is 1Gb ram, Athlon 1.6Ghz ide hard disk. I would expect this to start getting unpleasant at around 10 clients. Once the machine starts hitting swap heavily and grinding to a near halt, you'll get all sorts of unpredictable problems - many of them caused by impatient users clicking and clicking and clicking :) I think your options are to either add a second server, or get a much bigger and faster one. The first option will be loads cheaper. You can load balance in a rudimentary way by sticking mac addresses in the dhcp.conf files. http://theseus.sourceforge.net/projects/ets/overview.html has documentation on a more sophisticated load balancing setup.
Cheers -- Phil Driscoll
participants (4)
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Phil Driscoll -
Rob Keeling -
Seb James -
Thomas Adam