Well actually I am sure that it can if it is tweaked just right.

Situation:
Small network (14 computers) . All win 98 except the Linux (Redhat 7.2) box being used as a file server. Linux server is AMD k6-2 500 w/128 mb ram and a 7200 rpm 20 gb hard disk.

With 1 or 2 win 98 boxes connected to the Linux file server all is okay. When the other boxes are connected to the network the linux box slows to a crawl. The mouse barely moves and accessing the files on the linux box is very, very, very slow. Almost no response.

When I replaced the Linux box with the Win NT box that I was hoping to replace, all was sweet and quick again.

We would REALLY like to use Linux. Any ideas?

I really appreciate the great info that I have received from LinuxQuestions users re Linux!

if the xserver is running on the linux box, turn it off. then add a lot more ram to try to compensate for the slow processor.

Yeah, 128MB isn't enough for a server like that. I would imagine you would want around 512MB for 14 users at once.

also, what all do you have running at the same given time on the linux box.. i am sure there are some processes running that really don't need to be.. have you tried eliminating some of the processes that have no business running ?? if applicable that is..

No offence to the last response, but I doubt that the problem is the memory. At home I run a Intel 133Mhz 64mb RAM linux box and it is as fast as my 550Mhz win2000 in most cases. I run xserver by the way.

Is this linux box replacing the NT box as a file server or is it just a client? If so is it running Samba, NFS...? Are there any other pcs on the wire? (Win ME, 95)

Have you looked at all the services running and made sure that you need them all?

Chris

We do have xwindows loaded so we will certainly add more memory.

The system monitor right now shows memory usage at 50% with 6 computers on the network but no one accessing the files on the Linux server.

Nautilus seems to take the lions share of memory at 59520k. smbd is next at 10732k.

Memory and cpu were both at the high end on the system monitor graphs when we had the 14 computers hooked up with the win 98 boxes accessing files on the Linux box. We started the system monitor only after the bog down.

The winnt box that sails through the tasks is similarly equipped. Pentium II 450, 128 mb ram vs k6-2 500, 128 mb ram on the Linux box.

No wins or dns or dhcp running on the Linux box. There are other processes running. Most of them look like they are needed but honestly I am not sure if there are processes I could kill.

comparing apples to oranges. there's a huge ram requirement difference between a one user home machine and a 14 user server.

try getting out of X, then connecting all boxes and see how sluggish it gets (not in X).

I run 6 other PC's on my home network(Linux and windows 98/w2k's) that all connect to my Samba Server. I have never seen as much as a hiccup in over a year.

do you have 6 other users all making demands on the linux box at roughly the same time?

There are alot more things to depend on in a network situation. Aside from the server probably needing some more RAM, how good is the hub? Are you using a hub, if not are you on a coax setup(slow)? Perhaps look into the clients and thier capabilities as well. A network isn't just the server, it's everything and you can't just pass judgment on the server only, even if the NT one serves better. NT was designed to be an efficient server right off. Linux has to be setup properly AND efficiently. If you want a dedicated file server, that's all you need to have running, nothing more, nothing less. As suggested, get rid of the memory hungry processes and keep it to just what you are using it for. This is why I love Netware.

You got me. But I will try it tonight!

i'm not trying to get you, and as other users have mentioned, there are other things that could be at fault. ram is a good place to start troubleshooting.
.

I realize that there may be other factors re the performance. The network infrastructure tested fine.

I now have the Linux box connected to just 6 windows boxes and I have added an additional 192 mb ram for a total of 320 mb ram.

For the past 2 days I have been putting the linux box through the paces. I started the Linux box in just command mode and started samba. I then set the windows computers to constantly ping the linux computer constantly (ping <server> -t) for an hour or so. Then I try to do things like copy files during the process.

The cpu doesn't max out but even with the extra ram the memory does max out. Even after the windows computers have been shut down for several hours the Linux box doesn't recover memory.

Perhaps one of the dimms is a bit flaky. I will try to get some more and rerun the test.

Do some linux distros handle memory better than others?

Are you sure the memory is not just cached?

Redhat caches more memory than it is actually using, also it may buffer an almost equal amount so it will show around three times the memory it is actually using.

how much swap space do you have?
RedHat 7.2 uses double the amount of swap as it has memory. This is normally not required because many people do not use all of their memory, if you are actually using most of the available physical memory then you will need a swap partition that is double the ram for the caching and buffering to work


right now my laptop is showing 27% used + shared, 29% buffered, and 37% cached.

so it is showing very little free, but it is actually not being used by anything.


If it seems that you may be experiencing slow harddrive access

check it with hdparm -Tt /dev/hda