Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 13:01:16 -0500 (EST)
From: David Mansfield <lkml@dm.cobite.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: very poor performance in 2.5.66[-mm1]
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0303281247480.11928-100000@admin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
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Hi list.

After all of the rave reviews about the interactivity fixes (both regular 
and I/O scheduler related), I decided to give the 2.5.latest a try on my 
desktop machine (system described below)

I started X, everything seemed fine, maybe a bit faster.  I opened a 
'gnome-terminal' and typed 'ls -ltr'.  Wow, it was 20x slower.

Here are the timings for 'ls -ltr':

2.5.66-mm1:      'ls -ltr'         31 seconds
2.5.66-mm1:      'ls -ltr | cat'   2 seconds
2.4.18-rhlatest: 'ls -ltr'         1.14 seconds

I also tried 2.5.66 vanilla with the exact same results.  Everything else 
seemed fine about the system.

I'm running Red Hat 8.0 updated to the latest packages, and I know that 
the anti-aliasing that gnome-terminal does takes a ton of CPU time.  In 
fact, all of the 31 seconds above is used by X.  You can see that when the 
output of 'ls' is piped through 'cat' (essentially changing the output 
from line buffered to block buffered), the time went down dramatically.

I also have noticed in the past that under redhat 8.0, X runs at nice -10.  
With the 2.5.66 kernel it was 'nice 0' (i.e. not reniced).  I tried 
various renicing, both positive and negative (+/- 1), to no effect.  Also, 
renicing X to 0 in 2.4.18-rhlatest doesn't cause the above abnormality.

This must be some scheduler interaction issue that has changed the way X 
buffers it's redraw requests or something.  Seems like something that used 
to be asynchronous is now synchronous.  Just a guess.

System:

UP,Preempt Athlon 1.4 Ghz, 512MB ram, IDE, SiS chipset for ide and video

Kernel config:

CONFIG_X86=y
CONFIG_MMU=y
CONFIG_UID16=y
CONFIG_GENERIC_ISA_DMA=y
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL=y
CONFIG_SWAP=y
CONFIG_SYSVIPC=y
CONFIG_SYSCTL=y
CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT=14
CONFIG_X86_PC=y
CONFIG_MK7=y
CONFIG_X86_CMPXCHG=y
CONFIG_X86_XADD=y
CONFIG_X86_L1_CACHE_SHIFT=6
CONFIG_RWSEM_XCHGADD_ALGORITHM=y
CONFIG_X86_WP_WORKS_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_INVLPG=y
CONFIG_X86_BSWAP=y
CONFIG_X86_POPAD_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_GOOD_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_USE_PPRO_CHECKSUM=y
CONFIG_X86_USE_3DNOW=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT=y
CONFIG_X86_TSC=y
CONFIG_X86_MCE=y
CONFIG_X86_MCE_NONFATAL=y
CONFIG_MICROCODE=y
CONFIG_X86_MSR=y
CONFIG_X86_CPUID=y
CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y
CONFIG_HIGHMEM=y
CONFIG_MTRR=y
CONFIG_HAVE_DEC_LOCK=y
CONFIG_PCI=y
CONFIG_PCI_GOANY=y
CONFIG_PCI_BIOS=y
CONFIG_PCI_DIRECT=y
CONFIG_PCI_NAMES=y
CONFIG_ISA=y
CONFIG_KCORE_ELF=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF=y
CONFIG_PARPORT=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC_CML1=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC_FIFO=y
CONFIG_PARPORT_1284=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NBD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE=4096
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD=y
CONFIG_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y
CONFIG_IDEDISK_MULTI_MODE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDESCSI=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ADMA=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIS5513=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_MODES=y
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_SG=y
CONFIG_SCSI_REPORT_LUNS=y
CONFIG_MD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_MD=y
CONFIG_MD_LINEAR=y
CONFIG_MD_RAID0=y
CONFIG_MD_RAID1=y
CONFIG_MD_RAID5=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_DM=y
CONFIG_NET=y
CONFIG_PACKET=y
CONFIG_PACKET_MMAP=y
CONFIG_NETLINK_DEV=y
CONFIG_UNIX=y
CONFIG_INET=y
CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST=y
CONFIG_SYN_COOKIES=y
CONFIG_IPV6_SCTP__=y
CONFIG_NETDEVICES=y
CONFIG_DUMMY=y
CONFIG_TUN=y
CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_NET_PCI=y
CONFIG_8139TOO=y
CONFIG_INPUT=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_PSAUX=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_SCREEN_X=1024
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_SCREEN_Y=768
CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV=y
CONFIG_SOUND_GAMEPORT=y
CONFIG_SERIO=y
CONFIG_SERIO_I8042=y
CONFIG_SERIO_SERPORT=y
CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBOARD=y
CONFIG_KEYBOARD_ATKBD=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSE=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2=y
CONFIG_VT=y
CONFIG_VT_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_HW_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_8250=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UNIX98_PTYS=y
CONFIG_UNIX98_PTY_COUNT=2048
CONFIG_PRINTER=y
CONFIG_LP_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_PPDEV=y
CONFIG_NVRAM=y
CONFIG_RTC=y
CONFIG_AGP=y
CONFIG_AGP_SIS=y
CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER=y
CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y
CONFIG_EXT3_FS=y
CONFIG_JBD=y
CONFIG_MINIX_FS=y
CONFIG_ISO9660_FS=y
CONFIG_JOLIET=y
CONFIG_ZISOFS=y
CONFIG_ZISOFS_FS=y
CONFIG_UDF_FS=y
CONFIG_FAT_FS=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=y
CONFIG_VFAT_FS=y
CONFIG_PROC_FS=y
CONFIG_DEVPTS_FS=y
CONFIG_TMPFS=y
CONFIG_RAMFS=y
CONFIG_NFS_FS=y
CONFIG_NFS_V3=y
CONFIG_LOCKD=y
CONFIG_LOCKD_V4=y
CONFIG_SUNRPC=y
CONFIG_SMB_FS=y
CONFIG_PARTITION_ADVANCED=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION=y
CONFIG_SMB_NLS=y
CONFIG_NLS=y
CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT="iso8859-1"
CONFIG_NLS_CODEPAGE_437=y
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_1=y
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_15=y
CONFIG_NLS_UTF8=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_SOUND=y
CONFIG_SND=y
CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
CONFIG_SND_MIXER_OSS=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=y
CONFIG_SND_RTCTIMER=y
CONFIG_SND_TRIDENT=y
CONFIG_USB=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS=y
CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_AUDIO=y
CONFIG_USB_ACM=y
CONFIG_USB_PRINTER=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_DATAFAB=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_FREECOM=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_ISD200=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_DPCM=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_HP8200e=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_SDDR09=y
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE_JUMPSHOT=y
CONFIG_USB_HID=y
CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL=y
CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ=y
CONFIG_KALLSYMS=y
CONFIG_ZLIB_INFLATE=y
CONFIG_X86_BIOS_REBOOT=y

-- 
/==============================\
| David Mansfield              |
| lkml@dm.cobite.com           |
\==============================/

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