RH 7.3 and KDE running verrrrry sloooowwwww

jrdioko · 10-15-2002, 08:36 PM

Hello everyone,

I recently finished installing Red Hat 7.3. As soon as I logged on, I noticed that everything was verrrrry slow, the shell took almost a full minute just to load. When I go into KPM, my cpu load stays at just about 95%. It seems that whenever I load any program (the konsole, KPM, etc.) whatever I just loaded suddenly takes up 20-30% of the CPU load. I verified this in TOP in the shell. I have a 550 Mhz AMD processor and 128 mgs of ram, which I have heard shouldn't be a problem. What could be causing this?

I was trying to see if KDE was creating the problem because "kdeinit" often shows at the top of the KPM system % list. I was wondering if it is possible to run just the shell, not KDE (like booting in DOS mode for Windows) and then run TOP to see how my cpu utilization is. If so, how do I get into that mode, when you go to log out, theres no "restart in text mode" option or anything like that. I looked all over for a setting to change and I can't figure it out?

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot/fix this?

Thanks,
JMagi

MasterC · 10-15-2002, 09:01 PM

To kill X and "be in DOS" do this:
after the system boots, and starts it's gui press CTRL ALT F2
Login as root, and supply the password.
Type init 3 (might be init3 without the space)
This will now have successfully killed your gui. To check press CTRL ALT F7 (or possibly just ALT F7) and if your gui doesn't come up, consider it killed.

Now you can use top to view whatever you'd like.

To get back into your gui, type, kdm.

Cool

jrdioko · 10-15-2002, 09:15 PM

Thanks! That worked, and in TOP now my cpu load is like 1% used and 99% free. So back to my original question, now that we know that without KDE it works fine, what could be causing it to slow down this much. With KDE the used and free CPU load numbers reverse, and the system is almost impossible to work with?

I do have a modem and network card, and my original thought was that some process was continually failing and taking up all the CPU power. However, I went in and disactivated and deleted everything listed on the screen and the problem still persists.

If there is some process constantly running, how could I find it. When I go into the Process Manager when KDE _is_ running, the 99.9% CPU load use comes from a few processes that come up to 20 or 30 percent. Those processes can be kdeinit, kpm itself, the konsole, or any program I have running. CPU utilization stays up at 99% even if nothing but the process manager is running (and whatever is running in the background).

I'd appreciate any tips or ideas on how to troubleshoot this.

Thanks again,
JMagi

Greenhorn · 10-16-2002, 06:45 PM

I'm having the same problem with Mandrake and KDE. It works fine most of the time, then for some reason it slows to a crawl. Let me know if you figure it out. I don't even know where to begin, brand new to Linux.

Mara · 10-17-2002, 02:49 PM

Well, what does 'top' say? Which processes use so much processor time?

Azrael · 10-17-2002, 03:41 PM

It is normal that kdeinit shows up lots of times in the process list, matter of optimizing the startup time of kde apps. So you have for every application you started one kdeinit process. To know which process belongs to which app use "ps ax"

jrdioko · 10-17-2002, 03:57 PM

What does TOP show? Whatever I am running, be it System Guard, a Konsole window, or Konqueror, that program will suddenly rise up to 50 or 60% CPU usage, and other processes will rise until it is 99% used. Even if the Konsole window for TOP is all I am running in KDE, top itself will go up to 90% or so. Its not a matter of one process taking up the CPU utilization, but whatever small program is running suddenly rising to take up the entire CPU load. Is there some setting I accidentally set to make all programs take all available CPU space?

I appreciate any replies, thanks,
JMagi

Mara · 10-18-2002, 04:47 AM

Here's an example of my top:

Code:

 11:45am  up  1:15,  4 users,  load average: 2,34, 2,20, 1,95
68 processes: 64 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 30,1% user,  2,9% system, 65,5% nice,  1,3% idle
Mem:   127368K av,  107344K used,   20024K free,       0K shrd,    5220K buff
Swap:  401584K av,   64148K used,  337436K free                   30528K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
  797 root      15   1 14520  13M   544 R N  59,6 10,7  37:16 setiathome
13919 mara      16   0  6768 6768  2092 R    47,3  5,3   0:00 cc1plus
13886 mara      12   0  1068 1064   840 R     2,8  0,8   0:00 top
    1 root       9   0   280  236   212 S     0,0  0,1   0:03 init
    2 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 keventd
    3 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0,0  0,0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
    4 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:03 kswapd
    5 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 bdflush
    6 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:01 kupdated
    8 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 kreiserfsd
  492 rpc        9   0   212  132   132 S     0,0  0,1   0:00 portmap
  504 root       9   0   328  228   228 S     0,0  0,1   0:00 syslogd
  513 root       9   0   332  188   188 S     0,0  0,1   0:00 klogd
  528 rpcuser    9   0   300  200   200 S     0,0  0,1   0:00 rpc.statd
  698 root       8   0   368  308   308 S     0,0  0,2   0:00 crond
  737 daemon     8   0   236  164   164 S     0,0  0,1   0:00 atd
  750 root       9   0   484  232   232 S     0,0  0,1   0:00 login

What do you have in the 'PRI' column?

jrdioko · 10-18-2002, 05:43 PM

Since I cannot get online with Linux yet, I can't copy and paste the whole screen in there, but I'll list some info. I booted Linux, logged on, and opened a Konsole window to run TOP. Since only about 50% of the CPU was being used up, I opened Konqueror. As it was booting, my top had the following info:

86.0% User 13.3% System 0.0% Nice 0.5% Idle

PRI:25 CPU %:57.4 Command: kdeinit

That was the top listing, the next few were another kdeinit (11.6% CPU and 15 PRI), X (10.1% and 15 PRI) and kdeinit (8.8% 15 PRI), followed by top itself at 4.4%.

Any idea whats wrong?

-JMagi

neo77777 · 10-18-2002, 05:58 PM

What are the system's specs? Is it a power rig?

jrdioko · 10-18-2002, 07:06 PM

Sorry, I thought I posted those earlier. The computer we built from scratch (well, not scratch, but you know what I mean). It has a 550 AMD processor and 128 RAM, which I was told by two other people would work fine with RH 7.3 Linux.

adas · 10-19-2002, 06:56 AM

I'm quite worried too, here is my first stats at GNOME:

Code:

  2:56pm  up  2:14,  1 user,  load average: 2,16, 2,12, 2,07
84 processes: 80 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 39,6% user, 60,3% system,  0,0% nice,  0,0% idle
Mem:   256940K av,  244860K used,   12080K free,       0K shrd,   33372K buff
Swap:  408200K av,    2504K used,  405696K free                  108588K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
 4939 otso      18   0 17932  17M   524 R    36,6  6,9  20:09 wineserver
 4941 otso      19   0  6276 6216  4360 R    36,6  2,4  20:11 wine.bin
 4937 otso      13   0  6276 6216  4360 S    15,8  2,4   8:59 wine.bin
 1288 root       5 -10 99296  16M  5864 S <   4,3  6,5   1:32 X
 5010 otso       9   0 28136  27M 17764 S     2,9 10,9   0:32 galeon-bin
 5096 otso       9   0  9084 9080  6748 R     1,1  3,5   0:05 gnome-terminal
 2075 otso       9   0  7128 7128  5628 S     0,9  2,7   0:13 metacity
 2079 otso       9   0 11908  11M  8324 S     0,3  4,6   0:08 gnome-panel
 5510 otso      11   0  1040 1040   816 R     0,3  0,4   0:00 top
 4902 otso       9   0 22852  22M 11732 S     0,1  8,8   0:18 nautilus
 5019 otso       9   0 28136  27M 17764 S     0,1 10,9   0:00 galeon-bin
    1 root       8   0   132   84    72 S     0,0  0,0   0:04 init
    2 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 keventd
    3 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 kapmd
    4 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0,0  0,0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
    5 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 kswapd
    6 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 bdflush
    7 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 kupdated
    8 root      -1 -20     0    0     0 SW<   0,0  0,0   0:00 mdrecoveryd
   12 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 scsi_eh_0
   16 root       9   0     0    0     0 SW    0,0  0,0   0:00 kjournald
  131 root       9   0   896  884   708 S     0,0  0,3   0:00 devfsd

Why it runs so many tasks as root, I'm not even logged in as root!

Vlad_M · 10-19-2002, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by adas
I'm quite worried too, here is my first stats at GNOME:

Code:

2:56pm up 2:14, 1 user, load average: 2,16, 2,12, 2,07 84 processes: 80 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped CPU states: 39,6% user, 60,3% system, 0,0% nice, 0,0% idle Mem: 256940K av, 244860K used, 12080K free, 0K shrd, 33372K buff Swap: 408200K av, 2504K used, 405696K free 108588K cached PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND 4939 otso 18 0 17932 17M 524 R 36,6 6,9 20:09 wineserver 4941 otso 19 0 6276 6216 4360 R 36,6 2,4 20:11 wine.bin 4937 otso 13 0 6276 6216 4360 S 15,8 2,4 8:59 wine.bin 1288 root 5 -10 99296 16M 5864 S < 4,3 6,5 1:32 X 5010 otso 9 0 28136 27M 17764 S 2,9 10,9 0:32 galeon-bin 5096 otso 9 0 9084 9080 6748 R 1,1 3,5 0:05 gnome-terminal 2075 otso 9 0 7128 7128 5628 S 0,9 2,7 0:13 metacity 2079 otso 9 0 11908 11M 8324 S 0,3 4,6 0:08 gnome-panel 5510 otso 11 0 1040 1040 816 R 0,3 0,4 0:00 top 4902 otso 9 0 22852 22M 11732 S 0,1 8,8 0:18 nautilus 5019 otso 9 0 28136 27M 17764 S 0,1 10,9 0:00 galeon-bin 1 root 8 0 132 84 72 S 0,0 0,0 0:04 init 2 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 keventd 3 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 kapmd 4 root 19 19 0 0 0 SWN 0,0 0,0 0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0 5 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 kswapd 6 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 bdflush 7 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 kupdated 8 root -1 -20 0 0 0 SW< 0,0 0,0 0:00 mdrecoveryd 12 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 scsi_eh_0 16 root 9 0 0 0 0 SW 0,0 0,0 0:00 kjournald 131 root 9 0 896 884 708 S 0,0 0,3 0:00 devfsd

Why it runs so many tasks as root, I'm not even logged in as root!

Adas, the only thing I can see there that looks worrying is the WINE server. I don't know if you are using it, but I know that Mandy and RH both install it as default, and then run it as a service at boot time. You need do disable it, both in your init 3 and init 5. Just look at the /etc/rc.d/ and you'll find the scripts which start all the services, disable WINE and you'll free up 33% of your memory (if your TOP above is correct).

jrdioko · 10-19-2002, 12:12 PM

I wish mine had something like that, but its almost always kdeinit or whatever I have running that suddenly rises up to 50 or 60%. It does have a PRI of 25, like I listed above, any ideas?

-JMagi

MasterC · 10-19-2002, 12:32 PM

Well, I have one, but it's the usual...

Use a different window manager. Something less bloated, like sawfish, XFCE, Fluxbox, or blackbox. You probably have a few of those already on your system to use, so no need to download/install anything yet.

Then check TOP and see if you are still getting kdeinit's running.

Also, you might wanna see about starting your wm from the command line, this might be a little less resource hungry

Cool