SuSE 9.1 painfully slow
I have installed 9.1 on my new HP P4 and did not notice any performance issues there. Finally this last weekend I installed 9.1 (clean install) on my home server and found it to be painfully slow. This server is an HP with Pentium 200 MHz and 128 MB RAM. SuSE 9.0 ran fairly well on this PC but I wanted to try 9.1 because I had seen reports that the new 2.6 kernel gave better performance. Instead of being better, 9.1 was much worse than 9.0. In searching the archive for this topic, I found several posts on this subject. I read one suggestion to look at hdparm to see if DMA is enabled. DMA is enabled and the numbers I got were similar to what I got on another PC that I have with 9.0. The server PC with 9.1 is using RAID-1 while the other PC is not RAID. Could this be a RAID issue? Does anyone have any idea why 9.1 is going so slow? Are there any other things I can check besides the output of hdparm? Using dmesg I looked at the boot messages md: personality 3 is not loaded! md :do_md_run() returned -22 md: md1 stopped. This looked a little suspicious to me although I am not sure if this is a problem or not. I did a google search on do_md_run and found some discussions about a problem with an earlier 2.6 kernel but I am not sure what to make of this now. hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError } hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError } This seems a little suspicious too but don't know what to make of this either Tonight I will try installing 9.0 again on the problem PC so I look at that again. I will look at the output of dmesg and hdparm with the 9.0. Any suggestions? Damon Register
I have installed 9.1 on my new HP P4 and did not notice any performance issues there. Finally this last weekend I installed 9.1 (clean install) on my home server and found it to be painfully slow. This server is an HP with Pentium 200 MHz and 128 MB RAM. ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ Theres your problem! If you try and load XP on that PC it will also be very slow. I don't recommend it but you could try trimming the kernel and the apps that you install if its a server don't use a GUI, Yast does run on the command
On Thursday 02 September 2004 21:54, Damon Register wrote: line. I had the same issue. -- Chadley Wilson Production Line Supervisor Pinnacle Micro Manufacturers of Proline Computers ==================================== Exercise freedom, Use LINUX =====================================
On Friday September 3 2004 1:44 am, Chadley Wilson wrote:
On Thursday 02 September 2004 21:54, Damon Register wrote:
I have installed 9.1 on my new HP P4 and did not notice any performance issues there. Finally this last weekend I installed 9.1 (clean install) on my home server and found it to be painfully slow. This server is an HP with Pentium 200 MHz and 128 MB RAM.
^^^^^ ^^^^^^ Theres your problem! If you try and load XP on that PC it will also be very slow. I don't recommend it but you could try trimming the kernel and the apps that you install if its a server don't use a GUI, Yast does run on the command line. I had the same issue.
Yes........a non-GUI server, it might make using SUSE. XP MANDATES a MINIMUM of a 700Mhz. processor, 256MB of RAM and 40G hard drive (if I remember correctly). Fred -- "Running Windows on a Pentium is like getting a Porsche but only being able to drive it in reverse with the handbrake on."
On Friday September 3 2004 1:44 am, Chadley Wilson wrote:
On Thursday 02 September 2004 21:54, Damon Register wrote:
I have installed 9.1 on my new HP P4 and did not notice any performance issues there. Finally this last weekend I installed 9.1 (clean install) on my home server and found it to be painfully slow. This server is an HP with Pentium 200 MHz and 128 MB RAM.
^^^^^ ^^^^^^ Theres your problem! If you try and load XP on that PC it will also be very slow. I don't recommend it but you could try trimming the kernel and the apps that you install if its a server don't use a GUI, Yast does run on the command line. I had the same issue.
Yes........a non-GUI server, it might make using SUSE. XP MANDATES a MINIMUM of a 700Mhz. processor, 256MB of RAM and 40G hard drive (if I remember correctly).
Fred Just to add here; try upgrading your ram to at least 256MB or 512MB
On Friday 03 September 2004 07:49, Fred Miller wrote: preferably, I am running suse9.1 SLE on 512 and another box with SUSe Pro 9,1 Pro with 1 gig of ram, Both PCs have 2.0 gig celerons. They are both faster than any linux distro I have ever used, on these same PCs. I have run RH9, Fedora 1 and 2, mdk 10, Centos (RHEL3), IMpi Linux, Debian (failed due to bandwidth restrictions) and of course knoppix and slack. With the correct mix of hardware SUSe is by far the most advance desktop Linux you will ever use. And it has speed but needs room to run. However if you can't do the upgrade then I would suggest that you manually setup you partitions. Create the swap file first so that it is at the beginning of the drive, make it about 512MB. The reason for this is that unlike a cd the hard drive reads from the outside of the drive first where the speed is faster than the centre. Hence a speed advantage is gained, put your swap file there and you will see a noticeable difference. I do advise with the sencere apology for incorrect info given if any, please feel free to correct my explanations or wording. We should love to be criticised as we learn more from it. Chow for now,
-- "Running Windows on a Pentium is like getting a Porsche but only being able to drive it in reverse with the handbrake on."
-- Chadley Wilson Production Line Supervisor Pinnacle Micro Manufacturers of Proline Computers ==================================== Exercise freedom, Use LINUX =====================================
On Friday 03 September 2004 07:49, Fred Miller wrote:
On Friday September 3 2004 1:44 am, Chadley Wilson wrote:
Theres your problem! If you try and load XP on that PC it will also be very slow. Thanks for the answers but I think you all are missing the point. Perhaps I didn't word my question clearly enough. I am aware that this isn't
Chadley Wilson wrote: the fastest or newest. I bought it because it was cheap ($25) and I just wanted a server/router. Though it was a bit slow, it worked fine with SuSE 9.0. Are you all saying that the speed issue is likely only because it is and old PC and not because of some error? If so, why is 9.1 SO much slower than 9.0?
that you install if its a server don't use a GUI, Yast does run on the command line. I know. I have used it.
Yes........a non-GUI server, it might make using SUSE. XP MANDATES a MINIMUM of a 700Mhz. processor, 256MB of RAM and 40G hard drive (if I Perhaps but it runs fine on my son's 500 MHz computer.
Just to add here; try upgrading your ram to at least 256MB or 512MB This would not be cost effective. 72 pin memory is harder to find and expensive. I could buy a used but newer 866MHz for $100 with memory that is easier to find but no matter which I choose, I am going to be spending more money that I care to spend. SuSE 9.0 worked and if I have to, I will just go back to SuSE 9.0.
I am running suse9.1 SLE on 512 and another box with SUSe Pro 9,1 Pro with 1 gig of ram, Both PCs have 2.0 gig celerons. They are both faster than any Very nice. I wouldn't mind having something like that too. Why is it that we poke fun at Gates bloatware yet SuSE did the same with 9.1?
However if you can't do the upgrade then I would suggest that you manually Looks like I have to go back to 9.0
advantage is gained, put your swap file there and you will see a noticeable difference. This is interesting. I didn't know that. I will try it.
I started this because I had seen reports about the new kernel being much better and faster so I thought that it would improve what was getting with that computer. Are all those reports lies? Damon Register
Quoting Damon Register
Chadley Wilson wrote:
On Friday 03 September 2004 07:49, Fred Miller wrote:
On Friday September 3 2004 1:44 am, Chadley Wilson wrote:
Theres your problem! If you try and load XP on that PC it will also be very slow. Thanks for the answers but I think you all are missing the point. Perhaps I didn't word my question clearly enough. I am aware that this isn't the fastest or newest. I bought it because it was cheap ($25) and I just
Some tips: When you run 'top', can you see any processes that use a lot of CPU? Check if ACPI is turned off, try to boot with acpi=off. Also turn off powersaving if that is turned on. If you use Blackbox as you server GUI, you will save some CPU and memory. Test your disk with a diagnostic program from the vendor. Like this for Hitachi drives: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm - Jostein
Damon Register
My difficulty is a bit different. In the KDE environment, windows containing KDE apps are very slow to load (taking 4x - 6x as long as they did with SuSE8.2+ KDE3.1). Other apps are just as fast or as slow as before. I infer this relates to difficulty finding shared object libraries. Does anyone know why this is happening? Best, jim bennett jbennett@syr.edu
jbernts@broadpark.no wrote:
When you run 'top', can you see any processes that use a lot of CPU? I will try that
Check if ACPI is turned off, try to boot with acpi=off. Also turn off now that you mention it, I did notice some strange ACPI messages during boot.
ACPI: Unable to locate RSDP ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326 ACPI: Interpreter disabled. powernow_k8: Unknown symbol acpi_processor_unregister_performance powernow_k8: Unknown symbol acpi_processor_register_performance powernow: This module only works with AMD K7 CPUs
powersaving if that is turned on. I will check that too
If you use Blackbox as you server GUI, you will save some CPU and memory. I am not familiar with that one but I just found it at http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/ and I see that it is already on my 9.1 system. I just tried it and am very impressed. This is much faster. I will certainly switch.
Test your disk with a diagnostic program from the vendor. Like this for Hitachi I have Western Digital. I will dig out my discs that came with the drives.
Just as I was writing this, more replies came so I am putting them all together. Hakan Ünuz wrote:
Go to bios setup screen and set acpi off and apm off
You'll see difference and speed :) Cool. I will try it tonight
Bruce Marshall wrote:
However, I rebuilt the kernel and removed a lot of stuff, as well as optimized it for the P200 and it became quite usable.... even to the point of I will take a look at that. Thanks
Thanks for all your answers. The weather report for this weekend is not good so I will probably have lots of time indoors to try these things. Damon Register
If you use Blackbox as you server GUI, you will save some CPU and memory. Your comment did get me interested in checking out several window managers. I tried 4: KDE, Gnome, IceWM and Blackbox. I found something interesting. On my computer, a Pentium 200 MHz with 128MB RAM, I did startx with each of the 4 and measured the time to finish painting
jbernts@broadpark.no wrote: the desktop and cesation of disk activity. time in minutes:seconds KDE 5:55 Gnome 1:07 Blackbox 0:16 IceWM 0:13 Since IceWM seems to be not only fastest but a little more refined than Blackbox, I think I will stick with IceWM Damon Register
On Friday 03 September 2004 06:43 am, Damon Register wrote:
Theres your problem! If you try and load XP on that PC it will also be very slow.
Thanks for the answers but I think you all are missing the point. Perhaps I didn't word my question clearly enough. I am aware that this isn't the fastest or newest. I bought it because it was cheap ($25) and I just wanted a server/router. Though it was a bit slow, it worked fine with SuSE 9.0. Are you all saying that the speed issue is likely only because it is and old PC and not because of some error? If so, why is 9.1 SO much slower than 9.0?
I have a couple of P200 - 164MB machines here (not sure of the memory but it's a bit more than 128MB). I installed 9.1 on one of them with the intention of making it a server. it was slow.... However, I rebuilt the kernel and removed a lot of stuff, as well as optimized it for the P200 and it became quite usable.... even to the point of allowing me to start graphics apps thru ssh on a different computer. For a non-gui server, it would probably do quite well but I didn't pursue it because I have other machines I can use. BTW, I think it took well over 24 hours to compile my first cut at a kernel. That's pretty slow....! -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 09/03/04 09:37 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "A vivid and creative mind characterizes you."
However, I rebuilt the kernel and removed a lot of stuff, as well as optimized it for the P200 and it became quite usable.... even to the point of allowing me to start graphics apps thru ssh on a different computer. This last weekend I took a shot at trying to improve my system. I hadn't
Bruce Marshall wrote: tried building a kernel since 7.2 and I discovered that a LOT has changed since then. I realized that there were many options that could take a full day to go through. It's no wonder that this system seems slower if there are so many options?
BTW, I think it took well over 24 hours to compile my first cut at a kernel. That is worse than mine. I started it before going to bed and it was done the next morning
I have 9.1 pro running on a PII 350 with 256mb and an 8 meg video card. That's a bit faster than my computer. Did you do anything to tune it or is
Can you tell me what you did for your kernel selections to improve the performance? Were there any particular items that you adjusted which may have significantly contributed to the improved performance? Carl William Spitzer IV wrote: that a default system? Damon Register
The Tuesday 2004-09-07 at 08:19 -0400, Damon Register wrote:
This last weekend I took a shot at trying to improve my system. I hadn't tried building a kernel since 7.2 and I discovered that a LOT has changed since then.
The important instructions are here: /usr/share/doc/packages/kernel-source/README.SUSE It seems this is the proper sequence now: make cloneconfig make menuconfig (or xconfig, or config as prefered) make install make modules_install (I invert the order of these two) mkinitrd Don't forget to adjust your 'extraversion' setting.
I realized that there were many options that could take a full day to go through. It's no wonder that this system seems slower if there are so many options?
Simply by choosing your particular processor, you should get some improvement - although some say this is not necessary for 2.6 kernels, I doubt it (I have not seen a confirmation of it). Then you can remove all subsystems you know you don't have, like 1000 mb/s ethernet :-) But removing things not necessarily improves speed, IMO, because as they are mostly compiled as modules, they don't get loaded unless needed. In any case, browsing the config for those things can take quite a long time. Don't waste to much time removing things, just the biggest and easier to spot. For example, your machine will not have acpi (to old): dissable it. Don't remove apm stuff: you can disable it from the boot line, as you may need it to power your computer off, for example. It should not slow your machine. Make sure you can boot the vmlinuz.shiped version of the kernel. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
Chadley Wilson wrote:
The reason for this is that unlike a cd the hard drive reads from the outside of the drive first where the speed is faster than the centre. Hence a speed advantage is gained, put your swap file there and you will see a noticeable difference.
Are you sure about this? The linear speed of the disk is certainly faster at the outside but the rotational speed is the same. Aren't there the same number of sectors around each track? So the sectors at the outside of the disk are physically bigger than those on the inside and a bigger linear speed is needed to read them in exactly the same time as the smaller sectors in the centre. Disks don't change their rotational speed depending on where the head is positioned, unlike some other devices. In theory, putting heavily trafficked partitions together halfway across the disk can help (not the centre nor the outside), by reducing average seek times, but none of this is going to make any noticeable difference for the vast majority of systems. Cheers, Dave Howorth
On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 11:57 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:
Chadley Wilson wrote:
The reason for this is that unlike a cd the hard drive reads from the outside of the drive first where the speed is faster than the centre. Hence a speed advantage is gained, put your swap file there and you will see a noticeable difference.
Are you sure about this? The linear speed of the disk is certainly faster at the outside but the rotational speed is the same. Aren't there the same number of sectors around each track?
On Friday 03 September 2004 07:02 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 11:57 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:
Chadley Wilson wrote:
The reason for this is that unlike a cd the hard drive reads from the outside of the drive first where the speed is faster than the centre. Hence a speed advantage is gained, put your swap file there and you will see a noticeable difference.
Are you sure about this? The linear speed of the disk is certainly faster at the outside but the rotational speed is the same. Aren't there the same number of sectors around each track?
No.
Learn something new every day.... Thanks! -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 09/03/04 09:44 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone."
Dave Howorth wrote:
Chadley Wilson wrote:
The reason for this is that unlike a cd the hard drive reads from the outside of the drive first where the speed is faster than the centre. Hence a speed advantage is gained, put your swap file there and you will see a noticeable difference.
Are you sure about this? The linear speed of the disk is certainly faster at the outside but the rotational speed is the same. Aren't there the same number of sectors around each track? So the sectors at the outside of the disk are physically bigger than those on the inside and a bigger linear speed is needed to read them in exactly the same time as the smaller sectors in the centre. Disks don't change their rotational speed depending on where the head is positioned, unlike some other devices.
It's common to divide a disk into zones, with outer zones having more sectors than inner zones. This means the data transfer rate will be greater for outer areas of the disk.
participants (11)
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Anders Johansson -
Bruce Marshall -
Carlos E. R. -
Chadley Wilson -
Damon Register -
Damon Register -
Dave Howorth -
Fred Miller -
James Knott -
James P. Bennett -
jbernts＠broadpark.no