Help Me, Virtual partition
 

I am new to Linux & Slackware, I want to create a memory partition (with ram) in order to speed up a particular program. How do I do it?, this program runs on SAMBA server and old windows 98 (long story).
How much memory should I have?
Thanks a lot.

I think what you want is called a swap partition. The best way to create one, imho is the gparted livecd. You can download it here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

Put it in your cd drive, reboot the computer, and you should get the gparted desktop, with a pretty gui for resizing your partitions. Use it to see if you already have a swap partition (It would be smaller than the others and it's type will be labled "swap" or "Linux/Solaris swap".). If you don't, select a partition to shrink, and use the resize tool to shrink it down by twice the amount of RAM your computer has. Then select "create a new partition" in that empty space and when it asks for a type, select "swap". Have it apply these changes.

Slack should autodetect your swap partitions and use them.

... I'm not so sure... a new partition doesnt sound like what he needs.

I'm guessing he has a windows box that has a drive mapped to a samba share. And its slow. To fix the slow he wants to share it from a ram disk instead of a HD.

but, jdecoto, I dont think that'll help you out. Linux will cache the snot out of your files. All free ram is already used as a disk cache.

How big is this samba server (ram, cpu). How many users are there? and what network speed (10/100/1000)?

-Andy

Codeguy, We are running a small DOS program written on Clipper about a zillion years ago. I have about 10 users, the program (all files) is about 400MB. The original program was design to run on Novell Network 3.12 version I installed slackware 10.0 and created a samba server and the system improved. The Database has about 15 years of history it slowing down to the point of crashing the high demand days.
I believe if I improve the access time the system will give us the response we need.

I read about a tmpfs, a partition that runs in memory and the Idea is to load the program in this memory and create some type of crone or mirroring system to avoid complete crashes.

Since RAM is about 100times faster than a 7200 rmp hardrive, I am betting on it.
The server is a Pentium IV with 1 GB, I plan to buy another Pentium IV with more RAM and better performance, load the minimum since this is the only application we run.
Thanks,
jdecoto

So, is your workstation a windows box?

Have you seen this:

http://www.drouillard.ca/Tips&Tricks/Samba/Oplocks.htm

Dont know if its still current.

My point was, linux will use all available ram as a disk cache, so it may not be faster to create a ramdisk...but a little google found different:

http://www.somacon.com/p123.php

says they 46/34 MB/sec read/write to ram disk compared to 15-25 MB/sec on a raid 5.

There is also setup notes on that page that might help you out. Also, are you using 100 or 1000 mbit lan? If you're on 10mbit none of this will help.

Have you ever tried copying a big file and see how much network throughput you're getting? Can you get 15 MB/sec write speed now?

-Andy

I did a bench mark, to copy from the Linux server 323MB/1.37 minutes, 3.3MB/sec with a copy command on multiple files, 100 mbit network.
I will read the notes. Keep you posted.

that seems slow. 100mbit / 8 = 12.5 MB/sec... so in theory you should be able to copy at 12 Megabyte a second. But nobody hits max. 8 or 9MB/sec I suppose should be possible.

Did you do the test during a busy time? I could see if everyone was doing 3 MB/sec that would be different. If you were the only one, I think you have a slow network problem.

On my 100mbit network at home (only user) I got 10.4 MB/sec copying from my win xp to my slackware samba share.

-Andy

On the speed testing had multiple files, most of them small, but you are right.
My hub is 100Mb, and I and the work station is a PIII 700Mhz with win98. The program will not run on anything higher.
I will check NIC's configuration. I will be changing the server for a faster one anyway. The current server is a P IV 1Gb Ram.

changing the server wont help. A P4 can saturate a 100mbit line. If you have hub's that's probably more suspect. Switch your hubs for switches.

on your server do an ifconfig. Do you see a lot of errors and such? Look at your hub's, do you see a lot of collisions?

Read this:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/lan-switch3.htm

and the next page "the solution".

Also do ping's from workstation to server, do you have 100% success? Any errors? If you do that could be a cabling problem. If a cable is too long or unshielded and running over a power source (lights, computers, microwaves, etc) it will cause packet loss.

-Andy

I am going to check that.
Thanks, will keep you posted.