Why is searching in linux so slow?
 

I use mandrake 9.2 and whenever i search my hard disk for a file or something it takes quite some time to finish. Also it uses much cpu cause my system responds rather slow when searching. What am i doin' wrong?

First thing would be to use locate
rather than find ...

Next thing would be to check whether
you have DMA enabled for your HDD(s).

man hdparm

hdparm /dev/<hdd in question>


Cheers,
Tink

Thanx Tinkster

I've tried hdparm and it says my dma settings in 1 (on). So that's ok.
Is there a graphical front end for locate btw ?

Probably ... but since I only run Flux to have several
xterms open I wouldn't know :)

Search freshmeat! http://freshmeat.net


Cheers,
Tink

Graphical frontends are even slower because they have to correspond to a GUI.

Do they really take that slow? What is the speed of your hard disk under hdparm?

Here's hdparm's output

"
[root@localhost george]# hdparm /dev/hda5

/dev/hda5:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq = 0 (off)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 9729/255/63, sectors = 107988867, start = 27824643
"

Using 'find' under mandrake/kde is indeed slow as it does use the 'find' command. Much better to open up a terminal and use 'whereis' IMO.

Hmm.I tried locate and it said i have to update my database with the updatedb command.I've su and run updatedb. Do i have to updatedb manually each time i wanna search something?

if u wanna search something new or after the time u did update then u will have to do it again

No, updatedb just updates the search database so that when you type "locate <file>" you get results instantly.

You only need to updatedb when you've added/deleted a lot of files.