Slow performance on Thinkpad (RH9)

[Net Llama!]

I've got the same exact laptop with RH9 and i don't see anything like 
you're reporting.  The only big differences I can think of are that I'm 
using XFS for the filesystem, I have 512MB RAM and i build my own 
kernels (its runnign 2.6.1 right now).  I'd suggest building your own 
kernel to see if the problem goes away.  hdparm might help too, but i 
doubt much.  it has a fairly crappy IDE controller. You are a bit thin 
on the swap side of things (i've got 1GB).

On 02/12/04 07:13, Susan Macchia wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I recently installed RH9 on my Thinkpad (T22); its configuration:
>     20G disk (dual boot 10G for XP, 10 for linux.)
>     700 mhz P3
>     256 MB memory
>     linux swap is 512 MB
> 
> 
> I had RH8 on it previously, but had to reinstall everything recently (work
> related security stuff).  Anyway, w/ RH8, performance was decent, X-windows
> started fairly quickly and I never experienced episodes of percieved "locking".
>  The 10G Linux partition, was partitioned into /, /usr, /opt, & /home (don't
> remember exact sizes).  This partitioning caused problems for me when
> installing work related software - I always had trouble finding a partition w/
> enough space.
> 
> When I installed RH9, I decided not to partion at all because of the problem
> above.  Nothing on this laptop is not reproducable, so I don't need to worry if
> I have to upgrade, or reinstall, or lose data.
> 
> Now the when running RH9, it is noticably slower!  X-windows takes a looonng
> time to start up on log-in/boot.  X-apps take a while too.  Also, when I am
> working (a Eclipse session, mozilla), I find that when switching from one app
> to the next, the system hangs for a noticeable period before I can get going
> again.  Additionally, I hear the disk going more frequently that I would expect
> (this is when the UI is blocked, most of the time).  Also during these periods,
> the physical memory is almost completely consumed (only about 5% free), but
> swap is 90% free. 
> 
> To say the least this is frustrating.
> 
> So I was wondering if anyone has any ideas why this is happening.  Could it be
> the use of 1 big partition?  Did I not allocate enough swap (although, when I
> look at memory, during these periods, at least half is free).
> 
> Or am I expecting more from this machine than it can deliver?  But if that is
> the case, why, when running RH8, did X-Windows start up fairly quickly, while
> now it is slow...

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                       	       netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: 		    http://netllama.ipfox.com

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