Debian sid going 'slow'
 

Hello, i have debian Sid, for past 1 to 1.5 months, i have observed that it has become very slow, in loading programs, opening documents etc. Where should I start looking?

Info:-
System :- HP DV5 1215Tx Laptop, 2.1 ghz c2d , 500gb WD 5000 bevt harddisk, Nvidia 9600 GT, 2 gig ram .

kernel version 2.6.32-4-686
Drivers : I use NVIDIA drivers, version 190.53.

Network:- I use wired DSL WIFI available but Not in use, nor is bluetooth etc.
System is not connected to any other network .

Use :- internet, music, movies.

Display manager :- KDE 4.3.4

Desktop effects :-None, Disabled.

My question is , where and how should I start looking?

PS I am a linux user for quite a long while.It has been my Only OS for about 4~5 years.But for last 1/2 years because of my studies, i have been out of 'touch' with its commands etc,but willing to dive back in and to stuff on my own, looking for direction here.

Have you been doing regular updates?

If you are running sid.. then unless you REALLLY stay on top of things (like bug reports, etc.) then you are looking for trouble.

Do you use apt-listbugs??

From my understanding, I *think* Kde 4 is still quite riddled with bugs (some serious).

Try Gnome or Windowmaker..etc.. and see if there is a difference.

Also try a live cd that is good.. to verify it is not a general problem with your computer.

Install Webmin and see if there are any services/servers that should not be running.

Lettuce know :)

1) DO not install webmin for any reason

2) When was the last time you did aptitude update; aptitude full-upgrade

3) KDE4 is fine.

The nvidia driver you are using had major issues upgrade to the latest nvidia drivers.

Where did you get 2.6.32-4 kernel? Sid went from 2.6.32-3 to 2.6.32-5.

Make sure you have apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges installed. Updated regularly at least once a week.

Try installing prelink and preload. After installing prelink edit the file /etc/default/prelink as root and Change where it says "PRELINKING=unknown from unknown" to "yes". Then in a terminal as root run prelink -avRm and sit back and wait for it to finish.

Why would you tell anyone not to use an administrative tool as excellent, easy and thorough as Webmin.. other than to be argumentative.

Please don't bother answering.. I am merely pointing out your absurdity and being irrational, in dealing with someone who is trying to learn Linux.

before telling someone to install a package that is meant for use on a server and not on a desktop you should find out a bit about it.

Ask anyone in #debian about webmin they will all tell you not to use it.

From the dpkg bot in #debian:
Webmin is a lame web-based interface for unsafe system administration for Unix. Check it out at http://webmin.com/ Remember, dondelelcaro *hates* webmin. "i'd rather sit on the floor shoving table knives into live electrical outlets than run webmin on an exposed server." See
http://bugs.debian.org/343897 about the removal from Debian. Don't use their .debs, they are of extremely poor quality.

In case you are wondering who "dondelelcaro " is, he is a Debian dev.

The desktop-environments usually come with a gui-tool which list the services and allows to enable/disable them. Debian ain't that much of them running per default, so that shouldn't be the problem anyway.
Else there would be sysv-rc-conf.
Not much need for webmin for that...but each to his own.

I too would try a different window-manager to hunt down the source of the problem.
I too would install preload (and, perhaps, prelink too).
Have a look at the output of "htop".

j1alu, preload/link sound awesome.. thanx for the info :)

Just to be honest: originally craigevil posted it, and i just confirmed.

You might want to check this thread from forums.debian.net:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=40654
especially some of the links given there.

Bout the: "how-to speed up boot and responsiveness" by julian67:
I followed it once, it didn't help much and i ran into some trouble.
Its long ago and i can't remember exactly. If you want to try it be prepared and take care.
All the other tips work like a charme (for me).
In the forums.debian.net how-to section is a how-to about the liquorix-kernel. Might be worth a try too.

I had this problem and found that KDE had installed some resource intensive stuff that I do not use.

Broadly speaking I tackled the problem this way:

See what's running. Correlate this with what SysInit is loading. Read the docs and then start pruning from KSysV.

The biggest culprit was Nepomuk. Busily indexes everything.

When you come to uninstall packages you will very likely run into the problem that a large number of packages want to be uninstalled too. To get around this you will need to uninstall the metapackages that create these dependencies. This will not remove any software, just the "artificial" dependencies.

I think you'll find that after doing this your system will spring to life again. It's sad that the KDE team have decided what's good for us and stuffed up the system with what they believe we all should run.

Good Luck.

thanks guys, i have updated my sid, it wasnt done for *quite * a while.
I also followed the links (debian forum one) to tweak it, i am testing it now, it does feel better but still ,
when I say play a movie, VLC opens up immediately but there is about 10~13 seconds delay after which it loads movie,
kaffeine takes up about 20 secs to load up and play movie,
ktorrent takes about 1 minute
opening my home folder takes about 25~30 seconds !

Is it 'normal'?
if not any suggestions ,which WM to install which will give the best comparision to see if its WM related issue or some other? since all i have ever used is KDE (i tried gnome in my 'infant' years but that was LOONG aga)

1. Make an empty new directory ~/.compose-cache
2. Start a KDE application which has a text input widget (anything with a line edit or editable combo box will do)
3. Check ~/.compose-cache, it should now have a file in it whose name is a long string of numbers

All being well, your Qt/KDE/Gtk applications should now start up 50-150ms faster.

HowTo Speed Up Boot & Increase Responsiveness (Desktop) - http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=31275

If kde is being too much of a pain you might give LXDE a try the layout isnt much different than kde's.

I would say: No, this is not normal. You got good specs and kde should run just fine.
Au contraire: it sounds really horrible.

I barely know lxde, but it might be a good choice.

Fluxbox, icewm or openbox (the wm of lxde) might be choices.
Check if you got the same problem when opening kde-apps.
Check if you got the same problem when opening non-kde-apps.

I used fluxbox for a while with kde-apps. It did work quite well, but of course its complete layout is different.
Icewm or openbox might be the better choice.
Anyway: i have thought to do this as a test, if the problem is kde-related or more general. Not to completely remove/replace kde.

I have come to like xfce very much. But that would be a step away from kde.

This, my post, have been some additional proposals. The idea with lxde is fine (as far i can tell).

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If it was me first of all i would remove kdm and start X with startx.
If that doesn't help, in the long run, re-installing it is no biggie.