LinuxQuestions.org - RedHat 8.0 Sluggish...

- Linux - General (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/)

- - RedHat 8.0 Sluggish... (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/redhat-8-0-sluggish-33764/)

RedHat 8.0 Sluggish...

I just installed RedHat 8.0 yesterday, and overall it's
pretty good. However, it seems to be running VERY sluggishly. My hardware is AMD K6/2 500 mhz, 128 MB ram, 20 GB 7200 rpm Fujistsu HD. My swap size is 256 MB.
Any ideas on why this may be?

Need some more info.

Run "top" in a term window and post top resource hogs.

Run as root:

/sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hdx

where hdx is your drive (typically hda).

Post the results...

The results are in...

Ok, so this is what I got when I ran top:

2:59pm up 8 min, 1 user, load average: 0.47, 0.43, 0.20
61 processes: 58 sleeping, 2 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 33.8% user, 5.4% system, 0.0% nice, 60.6% idle
Mem: 126448K av, 114444K used, 12004K free, 0K shrd, 948K buff
Swap: 262040K av, 0K used, 262040K free 50504K cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
932 root 15 0 25620 25M 13808 S 21.7 20.2 0:39 mozilla-bin
811 root 5 -10 19764 15M 5388 S < 9.9 12.1 0:18 X
957 root 16 0 9096 9092 7120 R 2.9 7.1 0:07 gnome-terminal
914 root 15 0 11340 11M 8436 S 1.9 8.9 0:06 gnome-panel
985 root 16 0 1012 1012 820 R 1.3 0.8 0:01 top
894 root 15 0 6588 6588 5348 S 0.5 5.2 0:03 metacity
822 root 15 0 8304 8300 6396 S 0.1 6.5 0:01 gnome-session
898 root 15 0 7292 7288 5684 S 0.1 5.7 0:02 gnome-settings-
916 root 15 0 16088 15M 10056 S 0.1 12.7 0:08 nautilus
1 root 15 0 460 460 408 S 0.0 0.3 0:04 init
2 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 keventd
3 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kapmd
4 root 34 19 0 0 0 SWN 0.0 0.0 0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
5 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kswapd
6 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 bdflush
7 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kupdated
8 root 25 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 mdrecoveryd
12 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kjournald
107 root 15 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kjournald
421 root 17 0 1024 1024 736 S 0.0 0.8 0:00 dhclient
476 root 15 0 532 532 444 S 0.0 0.4 0:00 syslogd
480 root 15 0 432 432 376 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 klogd
497 rpc 15 0 528 528 452 S 0.0 0.4 0:00 portmap
516 rpcuser 18 0 816 816 696 S 0.0 0.6 0:00 rpc.statd
597 root 16 0 488 488 436 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 apmd
635 root 16 0 1428 1428 1208 S 0.0 1.1 0:00 sshd
649 root 15 0 916 916 788 S 0.0 0.7 0:00 xinetd

and from /sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hda:

Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 3.37 seconds = 37.98 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 5.19 seconds = 12.33 MB/sec

Any help would be appreciated...

That buffer-cache stat looks a little bogus to me. I just run this on my P270 Compaq laptop with 96MB of RAM (running RH8) and my results are:

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.86 seconds = 68.98 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 8.15 seconds = 7.85 MB/sec

Bearing in mind this is a _very_ old machine your stats look bizarre.

Flibble

Looks like your not running any DMA on that drive.

Do:- /sbin/hdparm /dev/hda to see whats enabled.

Mine gives:

Code:

[root@criten wayne]# /sbin/hdparm /dev/hda



/dev/hda:

 multcount    = 16 (on)

 IO_support  =  3 (32-bit w/sync)

 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)

 using_dma    =  1 (on)

 keepsettings =  1 (on)

 readonly    =  0 (off)

 readahead    =  1 (on)

 geometry    = 4866/255/63, sectors = 78177792, start = 0

I have this drive setup using the RedHat8 / hdparm config script that is configured with /etc/sysconfig/harddisks :-

Code:

[root@criten wayne]# more /etc/sysconfig/harddisks

# These options are used to tune the hard drives -

# read the hdparm man page for more information



# Set this to 1 to enable DMA. This might cause some 

# data corruption on certain chipset / hard drive

# combinations. This is used with the "-d" option



USE_DMA=1



# Multiple sector I/O. a feature of most modern IDE hard drives,

# permitting the transfer of multiple sectors per I/O interrupt,

# rather than the usual one sector per interrupt.  When this feature

# is enabled, it typically reduces operating system overhead for disk

# I/O by 30-50%.  On many systems, it also provides increased data

# throughput of anywhere from 5% to 50%.  Some drives, however (most

# notably the WD Caviar series), seem to run slower with multiple mode

# enabled. Under rare circumstances, such failures can result in

# massive filesystem corruption. USE WITH CAUTION AND BACKUP.

# This is the sector count for multiple sector I/O - the "-m" option

#

 MULTIPLE_IO=16



# (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support (to interface card)

#

 EIDE_32BIT=3



# Enable drive read-lookahead

#

 LOOKAHEAD=1



# Add extra parameters here if wanted

# On reasonably new hardware, you may want to try -X66, -X67 or -X68

# Other flags you might want to experiment with are -u1, -a and -m

# See the hdparm manpage (man hdparm) for details and more options.

#

EXTRA_PARAMS=-u1a1m16

If your drive will handle DMA and also multi sector reads, then you have big gains ahead by turning them on.

Checkout your drives capabilities with /sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hda like so:-

Code:

[root@criten wayne]# /sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hda



/dev/hda:



 Model=MAXTOR 6L040J2, FwRev=A93.0500, SerialNo=662217243206

 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=32256, SectSize=21298, ECCbytes=4

 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1819kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78177792

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}

 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 

 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 

 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 udma6 

 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled

 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-5 T13 1321D revision 1:  1 2 3 4 5

"top" results:

Code:

 12:41am  up 14 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.12, 0.30, 0.18

66 processes: 62 sleeping, 3 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped

CPU states:  3.3% user,  0.7% system,  0.0% nice, 95.8% idle

Mem:  513952K av,  165212K used,  348740K free,      0K shrd,    620K buff

Swap:  995988K av,      0K used,  995988K free                  90928K cached



  PID USER    PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM  TIME COMMAND

 1250 root      15  0  9372 9368  7068 R    1.7  1.8  0:01 gnome-terminal

  847 root      5 -10 82832  16M  5160 S <  1.3  3.3  0:17 X

 1095 root      15  0  6600 6600  5352 R    0.3  1.2  0:01 metacity

 1315 root      15  0  1028 1028  840 R    0.3  0.2  0:00 top

 1109 root      15  0 14408  14M  9596 S    0.1  2.8  0:01 nautilus

    1 root      15  0  480  480  428 S    0.0  0.0  0:04 init

    2 root      15  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 keventd

    3 root      15  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 kapmd

    4 root      34  19    0    0    0 SWN  0.0  0.0  0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0

    5 root      15  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 kswapd

    6 root      25  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 bdflush

    7 root      15  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 kupdated

    8 root      25  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 mdrecoveryd

  65 root      15  0    0    0    0 SW    0.0  0.0  0:00 khubd

  511 root      15  0  540  540  460 S    0.0  0.1  0:00 syslogd

  515 root      15  0  428  428  376 S    0.0  0.0  0:00 klogd

and my "/sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hda" results:

[root@localhost root]# /sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hda

Code:

/dev/hda:

 Timing buffer-cache reads:  128 MB in  0.44 seconds =290.00 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.87 seconds = 34.17 MB/sec

JesusCow -> hdparm is run on a drive not a partition. ie. /dev/hda

Looks good though, your running DMA obviously.

Quote:

Originally posted by dnar
JesusCow -> hdparm is run on a drive not a partition. ie. /dev/hda

Looks good though, your running DMA obviously.

oh ok, i didnt know if it made a differnce or not :) im still learning at every step of the way :newbie:

man hdparm, and heed the warnings!