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#1 2016-12-01 20:54:31

wixtb0t
Member
Registered: 2015-04-04
Posts: 5

What to do when system is almost completely unresponsive?

In our university programming course we have to use Scala-IDE a.k.a. Eclipse for our assignments and for a reason or another Eclipse sometimes brings my whole machine to it's knees. Personally I suspect it's a memory leak in Eclipse but I have never had the chance to look into it, because the OS is so slow.

How slow? Switching into virtual terminal (ctrl-alt-f2) takes 10 seconds, then another 30 for login prompt to appear. when I enter my username the display lags behind with great pleasure. After logging in I wait a minute for the terminal prompt to appear. Actually I have never had the nerve to wait for free command to complete so I don't know if the memory leak is the cause or not. Now because I'm using Linux I would expect to there be a way to freeze programs that are misbehaving. I don't want to kill it because I may have unsave work in there and I would like to find out where the slowness is coming from.

I would like to also note that this is not the intended behaviour of Eclipse, or due to otherwise underpowered hardware. It usually happens completely randomly, sometimes when the laptop is just sitting there Eclipse freezes. I have also expirienced mild slowdown when the RAM (8GB) is getting full with firefox, maple(computer algebra system), eclipse, spotifiy running. Is Linux kernel just bad at dealing with low RAM?

I use xmonad without any display environment and I don't have swap partition enabled. CPU I5-6200U, 8GB RAM, 140GB SSD partition ~40GB free.

So what are your tricks when your machine throws a tantrum apart from the 5 second power button of death.

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#2 2016-12-01 21:32:10

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: What to do when system is almost completely unresponsive?

Take note of the output of free when next this happens.
I'll bet you are deep into swap space.


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#3 2016-12-01 21:35:50

JohnBobSmith
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2014-11-29
Posts: 804

Re: What to do when system is almost completely unresponsive?

I have a mostly default conky that I have running to on side of the screen, displaying the processes, temperature, and RAM use, among other things. When something is misbehaving, it finds it's way to the top of the process list where in most cases I just kill it. Though as you stated, killing the process might now be the best for you. But if you can use conky to monitor stuff in real time so to speak, you might be able to pinpoint which process went wrong and when. You should be able to hold alt and then click drag stuff out of the way, even during a freeze/really slow period. So you can see your conky. smile

Last edited by JohnBobSmith (2016-12-01 21:36:33)


I am diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As it turns out, what I thought was my greatest weakness is now my greatest strength.

Everyday, I make a conscious choice to overcome my challenges and my problems. It's not easy, but its better than the alternative...

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#4 2016-12-01 22:43:36

HiImTye
Member
From: Halifax, NS, Canada
Registered: 2012-05-09
Posts: 1,072

Re: What to do when system is almost completely unresponsive?

JohnBobSmith wrote:

I have a mostly default conky that I have running to on side of the screen, displaying the processes, temperature, and RAM use, among other things. When something is misbehaving, it finds it's way to the top of the process list where in most cases I just kill it. Though as you stated, killing the process might now be the best for you. But if you can use conky to monitor stuff in real time so to speak, you might be able to pinpoint which process went wrong and when. You should be able to hold alt and then click drag stuff out of the way, even during a freeze/really slow period. So you can see your conky. smile

or you could have top/htop open

Last edited by HiImTye (2016-12-01 22:43:46)

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