[SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

diegoauyon · 2011-08-21 03:30:01

I'm not sure if this has to be posted in the Newbie Cornet, I hope it do.

Reading the post about e4rat in the forum and then reading the wiki about e4rat (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/E4rat, I decided to test it. So I follow the steps in the wiki, and in the "e4rat-realloc" step, it just informed me: No improvement can be done .

It is possible e4rat can't help me? Or did I do something wrong?

What I do:

1.) put at the end of the line the init=/sbin/e4rat-collect
2.) reboot
3.) wait for the two minutes
4.) init 1 and then e4rat-realloc /var/lib/e4rat/startup.log
5.) here the message appeared, but still I continue with the procedure
6.) change e4rat-collect in the burg.cfg with init=/sbin/e4rat-preload
7.) reboot
8.) no changes in boot time

Things that maybe are important for this problem:

- line of burg.cfg about the kernel:

linux/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.3-ARCH root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/f168d4c1-ade6-4438-82ef-6edbfaa68c3c ootfstype=ext4 ro quiet add_efi_memmap rootdelay=5 resume=/dev/disk/by-uuid/68fa2501-b2ab-4125-a011-26cb0f20dbc0

is vmlinuz-3.0.3-ARCH instead of vmlinuz-linux because is a compiled version by me

- line of modules at rc.conf:

MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq)

- line of daemos at rc.conf:

DAEMONS=(!hwclock ntpd @syslog-ng dbus wicd netfs @crond)

- I use mingetty instead of agetty in /etc/inittab (for autologin in console propose)
- I use .bash_profile to initialize openbox:

[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc

if [[ -z $DISPLAY && ! -e /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 ]] && (( EUID )); then
  exec xinit
fi

and that is all.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Last edited by diegoauyon (2011-08-24 08:57:49)

toad · 2011-08-21 08:11:43

Hm, I only get that warning after having run realloc two or three times.

What is your disk/disk-setup? Also, what do you boot into?

diegoauyon · 2011-08-21 22:33:28

Since the first time I try the message appears. Just to try I remove the startup.log and try again and still the same message.

My disk setup? If you refer to my partitions, then it is 2 for linux, one is ext4 where root is mounted and the other is swap. They are in a logical partition and the other partition is with Windows

Boot into? Mmm. What programs charge at the beginning of my session? well wicd, alsamixer, conky, thunar, roxterm and opera

I hope that is the information you are asking for, also what the realloc tell me:

Parsing file /var/lib/e4rat/startup.log
1/2216 file(s) are not available
4/2216 file(s) are presently not writable.
6/2216 file(s) have no blocks.
1/2216 file(s) are sparse-files which will retain gaps of unallocated blocks.
Defrag mode: locality group
Processing 2205 file(s) on device /dev/sda6 (mount-point: /)
Total fragment count before/afterwards/best-case: 1061/1093/1

toad · 2011-08-22 06:24:11

Okay, so you boot into xfce - straight into xfce, no slim or some such in between? And you are not using an SSD drive? And you are not using systemd?

If the answer to all questions is yes I don't understand why your boot performance has not sped up. However, you could count yourself very lucky, 'cos it must be faaaaaaast!

ethail · 2011-08-22 14:40:34

I wonder if so many fragments are the reason of that absence of improvement:

"Total fragment count before/afterwards/best-case: 1061/1093/1"

Have you considered using another defrag option for realloc? like tld in order to reduce the number of fragments.

If i'm not mistaken, the performance improvement from e4rat is obtained (leaving aside other subjects) from reading data located near each other at boot time once you've done the reallocation, is it not ?

diegoauyon · 2011-08-23 07:49:00

I must said @toad that your answer make me laugh. I use systemd and I think is fast, like 10 to 15 seconds I guess. But the process is boot, then mingetty (autologin), then a bash script to exec openbox and then concky and roxterm.

@ethail, I'm sorry for the ignorance but two questions: 1.) what is tld? (I google it but ironically this post appeared) 2.) where I can found information about it?

thanks to both for the answers

toad · 2011-08-23 07:52:32

Always happy if I make somebody laugh

Your system sounds minimal enough, including systemd, that no improvements are possible. Face the facts, hehe.

ethail · 2011-08-24 06:38:00

@diegoauyon

This is what I was talking about:

0 akai@Arch-Akai: ~ 8:37 ---> e4rat-realloc -h
Usage: e4rat-realloc [ option(s) ] [ mode ] files(s)

  OPTIONS:
    -V --version                    print version and exit
    -h --help                       print help and exit
    -v --verbose                    increment verbosity level
    -q --quiet                      set verbose level to 0
    -l --loglevel <number>          set log level
    -f --force                      force reallocating files

  DEFRAGMENTATION MODES:
    -p --use-prealloc               Use pre-allocation kernel patch
    -g --use-locality-group         Create donor files in locality group.
                                    Please avoid other filesystem activities.
    -t --use-tld                    Take advantage of orlov's top-level direc-
                                    tory spreading algorithm. This typically
                                    leads to small holes between the files.

For me, using tld ( -t ) on e4rat-prealloc led after 2-4 iterations from 600 or so fragments to 20, what also seemed to do e4rat-preload more effective

Last edited by ethail (2011-08-24 06:38:45)

diegoauyon · 2011-08-24 08:56:35

Now I'm really happy. Thanks @toad because if I'm correct you make the build to arch of this thing.

And thanks @ethail for that, I used

 e4rat-realloc -f -t

3 times and recuces the fragments from 1093 to 411. Now it takes one second to init e4rat but it reduces 4-5 seconds booting openbox and opening opera (opera took me like 10 seconds to boot, now in 2 and is running with all tabs and extensions).

Now @toad 'this is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast'

I'm marking this as resolved

toad · 2011-08-24 11:16:11

Well done, but it wasn't me - I just stumbled across it

I wasn't even aware of the realloc options.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-21 03:30:01

[SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#2 2011-08-21 08:11:43

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#3 2011-08-21 22:33:28

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#4 2011-08-22 06:24:11

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#5 2011-08-22 14:40:34

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#6 2011-08-23 07:49:00

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#7 2011-08-23 07:52:32

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#8 2011-08-24 06:38:00

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#9 2011-08-24 08:56:35

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

#10 2011-08-24 11:16:11

Re: [SOLVED] e4rat No improvement can be done

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