# Slow gentoo: DMA?

## Elv13

Hi, gentoo is very slow, it take like 20 second+ for open firefox

When i run hdparm -tT i get ~27mo/sec, a normal score for a laptop

but when i do dmesg i get some timeout and thing like that, any idea how to fix them?

ATI-IXP150 chips, 4200 rpm laptop drive (HDA)

```
lepagee lepagee # dmesg

Linux version 2.6.16-suspend (root@lepagee) (gcc version 3.3.6 (Gentoo 3.3.6, ssp-3.3.6-1.0, pie-8.7.8)) #2 PREEMPT Tue Mar 21 17:26:20 EST 2006

BIOS-provided physical RAM map:

 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000000d0000 - 00000000000d8000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e4000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001bf70000 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 000000001bf70000 - 000000001bf7b000 (ACPI data)

 BIOS-e820: 000000001bf7b000 - 000000001bf80000 (ACPI NVS)

 BIOS-e820: 000000001bf80000 - 000000001c000000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 000000002bf80000 - 000000002c000000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec10000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000fff80000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)

447MB LOWMEM available.

On node 0 totalpages: 114544

  DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:0

  DMA32 zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0

  Normal zone: 110448 pages, LIFO batch:31

  HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0

DMI present.

ACPI: RSDP (v000 PTLTD                                 ) @ 0x000f6b40

ACPI: RSDT (v001 PTLTD    RSDT   0x06040000  LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x1bf75ece

ACPI: FADT (v001 TOSCPL Chinook  0x06040000 ATI  0x00000003) @ 0x1bf7af32

ACPI: MADT (v001 PTLTD           APIC   0x06040000  LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x1bf7afa6

ACPI: SSDT (v001  PmRef  Cpu0Ist 0x00003000 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x1bf76316

ACPI: SSDT (v001  PmRef  Cpu0Cst 0x00003001 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x1bf76101

ACPI: SSDT (v001  PmRef    CpuPm 0x00003000 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x1bf75f06

ACPI: DSDT (v001 TOSCPL    SB200 0x06040000 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000

ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x8008

Allocating PCI resources starting at 30000000 (gap: 2c000000:d2c00000)

Built 1 zonelists

Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda5 vga=791 resume2=swap:/dev/hda6

Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.

Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.

Initializing CPU#0

PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 32768 bytes)

Detected 3067.697 MHz processor.

Using pmtmr for high-res timesource

Console: colour dummy device 80x25

Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)

Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)

Memory: 449336k/458176k available (2889k kernel code, 8308k reserved, 1016k data, 164k init, 0k highmem)

Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.

Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 6138.42 BogoMIPS (lpj=3069211)

Mount-cache hash table entries: 512

CPU: After generic identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00004400 00000000 00000000

CPU: After vendor identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00004400 00000000 00000000

CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K

CPU: L2 cache: 512K

CPU: After all inits, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000080 00004400 00000000 00000000

Intel machine check architecture supported.

Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.

CPU0: Intel P4/Xeon Extended MCE MSRs (12) available

CPU: Intel Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4     CPU 3.06GHz stepping 09

Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.

ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 0800)

NET: Registered protocol family 16

ACPI: bus type pci registered

PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd958, last bus=2

PCI: Using configuration type 1

ACPI: Subsystem revision 20060127

ACPI: Interpreter enabled

ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing

ACPI Error (nsxfeval-0242): Handle is NULL and Pathname is relative [20060127]

ACPI Error (nsxfeval-0242): Handle is NULL and Pathname is relative [20060127]

ACPI Error (nsxfeval-0242): Handle is NULL and Pathname is relative [20060127]

ACPI Error (nsxfeval-0242): Handle is NULL and Pathname is relative [20060127]

ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)

PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)

PCI: Ignoring BAR0-3 of IDE controller 0000:00:14.1

Boot video device is 0000:01:05.0

PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:14.4

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK0] (IRQs 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK1] (IRQs 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK2] (IRQs 10 *11)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK3] (IRQs 10 *11)

ACPI: Embedded Controller [EC0] (gpe 6) interrupt mode.

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P2P_._PRT]

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.AGP_._PRT]

Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay

pnp: PnP ACPI init

pnp: PnP ACPI: found 10 devices

PnPBIOS: Disabled by ACPI PNP

SCSI subsystem initialized

usbcore: registered new driver usbfs

usbcore: registered new driver hub

PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing

PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq".  If it helps, post a report

pnp: 00:07: ioport range 0x1080-0x1080 has been reserved

pnp: 00:07: ioport range 0x220-0x22f has been reserved

pnp: 00:07: ioport range 0x40b-0x40b has been reserved

pnp: 00:07: ioport range 0x4d0-0x4d1 has been reserved

PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:01.0

  IO window: 9000-9fff

  MEM window: e8100000-e81fffff

  PREFETCH window: f0000000-f7ffffff

PCI: Bus 3, cardbus bridge: 0000:02:04.0

  IO window: 0000a400-0000a4ff

  IO window: 0000a800-0000a8ff

  PREFETCH window: 30000000-31ffffff

  MEM window: 32000000-33ffffff

PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:14.4

  IO window: a000-afff

  MEM window: e8200000-e82fffff

  PREFETCH window: 30000000-31ffffff

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK0] enabled at IRQ 11

PCI: setting IRQ 11 as level-triggered

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:04.0[A] -> Link [LNK0] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)

audit(1145097108.655:1): initialized

NTFS driver 2.1.26 [Flags: R/W DEBUG].

io scheduler noop registered

io scheduler anticipatory registered

io scheduler deadline registered

io scheduler cfq registered (default)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:05.0[A] -> Link [LNK0] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

radeonfb: Retrieved PLL infos from BIOS

radeonfb: Reference=14.32 MHz (RefDiv=6) Memory=300.00 Mhz, System=166.62 MHz

radeonfb: PLL min 20000 max 35000

Non-DDC laptop panel detected

radeonfb: Monitor 1 type LCD found

radeonfb: Monitor 2 type no found

radeonfb: panel ID string: LGP

radeonfb: detected LVDS panel size from BIOS: 1280x800

radeondb: BIOS provided dividers will be used

radeonfb: Dynamic Clock Power Management enabled

Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x50

radeonfb (0000:01:05.0): ATI Radeon X5

vesafb: cannot reserve video memory at 0xf0000000

vesafb: framebuffer at 0xf0000000, mapped to 0xdd900000, using 3072k, total 65536k

vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=41

vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:52ea

vesafb: scrolling: redraw

vesafb: Truecolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0

fb1: VESA VGA frame buffer device

ACPI: AC Adapter [ACAD] (off-line)

ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery present)

ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]

ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]

ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]

Using specific hotkey driver

ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2] C3[C3])

ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports 8 throttling states)

Non-volatile memory driver v1.2

Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones

agpgart: Detected Ati IGP9100/M chipset

agpgart: AGP aperture is 32M @ 0xea000000

[drm] Initialized drm 1.0.1 20051102

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:05.0[A] -> Link [LNK0] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

[drm] Initialized radeon 1.22.0 20051229 on minor 0

PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:KBC0,PNP0f13:MSE0] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1,12

i8042.c: Detected active multiplexing controller, rev 1.1.

serio: i8042 AUX0 port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12

serio: i8042 AUX1 port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12

serio: i8042 AUX2 port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12

serio: i8042 AUX3 port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12

serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1

Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing disabled

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK1] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:14.6[B] -> Link [LNK1] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:14.6 disabled

floppy0: no floppy controllers found

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2

ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

ATIIXP: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:14.1

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:14.1[A] -> Link [LNK0] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

ATIIXP: chipset revision 0

ATIIXP: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later

    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x8070-0x8077, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio

    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x8078-0x807f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio

Probing IDE interface ide0...

hda: IC25N060ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

Probing IDE interface ide1...

hdc: HL-DT-STCD-RW/DVD DRIVE GCC-4243N, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15

hda: max request size: 512KiB

hda: 117210240 sectors (60011 MB) w/7884KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)

hda: cache flushes supported

 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 >

hdc: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache

Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

libata version 1.20 loaded.

Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK3] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.2[A] -> Link [LNK3] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: EHCI Host Controller

ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1

ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: irq 11, io mem 0xe8003000

ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004

usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 1-0:1.0: 6 ports detected

ohci_hcd: 2005 April 22 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.0[A] -> Link [LNK3] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: OHCI Host Controller

ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2

ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: irq 11, io mem 0xe8001000

usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 2-0:1.0: 3 ports detected

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.1[A] -> Link [LNK3] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.1: OHCI Host Controller

ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3

ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.1: irq 11, io mem 0xe8002000

usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 3-0:1.0: 3 ports detected

usbcore: registered new driver usblp

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: v0.13: USB Printer Device Class driver

usbcore: registered new driver hiddev

usbcore: registered new driver usbhid

drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver

mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice

logibm.c: Didn't find Logitech busmouse at 0x23c

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.11rc2 (Wed Jan 04 08:57:20 2006 UTC).

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:14.5[B] -> Link [LNK1] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

atiixp: codec reset timeout

ALSA device list:

  #0: ATI IXP rev 0 with ALC250 at 0xe8004400, irq 11

NET: Registered protocol family 2

IP route cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)

TCP established hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)

TCP bind hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)

TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)

TCP reno registered

ip_conntrack version 2.4 (3579 buckets, 28632 max) - 172 bytes per conntrack

TCP bic registered

NET: Registered protocol family 1

acpi-cpufreq: CPU0 - ACPI performance management activated.

Using IPI Shortcut mode

Suspend2 Core.

Suspend2 Swap Writer loading.

Suspend2 FileWriter loading.

swsusp: Resume From Partition resume=/dev/hda6

PM: Checking swsusp image.

swsusp: Error -6 check for resume file

PM: Resume from disk failed.

ACPI wakeup devices:

ELAN OHC1 OHC2 EHCI MODM

ACPI: (supports S0 S3 S4 S5)

input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0

Suspend2 2.2.1: Swapwriter: Signature found.

Suspend2 2.2.1: Resuming enabled.

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.

Freeing unused kernel memory: 164k freed

kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

input: PS/2 Mouse as /class/input/input1

input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint as /class/input/input2

input: PS/2 Mouse as /class/input/input3

input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint as /class/input/input4

Adding 514040k swap on /dev/hda6.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:514040k

EXT3 FS on hda5, internal journal

ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.

ath_hal: 0.9.16.13 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413, DFS)

ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)

wlan: 0.8.4.2 (svn 2006-03-22)

ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (svn 2006-03-22)

ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (svn 2006-03-22)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK2] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:02.0[A] -> Link [LNK2] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11

wifi0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps

wifi0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

wifi0: turboG rates: 6Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

wifi0: H/W encryption support: WEP AES AES_CCM TKIP

wifi0: mac 5.9 phy 4.3 radio 4.6

wifi0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BE traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BK traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 8 for CAB traffic

wifi0: Use hw queue 9 for beacons

wifi0: Atheros 5212: mem=0xe8200000, irq=11

kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

EXT3 FS on hda7, internal journal

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

hda: set_drive_speed_status: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown

hdc: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }

hdc: packet command error: error=0x54 { AbortedCommand LastFailedSense=0x05 }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown

hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x20

hda: DMA timeout retry

hda: timeout waiting for DMA

hda: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown

hda: drive not ready for command

mtrr: 0xf0000000,0x8000000 overlaps existing 0xf0000000,0x4000000

mtrr: 0xf0000000,0x8000000 overlaps existing 0xf0000000,0x4000000

mtrr: 0xf0000000,0x8000000 overlaps existing 0xf0000000,0x4000000

agpgart: Found an AGP 3.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: reserved bits set (4) in mode 0x1f00021f. Fixed.

agpgart: X tried to set rate=x12. Setting to AGP3 x8 mode.

agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 8x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:01:05.0 into 8x mode

[drm] Loading R200 Microcode

NET: Registered protocol family 17

spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.

usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2

usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 2 if 1 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x03F0 pid 0x3F11

usb 2-1: USB disconnect, address 2

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: removed

parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.

parport0: PC-style at 0x378, irq 7 [PCSPP(,...)]

lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).

usb 2-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3

usb 2-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 3 if 1 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x03F0 pid 0x3F11

usb 2-3: USB disconnect, address 3

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: removed

lepagee lepagee #              
```

- the chipsset driver of the kernel is not a module, it is built in.

- livecd are faster   :Rolling Eyes: 

----------

## Mallow005

Looks like DMA is failing? What's your hdparm /dev/hda ?

----------

## Elv13

```
lepagee lepagee # hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 multcount    = 16 (on)

 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)

 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)

 using_dma    =  1 (on)

 keepsettings =  0 (off)

 readonly     =  0 (off)

 readahead    = 256 (on)

 geometry     = 16383/255/63, sectors = 60011642880, start = 0

lepagee lepagee #

```

it work but it fail, that strange

----------

## Mallow005

Hmm... that's a pretty impressive CPU too. On my laptop (1.6Ghz P4) it takes about 10-15 seconds to open firefox... that's comparable to yours, so maybe the harddrive speed is the bottleneck?

----------

## Elv13

i got a 3.06ghz P4M   :Rolling Eyes: 

it is always at 100% during the operation, this si not normal too but i have read many other simillar problem and it seem that when DMA is not working proprelly this kind of mouse freezing and 100% cpu usage is "normal"

----------

## dekon

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> Hi, gentoo is very slow, it take like 20 second+ for open firefox
> 
> - livecd are faster  

 

I donk know if this work but should be.

Try boot from kernel image of cd.

----------

## Gentree

one thing that strikes me is that you have IO support off. I would expect this to be 32bit.

I dont know if this is a result of the errors you get on boot or a mis-config.

```

bash-3.1#hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 multcount    = 16 (on)

 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)

 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)

 using_dma    =  1 (on)

 keepsettings =  0 (off)

 readonly     =  0 (off)

 readahead    = 256 (on)

 geometry     = 16383/255/63, sectors = 234441648, start = 0

bash-3.1#hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:   1324 MB in  2.00 seconds = 661.77 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  162 MB in  3.01 seconds =  53.74 MB/sec

```

----------

## Elv13

it is becose when i activate it my score drop from 27.53mb to 23.69...

----------

## bollucks

Again...

I/O support, unmask irq and multicount do nothing once DMA is enabled. They only affect PIO mode.

----------

## ColinK

If you'v got Gnome, take a look at the systemmonitor panel-applet (it displays IOWait-CPU-usage).

Because its faster on LiveCD, you should check your Kernel-config.

On a completely different system, I've got

v2.6.15 -> Device Drivers -> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support:

```
<*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support

<*>   Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support

<*>     Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support

[*]     Use multi-mode by default

<*>     Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support

<*>     generic/default IDE chipset support

[*]     PCI IDE chipset support

[*]       Sharing PCI IDE interrupts support

<*>       Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support

[*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support

[*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available

<*>         VIA82CXXX chipset support
```

----------

## Gentree

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> it is becose when i activate it my score drop from 27.53mb to 23.69...

 

be aware the hdparm is pretty variable in what it produces. I always ignore the first run then repeat 2 or 3 times and take a mental average .

 :Cool: 

----------

## Elv13

16b support:

1. 27.19

2. 27.29

3. 27.34

4. 27.34

5. 27.32

32:

1. 27.34

2. 27.23

3. 27.22

4. 24.54

5. 24.81

32 w/s:

1. 24.35

2. 24.93

3. 24.23

4. 23.90

5. 27.36

----------

## PyroBoy101

Might want to investigate the health of the drive.  In linux you can use smartctl, or outside of Linux I usually use Hitachi's DFT.

----------

## Gentree

can you recap what you think the problem is  (symptom not cause). You started by saying you thought these speeds were about right for a slow spinning disk like yours, so what are you trying to resolve?

if you want to monitor the disk you install smartmontools to run in the b/g and log any errors from the disk.

[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/smartmontools-5.36

the variations you have on the last block of figures is rather large. Are you running these tests under a mega window manager like KDE? If so there are heaps of processes running which will mess up the results of your hardware tests.

make sure you run hdparm from a login shell.

 :Cool: 

----------

## Elv13

1. hdparm is at boot runlevel

2. am trying to find why aplication are this slow

*yes i have the right sub architecture in my make.conf and -02 -pipe

----------

## Gentree

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> 1. hdparm is at boot runlevel
> 
> 

 

I was refering to when you run it to get your test timings

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> 2. am trying to find why aplication are this slow
> 
> 

 

what fs are you using?

 :Cool: 

----------

## Elv13

EXT3 for my stable install

ReiserFS for my test install (where i try things before installing on my stable install (kde 3.5.2, XGL and stuff like that)

EXT2 for my boot partition

it is not really faster on my test install

----------

## Gentree

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> EXT3 for my stable install
> 
> ReiserFS for my test install (where i try things before installing on my stable install (kde 3.5.2, XGL and stuff like that)
> 
> EXT2 for my boot partition
> ...

 

Can I take it that it's the reiserfs installation which is slow to load programs? 

That is why I asked. R3 fragments and slows down badly with use. There is no defrag utility. Neither is there any real speed advantage.

If you have enough disk to play with I suggest you copy the whole r3 partition somewhere else and copy it back again (do this from your stable , dont copy a running / ). Also make sure you have a reasonable ammount of free space left on the partition (like it's not 97% full).

If you can make another partition of similar size you can use dd to do the copy very efficiently. Otherwise cp -ax, or tar the whole thing , reformat and untar.

I've had my gentoo system slow down badly bacause of this in the past and wrongly thought it was gentoo.

While you're about it you might like to reconsider the choice of reiserfs. ext3 is still a very good choice or since you have a slow disk and a fast cpu reiser4 may be a good choice since it does less I/O by using more cpu.

R4 does seem to deliver the speed that r3 was thought to do but never really did.

It has a similar lack of defrag util but seems to suffer less from defragmentation. I back up my whole / partition fairly regularly anyway so if it slows I boot to the copy. Simple as that.

If you have some test , like emerge -p world you can time on each system it will give you and idea if it is due to fs slowdown.

HTH   :Cool: 

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## Corona688

I have to admit that ReiserFS really isn't doing much for me in the speed department.  It may not be fragmenting files, but it's sure as hell fragmenting directories, which are just as important for lots of tiny files.  It's still the most space-efficient filesystem I know of, though.  Is the frag problem solved in R4, does anyone know?

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## Gentree

How are you assessing the level of fragmentation? I've been using R4 for about 2yrs now , for some of that time as root partition and subjectively I dont see it slowing down as much as reiserfs did.

If you have an objective test I may be able to answer your question.

Also realise that R4 is to reiserfs as NTFS is to vfat, it's not to be seen as version 4 of the same fs.

R4 has the advantage of atomic writes. I've had several power-outs on this box and it reboots afterwards to a working stable fs , with possibly some file updates lost that where not written to disk when it went down.

That's probably my main reason for using R4, it saves me buying a UPS   :Wink: 

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## Elv13

i am talking about ext3   :Confused: 

is XFS is a better choice for my next install (or cp -av this one)

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## Corona688

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> How are you assessing the level of fragmentation? I've been using R4 for about 2yrs now , for some of that time as root partition and subjectively I dont see it slowing down as much as reiserfs did.

  I'm assessing the level of fragmentation by seeing how long it takes to do a listing of my home directory on boot.   :Very Happy:   It's quite a loooong time, during which it seeks all over the place to get the requisite directory info.  Once it's cached it takes no time at all.

I'm using ReiserFS as in ReiserFS however, not Reiser4.  Reiser4 still had stability problems everywhere but x86 last I checked, and wasn't even a kernel option unless you patched it yourself...  which admittedly was a while ago...

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## Corona688

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> is XFS is a better choice for my next install (or cp -av this one)

  I don't think switching to a different filesystem is going to get you much better performance.  Maybye SOME better, sure, but ext2/3 really isn't bad at all as filesystems go, as well as one of the most predictable/reliable.

I haven't had any problems with XFS for my data partition, but I'm using it not to make things faster but because of useful features like OMGTHEYREFUCKINGHUGE files -- whereas ext2/3 has a 4GB limit I thought.  XFS is not a space-efficient filesystem, but that's a drop in the bucket when your files are multiple gigs...  installing a system on it, however, creates tons of tiny tiny files, which may waste space.

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## Elv13

ext3 can support bug file

i have 7gb ghost image (in 1 part) on my /home

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## Gentree

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> i am talking about ext3  
> 
> is XFS is a better choice for my next install (or cp -av this one)

 

I had a short run-in with xfs as my media partition, mp3 etc, which is aclaimedly where it performs best. For most other uses it seems to have little going for it.

I rapidly went off it when after a an unclean shutdown it lost everything and seems to have no recovery tools. I've found R4 to be much more suited to my needs.

ext3 is always a strong contender , esp. for root. It reserves (a configurable) 5% for system usage so you dont get a lock up if the fs accidentally gets overloaded.

AFAIK, no other fs has that feature.

 *corona668 wrote:*   

> Reiser4 still had stability problems everywhere but x86 last I checked,

  I know R4 was unstable on 64 about a year ago but I believe that all got cleaned up a long time back. Although it's still not been integrated into mainstream linux kernel there are a number of unofficial patchsets , including my favourite , nitro that do the dirty work for you.

 :Cool: 

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## bollucks

There are tools to assess fragmentation here:

http://davl.sourceforge.net/

There's an app to defrag here:

http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/defrag/

If your fragmentation is under 5% you probably won't gain anything with this tool

Finally, get over it, application startup on linux still sucks. It keeps getting better each year with better toolchains, gccs, glibcs, etc (c++ apps are worst offenders but open for the most gain in the future), but for the moment it sucks.

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## Gentree

thanks for the links, sadly davtools only cover ext2/3 which suffer least from fragmentation anyway.

con's script looks good (as do most things he does!) , shame I dont a framentation problem to test it on.  :Very Happy: 

aparts from that FFx starts up in 3s here first time after boot, not so sucky for a big prog.

I think I can "get over" that "already".  :Rolling Eyes: 

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## bollucks

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> I think I can "get over" that "already". 

 

No offense meant by that   :Wink:   we just all suffer the same. 

Probably the greatest wall clock improvement in firefox startup I've measured was changing to gcc 4.1.0 so this bodes well for future versions of gcc too.

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## Gentree

I wasted about two weeks hacking tweeking patching and emerge -e everthinging with 4.1 near the end of last year and went back to 3.x rather pissed of with the whole thing.

I'll probably need to start FF about 2^16 times to get my 2weeks back.

Sometimes you can gain huge ammounts of time by putting up with a slight delay on startup . 

Glad to see gcc-4 is coming together though. I may give it another look around 4.2 

 :Cool: 

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## erikderzweite

I've had firefox and other programs startup problems as well. It was like pauses in CPU and disk activity while the program was starting (no slowdown for running programs although). DMA was on. It turned out this was a problem with testing version of madwifi - the system ran very smooth if not connected to the network. So I downgraded madwifi-ng and everything works fine afterwards.

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