I am using FC8, and my computer is a Gateway MX6441 Laptop (1.8 GHz AMD Turon 64, 512 MB 333 Mhz PC2700, 80GB 4200 RPM HDD). Not a new computer, but I'd think enough for linux.

My problem is mostly with Yum. It brings my system to its knees. Things get so slow when yum or yumupdatesd is running that the mouse becomes jerky. If I look at top, CPU usage is around 9%, but disk wait (wa) is 92%.

I realize my hard drive is pretty slow, but it seems like something is WRONG. Could something be misconfigured? Does yum just have really awful IO code? Is it like this for everyone?

Thanks all
Jp

System > Administration > Services. Disable yum-updatesd.

Thank you, I've already got yum-updatesd disabled, but I still am searching for the source of the problem.

top will show you what's eating things up.

Edit: I see you've already looked at top.

Yes, unfortunately top can't sort by disk wait, only show it as a whole. Usually the offending process is idle BECAUSE it is waiting. I'm going to try using sar to figure what is happening.

Probably won't help - have a look at this recent thread. Interesting stuff is in the last couple of pages.