slow linux system

prashsharma · 09-21-2007, 09:20 PM

What all steps will your consider if any user report the slow linux computer, while performing day to day funtions?

dxqcanada · 09-21-2007, 09:40 PM

First I would look at the process's that are running.

Look at the services that are being started at boot.

Check memory levels using free.

etc...

kstan · 09-21-2007, 10:03 PM

Hi prashsharma,
I will use following step:-
1. use top
2. view the cpu(must be less than 20), wa (must below 10%) during monitoring (I mean there is no activities)
3. Mem must have more than 40% from total mem available for free+buffers
4. See what is the 1st process listed at bottom list
5. Start some application which your user complain it cause computer slow.
6. Continue step 1-5.

If you can find anything, it could be some route process run at background so user don't realised. The best example is beagled or updatedb. Stop it from run routine.

Regards,
Ks

doublejoon · 09-24-2007, 11:22 AM

Also use:
* vmstat to check memory
* iostat for disk IO bottlenecks
* Runaway user scripts

I personally like to see exactly what a "resource hog process" is doing

Code:

cd /proc/"pid"

Code:

watch 'ls -l fd'

Also you could do this for later analysis

Code:

strace -p "pid" > somefile