[SLE] suggest me for upgrade options?
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list if there is one. The X terminal server has 8 users, load average is #uptime 3:08pm up 5:56, 14 users, load average: 3.65, 3.34, 2.73 (14 users because gnome-terminal users are counted too) CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz => OS is SuSE 10.1 Harddisk is 40GB 7200RPM with 2MB cache, 1GB DDR memory is installed, averagely 758MB swap space is used. Current biggest problem is the "stun" effect, that is if one user use Firefox to load a big web page (example: a purely text web page of 500KB), all users consoles are frozen, that is, click have no effect, keyboard do not respond, everything looks as if the machine is dead, the X terminals come back alive again when the 500KB webpage is loaded. The purpose of upgrade is to remove stun effect (that's my way of calling it) and to speed up application launch to around 250% faster, because the two are where complaints from. Users complain their X terminal sometimes stun for 10 seconds, totally unexpected. Further launching jedit takes 20 to 40 seconds, they want it loaded in 10 seconds. What upgrade option may solve the two problems? Available options include: 1. add more memory, add memory to 2GB; 2. replace 7200RPM/2MB cache IDE harddisk to 10000RPM SATA harddisk with more cache; Replacement to SCSI is not possible because PCI slots are very limited and happen to have used up. The motherboard don't have native SCSI support. 3. replace the CPU to better one; 4. replace motherboard and CPU, possibly dual-cpu SMP mother board or dual-core CPU. This may evolve replacing memory bank too, as new motherboard uses DDR2 memory. 5. Buy a new machine. The key point is to remove 'stun' effect and launch application faster with minimum budget. Option 5 can be taken only if all 1-4 cannot solve the two problems. The users mostly do the following: 1. browse the web 2. word processing and prepare presentations 3. edit some files 4. chat What do you think is the most feasible approach? BTW, the reason for 'stun' effect I cannot understand. Why the machine 'stun'? When a user load a 500KB webpage, she is expecting to way a bit longer, she should wait for other users, she should get no more then 60% CPU resource and keep other people's console still usable but only slower. I am afraid the system resource is not assigned in a fair way. I remember a long time ago I was sharing a Sparc desktop (using gnome) with several other people and we never had 'stun' problem, is sparc platform better on sharing? -- 锐业软服（国内业务） http://www.realss.cn Real SoftService http://www.realss.com 销售咨询(Sales Department): 0086 592 20 99987 (Chinese, German, English) 国际业务(International Sales): 0086 10 8460 6011 (German and English) 联系：厦门大学科技园，嘉庚二号楼6楼 邮政：厦门大学2312号信箱（邮编361005）
在 2006-07-26三的 15:34 +0800，张韡武写道：
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list if there is one.
The X terminal server has 8 users, load average is #uptime 3:08pm up 5:56, 14 users, load average: 3.65, 3.34, 2.73 (14 users because gnome-terminal users are counted too)
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz => OS is SuSE 10.1 Harddisk is 40GB 7200RPM with 2MB cache, 1GB DDR memory is installed, averagely 758MB swap space is used.
Current biggest problem is the "stun" effect, that is if one user use Firefox to load a big web page (example: a purely text web page of 500KB), all users consoles are frozen, that is, click have no effect, keyboard do not respond, everything looks as if the machine is dead, the X terminals come back alive again when the 500KB webpage is loaded.
The purpose of upgrade is to remove stun effect (that's my way of calling it) and to speed up application launch to around 250% faster, because the two are where complaints from. Users complain their X terminal sometimes stun for 10 seconds, totally unexpected. Further launching jedit takes 20 to 40 seconds, they want it loaded in 10 seconds.
What upgrade option may solve the two problems? Available options include: 1. add more memory, add memory to 2GB; 2. replace 7200RPM/2MB cache IDE harddisk to 10000RPM SATA harddisk with more cache; Replacement to SCSI is not possible because PCI slots are very limited and happen to have used up. The motherboard don't have native SCSI support. 3. replace the CPU to better one; 4. replace motherboard and CPU, possibly dual-cpu SMP mother board or dual-core CPU. This may evolve replacing memory bank too, as new motherboard uses DDR2 memory. 5. Buy a new machine.
The key point is to remove 'stun' effect and launch application faster with minimum budget. Option 5 can be taken only if all 1-4 cannot solve the two problems.
The users mostly do the following: 1. browse the web 2. word processing and prepare presentations 3. edit some files 4. chat
What do you think is the most feasible approach?
BTW, the reason for 'stun' effect I cannot understand. Why the machine 'stun'? When a user load a 500KB webpage, she is expecting to way a bit longer, she should wait for other users, she should get no more then 60% CPU resource and keep other people's console still usable but only slower. I am afraid the system resource is not assigned in a fair way. I remember a long time ago I was sharing a Sparc desktop (using gnome) with several other people and we never had 'stun' problem, is sparc platform better on sharing?
Oooo, I recall that the sparc workstation I shared with other people long time ago is a dual-CPU workstation! This sounds a bell, perhaps if I simply migrate to dual-core or dual-CPU solution would remove 'stun' effect because there is another CPU for rest of the people to share? It's very rare that two user happen to open a 500KB web page at one time, freezing up all the rest.
张韡武 wrote:
在 2006-07-26三的 15:34 +0800，张韡武写道：
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list if there is one.
The X terminal server has 8 users, load average is #uptime 3:08pm up 5:56, 14 users, load average: 3.65, 3.34, 2.73 (14 users because gnome-terminal users are counted too)
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz => OS is SuSE 10.1 Harddisk is 40GB 7200RPM with 2MB cache, 1GB DDR memory is installed, averagely 758MB swap space is used.
Current biggest problem is the "stun" effect, that is if one user use Firefox to load a big web page (example: a purely text web page of 500KB), all users consoles are frozen, that is, click have no effect, keyboard do not respond, everything looks as if the machine is dead, the X terminals come back alive again when the 500KB webpage is loaded.
The purpose of upgrade is to remove stun effect (that's my way of calling it) and to speed up application launch to around 250% faster, because the two are where complaints from. Users complain their X terminal sometimes stun for 10 seconds, totally unexpected. Further launching jedit takes 20 to 40 seconds, they want it loaded in 10 seconds.
At least a Hyper-Threading CPU, but better Dual Core CPU or real dual CPU will solve most of your terminal freezing. I am not an expert on linux tuning, but it should be possible to configure max cpu time and priority for users in /etc/security/limits.conf. This must be enabled in /etc/pam.d/ IMHO. Sandy -- List replies only please! Please address PMs to: news-reply2 (@) japantest (.) homelinux (.) com -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
在 2006-07-26三的 11:53 +0200，Sandy Drobic写道：
张韡武 wrote:
在 2006-07-26三的 15:34 +0800，张韡武写道：
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list if there is one.
The X terminal server has 8 users, load average is #uptime 3:08pm up 5:56, 14 users, load average: 3.65, 3.34, 2.73 (14 users because gnome-terminal users are counted too)
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz => OS is SuSE 10.1 Harddisk is 40GB 7200RPM with 2MB cache, 1GB DDR memory is installed, averagely 758MB swap space is used.
Current biggest problem is the "stun" effect, that is if one user use Firefox to load a big web page (example: a purely text web page of 500KB), all users consoles are frozen, that is, click have no effect, keyboard do not respond, everything looks as if the machine is dead, the X terminals come back alive again when the 500KB webpage is loaded.
The purpose of upgrade is to remove stun effect (that's my way of calling it) and to speed up application launch to around 250% faster, because the two are where complaints from. Users complain their X terminal sometimes stun for 10 seconds, totally unexpected. Further launching jedit takes 20 to 40 seconds, they want it loaded in 10 seconds.
At least a Hyper-Threading CPU, but better Dual Core CPU or real dual CPU will solve most of your terminal freezing.
I am not an expert on linux tuning, but it should be possible to configure max cpu time and priority for users in /etc/security/limits.conf. This must be enabled in /etc/pam.d/ IMHO.
Thank you a lot for the suggestions (especially the possibility to set limit for users). I decide to go hyper-threading way. An upgrade to Dual Core CPU or SMP both request replacing all of: * motherboard (current mother board do not support any of Dualcore CPU or SMP) * memory bank (old DDR cannot be used) * CPU (old CPU cannot be used because there are no known SMP board can use the 478-pin Celeron This is way too expensive for the budget, thus I decide tomorrow go to buy Pentium 4 3.2E hyper-threading CPU to replace the existing one, further expend memory to 2GB.
Sandy -- List replies only please! Please address PMs to: news-reply2 (@) japantest (.) homelinux (.) com
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
Zhang Weiwu wrote:
在 2006-07-26三的 11:53 +0200，Sandy Drobic写道：
张韡武 wrote:
在 2006-07-26三的 15:34 +0800，张韡武写道：
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list if there is one.
The X terminal server has 8 users, load average is #uptime 3:08pm up 5:56, 14 users, load average: 3.65, 3.34, 2.73 (14 users because gnome-terminal users are counted too)
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz => OS is SuSE 10.1 Harddisk is 40GB 7200RPM with 2MB cache, 1GB DDR memory is installed, averagely 758MB swap space is used.
Current biggest problem is the "stun" effect, that is if one user use Firefox to load a big web page (example: a purely text web page of 500KB), all users consoles are frozen, that is, click have no effect, keyboard do not respond, everything looks as if the machine is dead, the X terminals come back alive again when the 500KB webpage is loaded.
The purpose of upgrade is to remove stun effect (that's my way of calling it) and to speed up application launch to around 250% faster, because the two are where complaints from. Users complain their X terminal sometimes stun for 10 seconds, totally unexpected. Further launching jedit takes 20 to 40 seconds, they want it loaded in 10 seconds. At least a Hyper-Threading CPU, but better Dual Core CPU or real dual CPU will solve most of your terminal freezing.
I am not an expert on linux tuning, but it should be possible to configure max cpu time and priority for users in /etc/security/limits.conf. This must be enabled in /etc/pam.d/ IMHO.
Thank you a lot for the suggestions (especially the possibility to set limit for users). I decide to go hyper-threading way. An upgrade to Dual Core CPU or SMP both request replacing all of: * motherboard (current mother board do not support any of Dualcore CPU or SMP) * memory bank (old DDR cannot be used) * CPU (old CPU cannot be used because there are no known SMP board can use the 478-pin Celeron This is way too expensive for the budget, thus I decide tomorrow go to buy Pentium 4 3.2E hyper-threading CPU to replace the existing one, further expend memory to 2GB.
More RAM will seldom hurt, but if the budget is tight I would check first if lack of memory is really a problem. What does free say about available memory? Also, the price of dual core Athlon 64 X2 just dropped drastically, so that might be a very good alternative. Here in Europe hardware is cheap compared to wasted time by expensive employees, so we are encouraged to solve delays quickly. Sandy -- List replies only please! Please address PMs to: news-reply2 (@) japantest (.) homelinux (.) com -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
在 2006-07-26三的 16:48 +0200，Sandy Drobic写道：
Zhang Weiwu wrote:
在 2006-07-26三的 11:53 +0200，Sandy Drobic写道：
张韡武 wrote:
在 2006-07-26三的 15:34 +0800，张韡武写道：
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list if there is one.
The X terminal server has 8 users, load average is #uptime 3:08pm up 5:56, 14 users, load average: 3.65, 3.34, 2.73 (14 users because gnome-terminal users are counted too)
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz => OS is SuSE 10.1 Harddisk is 40GB 7200RPM with 2MB cache, 1GB DDR memory is installed, averagely 758MB swap space is used.
Current biggest problem is the "stun" effect, that is if one user use Firefox to load a big web page (example: a purely text web page of 500KB), all users consoles are frozen, that is, click have no effect, keyboard do not respond, everything looks as if the machine is dead, the X terminals come back alive again when the 500KB webpage is loaded.
The purpose of upgrade is to remove stun effect (that's my way of calling it) and to speed up application launch to around 250% faster, because the two are where complaints from. Users complain their X terminal sometimes stun for 10 seconds, totally unexpected. Further launching jedit takes 20 to 40 seconds, they want it loaded in 10 seconds. At least a Hyper-Threading CPU, but better Dual Core CPU or real dual CPU will solve most of your terminal freezing.
I am not an expert on linux tuning, but it should be possible to configure max cpu time and priority for users in /etc/security/limits.conf. This must be enabled in /etc/pam.d/ IMHO.
Thank you a lot for the suggestions (especially the possibility to set limit for users). I decide to go hyper-threading way. An upgrade to Dual Core CPU or SMP both request replacing all of: * motherboard (current mother board do not support any of Dualcore CPU or SMP) * memory bank (old DDR cannot be used) * CPU (old CPU cannot be used because there are no known SMP board can use the 478-pin Celeron This is way too expensive for the budget, thus I decide tomorrow go to buy Pentium 4 3.2E hyper-threading CPU to replace the existing one, further expend memory to 2GB.
More RAM will seldom hurt, but if the budget is tight I would check first if lack of memory is really a problem. What does free say about available memory?
I am afraid it should be a problem, averagely 768MB (of total 1GB) swap space is being used. After I bought another 1GB memory, system become much faster.
Also, the price of dual core Athlon 64 X2 just dropped drastically, so that might be a very good alternative.
Here in Europe hardware is cheap compared to wasted time by expensive employees, so we are encouraged to solve delays quickly.
I now got an 3.0E HT CPU and upgraded to 2GB memory, the improvement on general speed, on removing 'stun' effect and on application is dramatic, CPU usage never goes to 100% as easily as it did before. I never expect we can get this much with 1480CNY (148 Euros). Perhaps that is also because of the new kernel, old kernel was not SMP, new kernel is P4-optimized, SMP and with SHT support.
Sandy
-- List replies only please! Please address PMs to: news-reply2 (@) japantest (.) homelinux (.) com
-- 锐业软服（国内业务） http://www.realss.cn Real SoftService http://www.realss.com 销售咨询(Sales Department): 0086 592 20 99987 (Chinese, German, English) 国际业务(International Sales): 0086 10 8460 6011 (German and English) 联系：厦门大学科技园，嘉庚二号楼6楼 邮政：厦门大学2312号信箱（邮编361005）
Thank you a lot for the suggestions (especially the possibility to set limit for users). I decide to go hyper-threading way. An upgrade to Dual Core CPU or SMP both request replacing all of: * motherboard (current mother board do not support any of Dualcore CPU or SMP) * memory bank (old DDR cannot be used) * CPU (old CPU cannot be used because there are no known SMP board can use the 478-pin Celeron This is way too expensive for the budget, thus I decide tomorrow go to buy Pentium 4 3.2E hyper-threading CPU to replace the existing one, further expend memory to 2GB.
On the upgrade thing... I just recently did an upgrade and was facing the same budget concerns as you are. I wanted a dual core but couldn'y yet justify the cost for the new ram and video as well as CPU and motherboard. I opted for an AMD X2 dual core... and put it in an ASRock S939Dual-SATA2 (just Google on it and you'll find loads of info on it). This motherboard has both PCIe and AGP for video, and can use the regular DDR ram. This way you can get the benefits of the new hardware on a budget. Point to note though.. I am experiencing some rather annoying problems since I upgraded to this hardware, but it appears to be related to a couple BIOS settings, and some possibly faulty cables. C. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
On Wednesday 26 July 2006 09:34, 张韡武 wrote:
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list The key point is to remove 'stun' effect and launch application faster with minimum budget. Option 5 can be taken only if all 1-4 cannot solve the two problems.
Get a second machine and migrate some of the users to it. 8 users running X11 on a single PC at once is a bit much, IMO.
BTW, the reason for 'stun' effect I cannot understand. Why the machine 'stun'? When a user load a 500KB webpage, she is expecting to way a bit longer, she should wait for other users, she should get no more then 60% CPU resource and keep other people's console still usable but only slower.
i suspect that this is caused by resource locking issues in the shared libraries. i notice that when my g/f and i are both logged in to my machine (running 2 KDE sessions), apps like kmail seem to take notably longer to do anything at all. My *suspicion* (not backed up technically) is that it's a shared resource bottleneck somewhere in the KDE libs.
I am afraid the system resource is not assigned in a fair way.
It's not - 8 X11 sessions is too many, IMO.
I remember a long time ago I was sharing a Sparc desktop (using gnome) with several other people and we never had 'stun' problem, is sparc platform better on sharing?
Sparc is better at being "smooth" about concurrent logins, in my experience. e.g., a Sparc with 400MHz can out-perform a typical 1GHz PC when it comes to disk i/o. -- ----- stephan@s11n.net http://s11n.net "...pleasure is a grace and is not obedient to the commands of the will." -- Alan W. Watts
在 2006-07-26三的 16:41 +0200，stephan beal写道：
On Wednesday 26 July 2006 09:34, 张韡武 wrote:
Hello. Sorry if OT, I think this perhaps should go to suse-admin list The key point is to remove 'stun' effect and launch application faster with minimum budget. Option 5 can be taken only if all 1-4 cannot solve the two problems.
Get a second machine and migrate some of the users to it. 8 users running X11 on a single PC at once is a bit much, IMO.
It may sounds so but unless for some special reasons, actually 8 users can work together on one single server which is as powerful as today's normal desktop. This is because all the resource except memory needed by X terminal server do not scale "equally" with the the number of user grows. E.g. a machine has one single X11 user is fine, two users, fine too because both two people don't feel other user exist, the chance of doing CPU/disk intensive task at same moment is small. 3 people = feel the same. 4 people = feel the same. 5 people = feel the same, some times you may notice it's a bit slow 6 people ==> suddenly people feel the machine is noticeably slow 7 people ==> 'stun effect' become a trouble 8 people ==> very slow, complaints Have you noticed less then 5 people it makes almost no difference for speed? In my idea it means this configuration can handle 5 people. After upgrade, when number of user is less then 8 people, a single user cannot tell how many people are using the X11 terminal server by his/her feeling of respond time and speed, that means this machine can handle 8 people. Strange? That's how X terminal server differ from a FTP server or HTTP server, performance do not straightly go down with number of user grow, but when user number grow to some point, performance suddenly goes down. People do click on randomly and sometimes people are sitting there using only 1% cpu resource to write email like what I am doing now. It's pretty wasted to equip every user with a 2.8GHz desktop, plus the management trouble for helping users install the software they need and when SuSE upgrades, go to each users desktop in off-working hour to upgrade OS, help users backup their files. 1 machine is easier to manage then 8 machines, consider the stability of SuSE re-install OS after infected by virus is not necessary. The X terminal server is noticeably busy at 17:00 when everybody wish to save all the documents, send the last emails and finish today's job so that they go home without worrying a thing.
BTW, the reason for 'stun' effect I cannot understand. Why the machine 'stun'? When a user load a 500KB webpage, she is expecting to way a bit longer, she should wait for other users, she should get no more then 60% CPU resource and keep other people's console still usable but only slower.
i suspect that this is caused by resource locking issues in the shared libraries. i notice that when my g/f and i are both logged in to my machine (running 2 KDE sessions), apps like kmail seem to take notably longer to do anything at all. My *suspicion* (not backed up technically) is that it's a shared resource bottleneck somewhere in the KDE libs.
I am afraid the system resource is not assigned in a fair way.
It's not - 8 X11 sessions is too many, IMO.
I remember a long time ago I was sharing a Sparc desktop (using gnome) with several other people and we never had 'stun' problem, is sparc platform better on sharing?
Sparc is better at being "smooth" about concurrent logins, in my experience. e.g., a Sparc with 400MHz can out-perform a typical 1GHz PC when it comes to disk i/o.
-- 锐业软服（国内业务） http://www.realss.cn Real SoftService http://www.realss.com 销售咨询(Sales Department): 0086 592 20 99987 (Chinese, German, English) 国际业务(International Sales): 0086 10 8460 6011 (German and English) 联系：厦门大学科技园，嘉庚二号楼6楼 邮政：厦门大学2312号信箱（邮编361005）
participants (5)
-
Clayton -
Sandy Drobic -
stephan beal -
Zhang Weiwu -
张韡武