[SOLVED] VL 5.8 Slowing Down

[reb]

I have had my linux box for about 5 weeks.  VL5.8 final, was pre-installed. I have managed (with a lot of forum help) to access wireless internet, get sound working, get my old HP 1100 b&w laser printer working, get my HP 4300C scanner working, DVD and floppy working, and through it all the computer was light speed fast.  After I down loaded a game installer and two different game loaders, I started to notice a significant slow down in speed.

Now, I do not know why, but the entire system has slowed to a snails pace. Obviously I have done something to cause this, but I have no idea what. One thing I do know, my hd does not have a swap partition.  Maybe this doesn't matter with linux, but it certainly would if I were still in ms-win; but since who ever loaded SOHO, did not include it, I'm not sure one way or the other.  Does VL benefit with a swap partition? If so, how do I make one? 

Looking in my 'KInfoCenter' the only partition listed is "/dev/sda1" Size: 73,428 MB, Free Size 68,458 MB.  Now the only other item listed in the KInfoCenter that containes any data under Device is 'tempfs' and that is only 471 MB.  I have exhausted my limited knowledge of linux, so I hope someone out there can help.

reb

[rbistolfi]

hi reb, perhaps some process is hanging, you can check if some process is locking memory or cpu using htop.
I don't know KinfoCenter very much, but I suspect it is not reporting all the partitions. Swap is not mandatory, but is recommendable and safer to have a swap partition or file. Please run in a terminal as root fdisk -l and post the output here. And because you are in a terminal already, post also the output of cat /proc/swaps. We can see if you have an active swap partition with that.

[newt]

I would think that playing a graphically intensive game would suffer greatly from not having a swap partition, especially when the graphics and ram memory is being completely used up.  Then again, perhaps a game wouldn't use up all of the ram/video resources and thus wouldn't need the swap.

Tmpfs has the option of being located on the hard drive or in ram, and this is decided on during installation.  There have been many people who have suffered strange "happening" when tmpfs was stored strictly on  ram and all ram was used up; usually it's at compile time, or unpackaging time that the problem occurs but with a game I guess it could be any time depending on the resources being used at a given moment.

If tmpfs is using ram then you can easily adjust it to use hard drive space instead by editing your fstab, reboot and see if it fixes the problem

If it doesn't, then you could (using gparted, or system rescuecd) resize your existing partition to 512mb smaller, and then add a 512mb swap to see if it clears up your issues.

But, don't run off and do this just yet.  Wait for more people to give advice and see what sounds like the best place to start (probably checking to see if tmpfs is full and/or ram).

HTH!

[reb]

Hi rbistolfi

First of all, you were correct, KInfoCenter >partitions: did not report it correctly.  /dev/sda1 was the only partition showing.  However running fdisk -l produced the following:

root:# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        9361    75192201   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            9362        9729     2955960   82  Linux swap

So here we see I do have a swap. I won't take time right now to do the math, but what ever 367 blocks is equal to, is my swap.

However 'cat /proc/swaps wasn't so fruitful'.
 

root:# whereis proc
proc: /usr/man/man5/proc.5.gz /usr/man/mann/proc.n.gz

So if there is a 'proc' file or subdir, the "whereis proc" returns nothing

This is what the fstab says about Linux partitions:

# The Linux partitions
/dev/sda1 / reiserfs noatime 0 1

# Shared Windows/Linux partition
#/dev/hda1 /mnt/dos msdos umask=0 0 0
#/dev/hda1 /mnt/win vfat fmask=111,dmask=0,quiet,shortname=mixed,user 0 0
#/dev/hda1 /mnt/win ntfs umask=0 0 0

And this is what it says about Swap

# Swap partitions
# The 'sw' option means auto activating with 'swapon -a'.

These are the last two lines in the fstab.

So is this telling me that the swap file isn't activated and I need to, somehow, activate it.?

and I'm afraid that is all I can tell you at this time, but maybe you can tell me something.

reb

[GrannyGeek]

However 'cat /proc/swaps wasn't so fruitful'.
 

root:# whereis proc
proc: /usr/man/man5/proc.5.gz /usr/man/mann/proc.n.gz

So if there is a 'proc' file or subdir, the "whereis proc" returns nothing

/proc is a directory right off / . Open your file manager, navigate to /proc, and look at the files until you find swaps.

man whereis says:
whereis locates source/binary and manuals sections for specified files.

So since /proc is a directory, not a command or manual, whereis won't find it.
--GrannyGeek

[exeterdad]

Here's a somewhat related toy for you to play with "young master reb".

As root in terminal:

updatedb

This will create a database of every file or mouse dropping in your computer.

Then as any user:

locate mousedropping

It will tell you where it is.  Just updatedb every so often to keep current.

[Freston]

I'm not saying this is what's up with your machine, as you said it did run fast. But it's always worth a try:

Code:

dmesg | grep -i error
dmesg | grep -i fault
dmesg | grep -i bug
dmesg | grep -i not

And whatever keywords you can think off that may lead to useful information.
You can do the same with

Code:

cat ~/.xsessionerrors | less
cat ~/.xsessionerrors | grep -i error
... and so on...

Because an erroneous machine is a slow machine.

If this yields some info, you can get a closer look at those messages by adding the 'C #' flag to grep, where # is the desired number of lines of context. For example:

Code:

dmesg | grep -iC 3 error

Gives each find three lines of context. You can make more sense of this by adding the --color=always flag. The complete command would be:

Code:

dmesg | grep -iC 3 --color=always error

Intermezzo:
If you find the --color=always flag useful, you can add this to ~/.bashrc to activate it by default:
alias grep="grep --color=always"
/Intermezzo


And of course see what's eating your resources with

Code:

ps aux

For now you have homework enough :-p
Questions, answers, opinions, suggestions, side notes and remarks are welcome

[reb]

Ok: ribstolfi, newtor, and GrannyGeek

Hopefully I can answer your concerns all at once.  GrannyGeek,  Although I knew there HAD to be a visual tree structure to linux dirs, subdirs, and files, it wasn't until you rattled my chain hard enough to force me to look for it.  When I finally found it and then found 'swaps', it was MT 

Now ribostolfi and newtor, this may not answer your questions directly, I do think it addresses your concerns.  The only place I can find 'sda2' is in answer to 'fdisk-1'..  Konquerors' list or  storrage devices lists everything but 'sda2'.  And as you can see from the last two lines of my 'fstab' ,  it looks to me like 'sda2' needs to be activated somehow.  Am I right or wrong?

Hey folks, it may not look like it, but I really am learning something

reb

[uelsk8s]

add this line

Code:

/dev/sda2   none   swap   sw   0  0

to your /etc/fstab file
and then reboot post the output of the command "free"
that will confirm whether it is working or not

HTH,
Uelsk8s

[reb]

Hey people, HOLD the phone, All bets are off! 

look at what I found in my /dev file:

pty/        ptypb@  ptyv7@  sda          ttyaa@  ttyq6@  ttyw2@  vcs3@
ptya0@      ptypc@  ptyv8@  sda1         ttyab@  ttyq7@  ttyw3@  vcs4@
ptya1@      ptypd@  ptyv9@  sda2         ttyac@  ttyq8@  ttyw4@  vcs5@

Now I guess all I have to do is add it my 'fstab' .. Is that correct?

reb

[rbistolfi]

Now ribostolfi and newtor, this may not answer your questions directly, I do think it addresses your concerns.  The only place I can find 'sda2' is in answer to 'fdisk-1'..  Konquerors' list or  storrage devices lists everything but 'sda2'.  And as you can see from the last two lines of my 'fstab' ,  it looks to me like 'sda2' needs to be activated somehow.  Am I right or wrong?

You are right. Konqueror does not show it because is not mounted. fdisk report all the devices, mounted or not.

Hey people, HOLD the phone, All bets are off! 

look at what I found in my /Dev file:

pity/        PDP@  pity7@  sda          ttys@  tty6@  tty2@  Cs3@
pt ya0@      topic@  pity8@  sda1         tty ab@  tty7@  tty3@  Cs4@
pt ya1@      typed@  pity9@  sda2         tty ac@  tty8@  tty4@  Cs5@

Now I guess all I have to do is add it my 'fstab' .. Is that correct?

Reb

Correct, following uelks8s advice will do it. I wonder why the fstab line is missing.
On a side note, I don't use the free command because it is crazy at my box. It always report like 80% of my ram is being used, which is obviously wrong. I am sure I am not using it right.

[reb]

Hi uelsk8s

Wow that was quick.  I was typing my find and asking the question and made the post, and by the time I got back to the forum board to check what I had written, your post was already there.

The strange thing is: it answers my question.  Now I'll give it a try.

reb

[reb]

OK, people, we got this "swap file" train on the track and we are really moving freight.   

uelsk8s I used your code to add  "sda2" to my 'fstab' and when I checked, it WAS there.

It looks to me we have only one more thing to do.  It does not show up in the 'mtab', so it won't mount.  Therefore do I add the same line to the 'mtab', or am I rushing things and missed a step or maybe something else I should do first? 

reb

[rbistolfi]

You don't have to mount it, if it show up in the output of the free command, everything is ok.
Do you note any improvement in the system performance?

[uelsk8s]

Reb,
It is possible that whoever made your partitions did not format the swap space.

free will tell you whether swap is mounted or not.
here is the output of free on my system showing swap

uel:$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1030708     807216     223492          0      53988     401016
-/+ buffers/cache:     352212     678496
Swap:      2016116     242076    1774040

mount and mtab do not show swap as being mounted