general optimization suggestions

FUBAR · 2006-03-17 09:31:00

Great tip on the 32-bit I/O with hdparm: I used it on my pimp P133 laptop and my hdparm -t went from ~ 2.5MB/s to nearly 5MB/s!

I'm going to check my other boxes aswell.

kozaki · 2006-03-21 18:04:31

drakosha wrote:

So a summary again. This time number of '*' specifies popularity of a suggestion (it's subjective, 1 to 5):
- Compile your own kernel ****
- Compile your own everything *
- Use sysstat to analyse the system and then decide what to do **
- Ensure your HDs are configured properly (hdparm) **
- Using mkinitrd.conf, disable everything you don't use. Make sure you remove everything you don't need ****
Am i missing something?

Nope on the software side AFAIK.
And note that compiling my own kernel allows me load the necessary modules for my boxes, therefore i do not need initrd image anymore. And the results are here

Off course I'll advise any friend to do it step-by-step

Found this detailed page about sar (part of sysstat)

briancurtin · 2006-03-21 19:27:40

Gullible Jones wrote:

3. Specify your filesystem modules via FILESYSTEMS, e.g. a user of ext3 would have FILESYSTEMS="jbd ext3" and one using JFS would use FILESYSTEMS="jfs".

what would a Reiser user put here? im guessing "reiserfs" but ive never done anything more than remove the basics from mkinitrd.conf. all i use is reiser

kozaki · 2006-03-21 20:19:40

Yep, "reiserfs" does the job fine for a Reiserfs3 FS

jinn · 2006-04-22 15:03:16

on remove_modules, what do you guys put there except for ide_floppy?

iBertus · 2006-04-22 18:30:43

Only really good reason to compile your own kernel: 1) You have some hardware that isn't suppored by the stock kernel, or that requires something either built-in or as module that stock kernel builds the other way. 2) You have lots of processor cycles that are not being used and you like to make sure to use them at least part of the time. 3) You require a custom patch that isn't in and never will be in the stock kernel.

97.5% of people have no reason to compile a custom kernel. Arch is much better in the kernel departmetn than most distros.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-22 19:29:02

kozaki wrote:

<snip>
Now I succesfully compiled my 1st Iphitus' Archck kernel without initrd/~ramfs on my old laptop last month, & I found it eating as low as 29MB RAM with Founy's e17-cvs fully launched, which I liked (less RAM for system is allways good & better still on laptop in terms on usability & autonomy )
<snip>

You do realize that RAM used by the initrd is freed up after boot? :?

BTW, is the dialup stuff I see when I do 'lsmod' (e.g. ppp_generic) from the initrd, or is it autoloaded by uevents? (For what it's worth I have no modem, neither external nor onboard.)

iBertus · 2006-04-22 20:01:12

I think udev is loading them. At least, that seems like the case here if using a non-initrd kernel.

Also note, ppp stuff isn't only used by dial-up and may be needed for DSL too. Also, stuff like synce use pppd to establish a connection and thus require ppp_xyz modules to be loaded.

jinn · 2006-04-23 06:24:20

Fixed initramfs to load only what I need ( had 146 modules at first)

[jinn@estergon ~]$ lsmod | wc -l
56
[jinn@estergon ~]$ lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  250304  8 
ext3                  127880  1 
jbd                    56212  1 ext3
nls_cp437               5760  1 
vfat                   11008  1 
fat                    48540  1 vfat
joydev                  8512  0 
usbhid                 47392  0 
eth1394                18180  0 
pcmcia                 32684  0 
rtc                    10932  0 
pcspkr                  2948  0 
uhci_hcd               29712  0 
ehci_hcd               29960  0 
snd_intel8x0m          14476  0 
yenta_socket           24076  2 
rsrc_nonstatic         11648  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            35608  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
usbcore               116256  4 usbhid,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
evdev                   8192  2 
serio_raw               5892  0 
ohci1394               31664  0 
ieee1394               88152  2 eth1394,ohci1394
i2c_i801                7820  0 
i2c_core               17792  1 i2c_i801
ipw2200               100284  0 
ieee80211              32968  1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt         5120  1 ieee80211
ide_cd                 37792  0 
cdrom                  36144  1 ide_cd
speedstep_centrino      6736  1 
freq_table              4112  1 speedstep_centrino
cpufreq_userspace       3536  1 
snd_intel8x0           29596  1 
snd_ac97_codec         94624  2 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus            2176  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq_device          6924  0 
snd_pcm_oss            38048  0 
snd_pcm                78084  4 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_mixer_oss          16384  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              20100  1 snd_pcm
snd                    46432  10 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_mixer_oss,snd_timer
soundcore               7776  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          8200  3 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
8139too                23936  0 
mii                     5376  1 8139too
i915                   17024  1 
drm                    64532  2 i915
intel_agp              21532  1 
agpgart                27108  3 drm,intel_agp
reiserfs              256880  1 
ide_disk               14336  4 
piix                    9476  0 [permanent]
generic                 4356  0 [permanent]
ide_core              116940  4 ide_cd,ide_disk,piix,generic

memory usage after gnome 2.14 has started with gnome-power-manager:
22% by programs 11 % cache [tested with kerne26arch kernel26archck and kernel26beyond. All give same result. Not to mention that all boot at the same speed]

Bootchart times:
I have gdm autologin to gnome 2.14 and I run gnome-power-manager.

bootchart for kernel26arch:
[URL=http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bootchartarch4sn.png] bootchartarch4sn.th.png [/URL]
23seconds

bootchart for kernel26archck:
[URL=http://img125.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bootchart5vx.png] bootchart5vx.th.png [/URL]
26seconds

bootchart for kernel26beyond:
[URL=http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bootchartbeyond5ia.png] bootchartbeyond5ia.th.png [/URL]
26seconds

Conclution:
All kernels boot almost at the same speed, no memory difference after boot by any kernel... All att 22% usage by programs, 11%usage by cache.

Notice that with the beyond kernel even gnome-session is recorded by bootchart. and not by arch kernel. I would think that even kernel26arch would show 26 seconds if bootchart recorded gnome-session also..

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-23 16:24:05

Wait, you actually use IPv6?

drakosha · 2006-04-24 08:44:17

Here's nice article - http://www.linuxforums.org/desktop/linu … uning.html

jinn · 2006-04-24 08:53:06

actually no.. I dont use ipv6.. I noticed it now that you said it.. removing it now.

thanks

delmonico · 2006-04-29 07:50:19

Nice thread One of the main reasons I use arch are fast boot times. At home I can just go for a coffee while a ubuntu boots (yeah I have two buntu boxes around) but my laptop must not take a whole minute to get to the login.

With using a static kernel (the module loading of stock arch [hotplug?] took several seconds every boot) I am down ~ 9.5 seconds from GRUB to text mode. I guess I might be able to save some microseconds by using the "quiet" option and disabling framebuffer, but I just like my Arch background in console mode However my machine is kinda old (1.3ghz), so how fast can arch boot on recent machines? What are your best results?

And, has anyone tried using a replacement BIOS? My motherboard isn't supported by linuxbios unfortunately but I guess things like this could save some more time

cheers, chris

iBertus · 2006-04-29 15:24:23

delmonico wrote:

Nice thread One of the main reasons I use arch are fast boot times. At home I can just go for a coffee while a ubuntu boots (yeah I have two buntu boxes around) but my laptop must not take a whole minute to get to the login.
With using a static kernel (the module loading of stock arch [hotplug?] took several seconds every boot) I am down ~ 9.5 seconds from GRUB to text mode. I guess I might be able to save some microseconds by using the "quiet" option and disabling framebuffer, but I just like my Arch background in console mode However my machine is kinda old (1.3ghz), so how fast can arch boot on recent machines? What are your best results?
cheers, chris

I'd say 9.5 seconds is better than most around here. It takes mine a little bit longer from GRUB-to-console. What do you load at startup?

iphitus · 2006-04-29 15:38:45

my bios alone takes at least twice as long as that.

delmonico · 2006-05-01 21:44:07

iBertus wrote:

I'd say 9.5 seconds is better than most around here. It takes mine a little bit longer from GRUB-to-console. What do you load at startup?

from rc.conf:

DAEMONS=(gensplash syslog-ng gpm !hotplug !pcmcia @network !netfs @crond)

Only the neccesarry stuff. BIOS takes more time then booting arch (fsck it!). Most of the time I saved was really by not using any modules. Just compile a static kernel with only the stuff you need and remove all module-loading stuff. Some time (especially when using framebuffer) can also be saved by using the "quiet" option to the kernel. However only do this if you know your kernel will boot because you won't see any kernel panics

iBertus · 2006-05-02 00:14:23

I'm not forking the execution of network, so maybe that's it. I'll try that and see.

iphitus · 2006-05-02 04:24:58

iBertus wrote:

I'm not forking the execution of network, so maybe that's it. I'll try that and see.

Careful, as some daemons may depend on it. I let mine start and then fork all my networking based daemons.

James

delmonico · 2006-05-07 08:18:41

Yeah of course forking network when running any network daemons is a bad idea

soloport · 2006-06-05 15:59:26

delmonico wrote:

from rc.conf:

DAEMONS=(gensplash syslog-ng gpm !hotplug !pcmcia @network !netfs @crond)

Are the '!hotplug' refs. necessary? I've just been deleting these from initial builds, thinking if they're not present they don't get loaded -- no?! Do you have to explicitly state to NOT load 'pcmcia', etc.? I don't get it... :shock:

Snowman · 2006-06-05 16:59:07

You're correct. You can safely remove the commented daemons like "!hotplug" from the list. They won't be loaded. Having a '!' in front of them or not being in the list is equivalant. The '!' is useful if you don't want to use a deamon but want to keep its reference in the list for a later use. As the hotplug and pcmcia deamons are obsoleted by udev, you can remove there reference in the DAEMONS line.

odin1983 · 2006-06-08 12:14:50

Hi all :-)
My Arch isn't fast like windows xp on my computer. I try lot of things.... cleaned all unuse modules, removed unuse daemons from my rc.conf, installed fluxbox and after rebooting I have about 180MB RAM used. I removed tmp register from fstab. How can I close all process I want and not use ?
And how can I test speed of my arch ? (glxgears show me about 8000 FPS in 5.0 sec)

It's my "ps" command result:

F S UID PID PPID C PRI NI ADDR SZ WCHAN TTY TIME CMD
4 S 0 1 0 0 76 0 - 380 - ? 00:00:01 init
1 S 0 2 1 0 -40 - - 0 migrat ? 00:00:00 migration/0
1 S 0 3 1 0 94 19 - 0 ksofti ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
5 S 0 4 1 0 -40 - - 0 - ? 00:00:00 watchdog/0
1 S 0 5 1 0 70 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 events/0
1 S 0 6 1 0 70 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 khelper
1 S 0 7 1 0 75 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 kthread
1 S 0 9 7 0 70 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0
1 S 0 10 7 0 80 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 kacpid
1 S 0 118 7 0 75 0 - 0 pdflus ? 00:00:00 pdflush
1 S 0 119 7 0 75 0 - 0 pdflus ? 00:00:00 pdflush
1 S 0 121 7 0 76 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 aio/0
1 R 0 120 1 0 75 0 - 0 - ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
1 S 0 196 7 0 70 -5 - 0 serio_ ? 00:00:00 kseriod
1 S 0 654 7 0 70 -5 - 0 hub_th ? 00:00:00 khubd
1 S 0 693 1 0 81 0 - 0 jfsIOW ? 00:00:00 jfsIO
1 S 0 694 1 0 82 0 - 0 jfs_la ? 00:00:00 jfsCommit
1 S 0 695 1 0 82 0 - 0 jfs_sy ? 00:00:00 jfsSync
1 S 0 702 7 0 74 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 xfslogd/0
1 S 0 703 7 0 74 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 xfsdatad/0
1 S 0 704 7 0 70 -5 - 0 359781 ? 00:00:00 xfsbufd
1 S 0 719 7 0 70 -5 - 0 worker ? 00:00:00 reiserfs/0
5 S 0 770 1 0 76 -4 - 475 - ? 00:00:00 udevd
5 S 0 1735 1 0 75 0 - 449 - ? 00:00:00 syslog-ng
1 S 0 1751 1 0 76 0 - 383 - ? 00:00:00 dhcpcd
5 S 0 1765 1 0 75 0 - 715 - ? 00:00:00 kdm
4 S 0 1773 1765 1 75 0 - 8400 - tty7 00:04:50 X
0 S 0 1777 1 0 76 0 - 379 - tty1 00:00:00 agetty
0 S 0 1778 1 0 76 0 - 378 - tty2 00:00:00 agetty
0 S 0 1779 1 0 76 0 - 379 - tty3 00:00:00 agetty
0 S 0 1780 1 0 76 0 - 378 - tty4 00:00:00 agetty
0 S 0 1781 1 0 76 0 - 379 - tty5 00:00:00 agetty
0 S 0 1782 1 0 76 0 - 379 - tty6 00:00:00 agetty
5 S 0 1813 1765 0 77 0 - 828 wait ? 00:00:00 kdm
4 S 1000 1818 1813 0 75 0 - 2181 - ? 00:00:05 fluxbox
0 S 1000 1822 1818 0 76 0 - 13007 stext ? 00:00:21 kadu
0 S 1000 1828 1 1 75 0 - 1558 - ? 00:04:35 python
0 S 1000 1829 1 0 75 0 - 2379 pause ? 00:00:01 python
0 S 1000 1830 1 0 75 0 - 4616 pause ? 00:00:05 python
1 S 1000 1831 1 0 76 0 - 9248 - ? 00:00:00 kmix
1 S 1000 1833 1 0 77 0 - 7823 - ? 00:00:00 kdeinit
1 S 1000 1837 1 0 76 0 - 7808 - ? 00:00:02 dcopserver
1 S 1000 1839 1833 0 76 0 - 8246 - ? 00:00:00 klauncher
0 S 1000 1840 1829 0 75 0 - 1884 - ? 00:00:01 adesklets
0 S 1000 1841 1828 0 75 0 - 1848 - ? 00:02:15 adesklets
0 R 1000 1842 1830 0 75 0 - 1483 - ? 00:00:03 adesklets
1 S 1000 1845 1 0 75 0 - 9428 - ? 00:00:08 kded
0 S 1000 1847 1828 0 76 0 - 8923 - ? 00:00:01 konsole
0 S 1000 1851 1847 0 75 0 - 805 wait pts/0 00:00:00 bash
4 S 0 1852 1851 0 76 0 - 558 wait pts/0 00:00:00 su
4 S 0 1854 1852 0 75 0 - 741 - pts/0 00:00:00 bash
1 S 1000 1880 1 0 76 0 - 8657 - ? 00:00:00 kio_uiserver
1 S 1000 1884 1 0 76 0 - 6083 - ? 00:00:00 kdesud
0 S 0 1931 1 0 75 0 - 14284 - ? 00:00:02 artsd
1 S 1000 1969 1 0 76 0 - 9755 - ? 00:00:00 knotify
0 S 1000 2910 1828 0 76 0 - 14022 - ? 00:00:15 krusader
0 R 1000 3001 1828 1 75 0 - 13660 stext ? 00:01:54 beep-media-play
1 S 1000 3253 1833 0 77 0 - 8256 - ? 00:00:00 kio_file
0 S 1000 3367 1828 3 75 0 - 19966 - ? 00:03:05 konqueror
0 R 1000 3377 3367 0 75 0 - 12389 - ? 00:00:44 nspluginviewer
0 S 1000 4910 1818 0 76 0 - 872 - ? 00:00:00 aterm
0 S 1000 4911 4910 0 76 0 - 805 - pts/1 00:00:00 bash
1 S 1000 5602 1833 0 76 0 - 15232 - ? 00:00:00 kio_http
1 S 1000 5606 1833 0 75 0 - 15233 - ? 00:00:00 kio_http
0 R 1000 5615 1828 3 75 0 - 9397 - ? 00:00:01 konsole
0 S 1000 5616 5615 0 75 0 - 806 wait pts/3 00:00:00 bash
0 R 1000 5621 5616 0 75 0 - 533 - pts/3 00:00:00 ps

Thx for any reply and sory for my language bugs

PS. What programs are You use (any kinds) in light category (You know, web browser, file browser etc.) ?
PS2. Maybe is any options in my conf which is disabled and only a little part of my hardware performance I can use

Greetings

mouse256 · 2006-06-09 07:22:19

Gullible Jones wrote:

JGC wrote:
Making sure DMA is on: kernel should turn it on by default, within the last year or so, I haven't had to enable DMA on one single disk anymore. The only thing that isn't enabled by default all the time is 32bit I/O, which is good to enable.
It isn't? Why not? :shock:

Any idea how to do that for a sata disk? (I'm using sil 3112 controller)
hdparm -c3 /dev/sda fails...

jaboua · 2006-06-09 11:51:22

odin1983 wrote:

My Arch isn't fast like windows xp on my computer. I try lot of things.... cleaned all unuse modules, removed unuse daemons from my rc.conf, installed fluxbox and after rebooting I have about 180MB RAM used.

Is that including cache? Post the output of "free" please.

About light apps, look at the "Light and fast application awards" or something like that on the forums... Filemanager, I reccomend that you try thunar (from xfce-svn).

odin1983 · 2006-06-12 06:50:23

Hi :-)

[mario@myhost ~]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        384996     263180     121816          0      32336      97408
-/+ buffers/cache:     133436     251560
Swap:       208804          0     208804

Greetings

Arch Linux

#26 2006-03-17 09:31:00

Re: general optimization suggestions

#27 2006-03-21 18:04:31

Re: general optimization suggestions

#28 2006-03-21 19:27:40

Re: general optimization suggestions

#29 2006-03-21 20:19:40

Re: general optimization suggestions

#30 2006-04-22 15:03:16

Re: general optimization suggestions

#31 2006-04-22 18:30:43

Re: general optimization suggestions

#32 2006-04-22 19:29:02

Re: general optimization suggestions

#33 2006-04-22 20:01:12

Re: general optimization suggestions

#34 2006-04-23 06:24:20

Re: general optimization suggestions

#35 2006-04-23 16:24:05

Re: general optimization suggestions

#36 2006-04-24 08:44:17

Re: general optimization suggestions

#37 2006-04-24 08:53:06

Re: general optimization suggestions

#38 2006-04-29 07:50:19

Re: general optimization suggestions

#39 2006-04-29 15:24:23

Re: general optimization suggestions

#40 2006-04-29 15:38:45

Re: general optimization suggestions

#41 2006-05-01 21:44:07

Re: general optimization suggestions

#42 2006-05-02 00:14:23

Re: general optimization suggestions

#43 2006-05-02 04:24:58

Re: general optimization suggestions

#44 2006-05-07 08:18:41

Re: general optimization suggestions

#45 2006-06-05 15:59:26

Re: general optimization suggestions

#46 2006-06-05 16:59:07

Re: general optimization suggestions

#47 2006-06-08 12:14:50

Re: general optimization suggestions

#48 2006-06-09 07:22:19

Re: general optimization suggestions

#49 2006-06-09 11:51:22

Re: general optimization suggestions

#50 2006-06-12 06:50:23

Re: general optimization suggestions

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