Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 20:31:14 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 20:31:14 -0500 Received: from 174-121-ADSL.red.retevision.es ([80.224.121.174]:41155 "EHLO jerry.marcet.dyndns.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 29 Nov 2002 20:31:11 -0500 Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:38:32 +0100 From: Javier Marcet To: Rik van Riel Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Exaggerated swap usage Message-ID: <20021130013832.GF15682@jerry.marcet.dyndns.org> References: <20021129115405.GD15682@jerry.marcet.dyndns.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="/aVve/J9H4Wl5yVO" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Editor: Vim http://www.vim.org/ X-Operating-System: Gentoo GNU/Linux 1.4 / 2.4.20-ac1-marcet i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+ AuthenticAMD User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 7074 Lines: 184 --/aVve/J9H4Wl5yVO Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable * Rik van Riel [021129 21:00]: >> In recent 2.4.20 pre and rc kernels ( I tend to use the ac branch ), I >> had notice my system, when using X mainly, got terribly slow after some >> use. >First, lets get one thing straight: the problem is the slowness, >not necessarily the swap usage. It is very easy to jump to wrong >conclusions, so lets keep focussed on that part of the problem >which we know to be true before we all start hacking on parts of >the system which aren't related to the slowness... OK, you might be right on this point. But that different kernels show such a big difference in its willingness to swap out things in memory is something to think about... >> I can provide you with dmesg, /proc/meminfo or whatever might be useful. >How about some output (maybe 20 lines) of 'vmstat 1' during the >time where your system is slow, together with a short description >of how large the various processes (X, Mozilla ...) in your system >are ? root # vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- ----cpu-= --- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id= wa 0 1 265048 5248 32248 119108 6 15 65 62 252 585 21 6 73= 0 1 6 266648 4480 32316 120300 0 4656 2152 4652 1348 821 13 8 79= 0 1 0 265052 4496 31036 120184 8 336 1668 340 1226 765 15 7 78= 0 0 1 265052 4496 31112 121564 4 0 3152 0 1198 894 18 8 74= 0 1 0 265052 4504 31076 123112 0 0 3024 8576 1229 857 17 7 76= 0 0 1 265052 4496 30020 127816 12 0 3300 0 1283 862 16 6 78= 0 2 0 265052 5244 29980 129796 0 0 3520 0 1212 991 17 9 74= 0 2 0 265052 4604 30044 130904 0 0 3036 0 1213 903 20 8 72= 0 0 9 266664 4704 30068 130836 4 6612 212 6608 1533 558 9 4 87= 0 0 1 265048 4668 30080 131120 8 272 1632 308 1246 837 20 11 69= 0 0 2 265048 4680 28808 130356 0 0 2308 48 1198 912 18 8 74= 0 1 2 265048 4680 27592 133108 12 0 1500 0 1142 753 16 5 79= 0 1 2 265048 4756 26776 135432 4 0 1436 0 1151 783 17 8 75= 0 0 2 265048 4820 26556 137208 12 0 1488 0 1150 773 18 5 77= 0 0 3 265048 4820 26508 137832 0 0 544 728 1256 654 16 5 79= 0 1 1 265048 4876 26328 141604 8 0 2980 268 1228 992 20 10 70= 0 1 0 265040 4472 25924 140324 92 0 3200 0 1167 1569 58 15 27= 0 2 0 265048 4372 25896 141292 8 4808 76 4812 1286 2517 85 15 0= 0 1 1 265048 4348 24516 147516 24 0 860 0 1074 2550 83 16 1= 0 1 0 265048 4408 22992 154120 28 0 668 0 1078 2455 83 15 2= 0 root # cat /proc/meminfo total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 394547200 378638336 15908864 0 22396928 258523136 Swap: 542826496 271384576 271441920 MemTotal: 385300 kB MemFree: 15536 kB MemShared: 0 kB Buffers: 21872 kB Cached: 167848 kB SwapCached: 84616 kB Active: 175416 kB Inact_dirty: 123512 kB Inact_clean: 7728 kB Inact_target: 61328 kB HighTotal: 0 kB HighFree: 0 kB LowTotal: 385300 kB LowFree: 15536 kB SwapTotal: 530104 kB SwapFree: 265080 kB Committed_AS: 365684 kB And these are some of the apps running, basically those more memory-hungry, at this point I mean: UID PID PPID C SZ RSS PSR STIME TTY TIME CMD root 15312 15309 2 52651 50960 0 Nov29 ? 00:19:42 /usr/X11R6/b= in/X jmarcet 15409 15332 0 1223 4 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh --lo= gin /usr/kde/3.1/bin/startkde jmarcet 15444 1 0 18564 1580 0 Nov29 ? 00:02:04 kdeinit: kde= d =20 jmarcet 15509 15436 0 2525 432 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:03 artsd jmarcet 15553 1 0 19098 1060 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit: kno= tify =20 jmarcet 15556 1 0 17672 832 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit: ksm= server =20 jmarcet 15560 15436 0 17966 2684 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:08 kdeinit: kwin jmarcet 15571 1 0 19961 2568 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:24 kdeinit: kde= sktop =20 jmarcet 15591 1 0 19177 5488 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:32 kdeinit: kic= ker =20 jmarcet 15597 15436 0 5557 28 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit: kio= _file jmarcet 15600 15571 0 3942 1672 0 Nov29 ? 00:03:15 /home/jmarce= t/.kde/Autostart/gkrellm2 jmarcet 15637 15436 0 18397 2640 0 Nov29 ? 00:02:46 kdeinit: kon= sole jmarcet 15659 15436 0 18191 3776 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:21 kdeinit: kon= sole jmarcet 15682 15659 0 3598 6284 0 Nov29 pty/s1 00:00:17 /usr/bin/mutt jmarcet 21557 15436 1 29878 23424 0 Nov29 ? 00:07:55 kdeinit: kon= queror --silent jmarcet 22528 1 0 17825 524 0 Nov29 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit: kio= _uiserver =20 jmarcet 17165 15591 7 18864 5552 0 Nov29 ? 00:36:20 appletproxy jmarcet 10990 21557 1 20661 1880 0 Nov29 ? 00:05:31 /usr/kde/3.1= /bin/nspluginviewer jmarcet 12338 15436 0 18646 5656 0 01:19 ? 00:00:28 kdeinit: kon= sole =20 This is after the system has been in use with a 512MB swap partition for around 1 hour. I must say it is barely usable as a desktop, way _far_ =66rom a responsive environment. looking at the memory numbers it's easy to think I need more memory, but with other kernels, at the same load -by load I mean of memory, not processor- or even much higher, swap usage was maybe around 16MB, while there was still ~192MB if free cached memory. So yes, you are right that swap usage is not the problem. It seems more like memory getting too dirty. BTW, I was compiling something with make -j2, not very big, it was htdig. I must reinforce that switching virtual desktops was so slow that you could see windows repainting slowly on the screen. processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 6 model : 6 model name : AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+ stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 1544.999 cache size : 256 KB The system has both an IDE ATA-100 45GB an a SCSI U2W IBM 9GB drives, swap partition is at the start of the IDE disk, since it is much faster, throughput-wise, than the SCSI model. --=20 Javier Marcet --/aVve/J9H4Wl5yVO Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAj3oFpgACgkQx/ptJkB7fry2tgCeM6mccQji+9wehp7YPGedJE0F CSwAniU2VvNalhJmhmwaJH2XY4LUaYvM =6QNR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --/aVve/J9H4Wl5yVO-- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/