Arch Linux

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 575

[SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

Zero-fill format: check!
XFS partitions for / and /home and /home/mariachi/stuff: check!
ext2 partitions for /boot and /var: check!
installation: check!
XFCE: check!
be happy: no check.

I don't understand why my computer almost freezes to death (as in "it's so slow that I though it was dead" kind of death) when I copy a file from one disk to another. I simply cannot do anything else when there's something being actively written to the disk.

This is really troublesome, as an action that used to take a few seconds, now takes minutes and won't let me use any other apps. As soon as the writing is over, everything is fast and joyful again.
The cpu is not being used 100%, neither memory is being "eaten".

Any idea as to what may be causing this? Disk problems?
Thanks fellas

SOLVED:it was a problem with my disk, which I was able to solve

Last edited by el mariachi (2008-08-12 20:52:17)

theringmaster

Member

From: Air Force

Registered: 2007-07-16

Posts: 581

Website

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

you should have used reiserfs for /var as it contains many small files.

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el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 575

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

that still doesn't explain why the whole system gets down on its knees in any file transfer, from and to any file system

theringmaster

Member

From: Air Force

Registered: 2007-07-16

Posts: 581

Website

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

maybe you need a defrag?

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el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 575

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

on a new install? and I thought xfs (and ext2 for that matter) didn't need forced defrags.. I don't even know how to do that. is it with xfs-utils?

forget it, I already know how to defrag

Last edited by el mariachi (2008-08-09 21:27:53)

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 3,682

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

Got your localhost set properly? Got your cables connected properly?

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 575

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

cables are fine.
don't know about the localhost, I just made a standard arch install.
where can I check if it is properly configured? rc.conf?

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 3,682

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ … be_fast.21 - I don't know if it'd cause copying slugishness, but well, better make sure.

Make sure you have DMA enabled (hdparm -i).

Check dmesg for anything fishy.

Install dstat from AUR and run that while copying files, maybe you'll notice something fishy.

ghostHack

Member

From: Bristol UK

Registered: 2008-02-29

Posts: 261

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

cables are fine.
don't know about the localhost, I just made a standard arch install.
where can I check if it is properly configured? rc.conf?

check that the HOSTNAME you set in rc.conf is appended to the localhost line in /etc/hosts i.e.

127.0.0.1        localhost.localdomain    localhost yourhostnamehere

theringmaster

Member

From: Air Force

Registered: 2007-07-16

Posts: 581

Website

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

xfce would have alerted him if he did have that in there. That a nice feature of xfce.

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skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,880

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

Zero-fill format: check!
XFS partitions for / and /home and /home/mariachi/stuff: check!
ext2 partitions for /boot and /var: check!
installation: check!
XFCE: check!
be happy: no check.

I don't understand why my computer almost freezes to death (as in "it's so slow that I though it was dead" kind of death) when I copy a file from one disk to another. I simply cannot do anything else when there's something being actively written to the disk.

This is really troublesome, as an action that used to take a few seconds, now takes minutes and won't let me use any other apps. As soon as the writing is over, everything is fast and joyful again.
The cpu is not being used 100%, neither memory is being "eaten".

Any idea as to what may be causing this? Disk problems?
Thanks fellas

I see this also with heavy disk usage and I'm using ext3 on my both of my drives.

Somewhere here in the forums there was talk about some kernel config that can help fix this. I believe that it was being looked at for the third release of the 2.6.26 kernel. I don't remember where I read it and a quick search turned up nothing. If anyone else remembers this conversation, please jump in.

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 575

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

so compiling my own kernel wouldn't be of much help?

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 3,682

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=49185

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,880

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=49185

Thanks lucke.

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 575

Re: [SOLVED]Arch is sluggish after fresh install :s

problem fixed. turns out my disk had a bad sector or something... it's fixed now and arch is blazing fast again:rolleyes: