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Just installed ArchLinux on an ASRock S330 nettop. Works great. My only concern at the moment is what appears to be intermittent but continuous disk activity every 2 seconds or so. At first I thought this might be gamin, but I killed that process and it made no difference.
Is there any way to determine what process is doing this and why? Below is a snapshot of running processes from "ps aux"
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.0 1688 572 ? Ss 08:36 0:00 ini
root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kthreadd]
root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [migration/0]
root 4 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root 5 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [watchdog/0]
root 6 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [migration/1]
root 7 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ksoftirqd/1]
root 8 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [watchdog/1]
root 9 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [migration/2]
root 10 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ksoftirqd/2]
root 11 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [watchdog/2]
root 12 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [migration/3]
root 13 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ksoftirqd/3]
root 14 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [watchdog/3]
root 15 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [events/0]
root 16 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [events/1]
root 17 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [events/2]
root 18 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [events/3]
root 19 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [khelper]
root 20 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [async/mgr]
root 21 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [pm]
root 22 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [sync_supers]
root 23 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [bdi-default]
root 24 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kblockd/0]
root 25 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kblockd/1]
root 26 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kblockd/2]
root 27 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kblockd/3]
root 28 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kacpid]
root 29 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kacpi_notify]
root 30 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kacpi_hotplug]
root 31 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kseriod]
root 36 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [khungtaskd]
root 37 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [kswapd0]
root 38 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? SN 08:36 0:00 [ksmd]
root 39 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [aio/0]
root 40 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [aio/1]
root 41 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [aio/2]
root 42 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [aio/3]
root 43 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [crypto/0]
root 44 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [crypto/1]
root 45 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [crypto/2]
root 46 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [crypto/3]
root 524 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ata/0]
root 525 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ata/1]
root 527 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ata/2]
root 528 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ata/3]
root 529 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ata_aux]
root 533 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:01 [scsi_eh_0]
root 534 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [scsi_eh_1]
root 610 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [jbd2/sda1-8]
root 611 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 612 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 613 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 614 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 639 0.0 0.0 2152 896 ? S<s 08:36 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 842 0.0 0.0 2148 900 ? S< 08:36 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 845 0.0 0.0 2148 900 ? S< 08:36 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 892 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ksuspend_usbd]
root 893 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [khubd]
root 955 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [i915/0]
root 956 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [i915/1]
root 957 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [i915/2]
root 958 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [i915/3]
root 1005 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [hd-audio0]
root 1006 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [usbhid_resumer]
root 1175 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [flush-8:0]
root 1178 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [jbd2/sda3-8]
root 1179 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1180 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1181 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1182 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1183 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [jbd2/sda4-8]
root 1184 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1185 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1186 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1187 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:36 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1303 0.0 0.0 4672 492 ? S 08:36 0:00 supervising syslog-ng
root 1304 0.0 0.1 4852 1768 ? Ss 08:36 0:00 /usr/sbin/syslog-ng
dbus 1322 0.0 0.0 2352 956 ? Ss 08:36 0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
hal 1325 0.0 0.4 6196 4192 ? Ss 08:36 0:00 /usr/sbin/hald
root 1326 0.0 0.1 3308 1124 ? S 08:36 0:00 hald-runner
root 1354 0.0 0.1 3372 1088 ? S 08:36 0:00 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event4 /dev/input/
hal 1368 0.0 0.0 3068 988 ? S 08:36 0:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpi kernel interface /proc/ac
root 1369 0.0 0.1 3372 1088 ? S 08:36 0:02 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec)
root 1389 0.0 0.0 1688 532 tty1 Ss+ 08:36 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty1 linux
root 1390 0.0 0.0 1688 532 tty2 Ss+ 08:36 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty2 linux
root 1391 0.0 0.5 9788 5888 ? Ss 08:36 0:01 /usr/bin/slim
root 1392 0.0 0.0 1724 572 ? S 08:36 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond
root 1422 0.0 0.0 1872 340 ? Ss 08:36 0:00 /sbin/dhcpcd -q eth0
root 1431 2.7 2.4 33128 25252 tty7 Ss+ 08:37 1:57 /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp vt07 -auth /var/run/slim.auth
andrea 1435 0.0 0.0 2044 716 ? S 08:37 0:00 ck-launch-session startlxde
root 1442 0.0 0.2 18012 2780 ? Sl 08:37 0:00 /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon
andrea 1513 0.0 0.0 2580 960 ? S 08:37 0:00 /usr/bin/lxsession -s LXDE
andrea 1514 0.0 0.5 11664 6152 ? S 08:37 0:02 openbox --config-file /home/andrea/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.x
andrea 1515 0.0 0.1 5596 1272 ? S 08:37 0:00 lxde-settings-daemon
andrea 1516 0.0 0.1 4372 2036 ? S 08:37 0:01 xscreensaver -no-splash
andrea 1519 0.4 1.2 37452 12716 ? S 08:37 0:18 lxpanel --profile LXDE
andrea 1521 0.0 1.1 45544 11856 ? S 08:37 0:03 pcmanfm -d
andrea 1526 0.0 0.1 3688 1480 ? S 08:37 0:00 /usr/lib/menu-cache/menu-cached
andrea 1537 0.0 0.0 3104 676 ? S 08:37 0:00 dbus-launch --autolaunch e86a792e0168dc845149b03d4b5653d3 --
andrea 1538 0.0 0.0 2244 908 ? Ss 08:37 0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7
andrea 1572 0.0 0.1 2828 1200 ? S 08:43 0:00 /usr/lib/gamin/gam_server
andrea 1627 0.3 7.0 198024 71976 ? Sl 08:48 0:11 /usr/lib/go-openoffice/program/soffice.bin -calc -splash-pip
andrea 1712 0.0 2.3 1625228 23908 ? S 08:55 0:01 C:\Program Files\Learn to Play Bridge\ltpb.exe
andrea 1715 0.0 0.2 4888 2416 ? Ss 08:55 0:00 /usr/bin/wineserver
andrea 1719 0.0 0.2 1594856 2888 ? Sl 08:55 0:00 C:\windows\system32\services.exe
andrea 1721 0.0 0.2 1595140 2904 ? Sl 08:55 0:00 C:\windows\system32\winedevice.exe MountMgr
andrea 1727 0.0 0.7 1606492 8192 ? Ss 08:56 0:00 C:\windows\explorer.exe /desktop
andrea 1732 7.1 7.2 265400 74820 ? Sl 08:56 3:39 firefox
andrea 1739 0.0 0.2 5760 2276 ? S 08:56 0:00 /usr/lib/GConf/gconfd-2
andrea 1987 2.9 0.9 18884 9452 ? R 09:46 0:01 lxterminal
andrea 1988 0.0 0.0 1732 592 ? S 09:46 0:00 gnome-pty-helper
andrea 1990 0.0 0.1 4984 1728 pts/0 Ss 09:46 0:00 /bin/bash
Any assistance greatly appreciated....Larry
Last edited by lagagnon (2010-07-31 05:27:24)
Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.
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Could be any number of things. If it's a userspace process you may see it with "iotop". It could also be the kernel committing the filesystem journal, or many other things.
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have you tried if it also happens before you start X?
I have had a similar problem but I don't know what I did exactly. Still trying to remember.
But I do remember it only happened inside of X. If this is the case this would at least reduce the number of probable causes.
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You may have a device whose driver is spamming the logs, causing frequent flushes to disk.
Also run vmstat 1 and watch the bo (buffer out) column. After your hard drive light flashes it will show a write there. Mine flushes every 6 seconds. I think 5 seconds is a normal flush time. 2 seconds is excessive.
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I experienced the same thing on my Intel atom system (Intel D945GSEJT) after upgrading the kernel from 2.6.31.6-1 to 2.6.32. In my case it was write activity by 'kjournald' every few seconds.
Last edited by rwd (2010-01-20 19:06:04)
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More info: using "iotop" the culprit appears to be "jbd2/sda1-8", which appears to be a kernel process associated with journaling on the ext4 filesystem, if my googling around is correct. And yes it is an Atom processor here also. Strange, guess will just have to wait and see if future updates fixes it. Does not seem correct that it has to access the disc so often.
Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.
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Almost the same here. Only difference is that the process is named
"jbd2/sda5-8" instead of "jbd2/sda1-8". My processor is intel core 2 duo.
It is accessing the disk for about every 3 seconds.
Tamil is my mother tongue.
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iotop is great. I see "jbd2/sda2-8" appearing here every now and then, but certainly not every 3 seconds.. when idle, it appears about 1 or 2 times per minute. When I'm using the system, it appears more frequently.
Last edited by graysky (2010-02-14 11:08:12)
CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck • AUR packages • Zsh and other configs
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I have a similar issue with jdb2 making writes every second. Can someone shed some light on the cause?
iotop -obt
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
10:39:43 3472 be/4 sahilm 0.00 B/s 3.94 K/s 0.00 % 0.00 % python /usr/bin/iotop -obt
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 43.34 K/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
10:39:47 2069 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.94 K/s 0.00 % 7.47 % [jbd2/sda2-8]
10:39:47 681 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 3.94 K/s 0.00 % 6.06 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 11.81 K/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
10:39:53 2069 be/3 root 0.00 B/s 0.00 B/s 0.00 % 1.69 % [jbd2/sda2-8]
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
Total DISK READ: 0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE: 0.00 B/s
TIME TID PRIO USER DISK READ DISK WRITE SWAPIN IO COMMAND
uname -a
Linux glaive 2.6.32-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Feb 23 19:43:46 CET 2010 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
#/dev/cdrom /media/cd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/root / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/disk/by-label/home /home ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
Last edited by sahilm (2010-02-25 05:11:44)
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64-bit on a desktop here with about eight or nine partitions spread over two disks. I get jbd2/sda7-8 (which is /) every three seconds, too.
Possible approach that comes to mind: edit your fstab to stop constant journalling...
never trust a toad...
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64-bit on a desktop here with about eight or nine partitions spread over two disks. I get jbd2/sda7-8 (which is /) every three seconds, too.
Possible approach that comes to mind: edit your fstab to stop constant journalling...
How to disable journalling?
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http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab#atime_options
HTH
EDIT:
Actually, you want to cruise up the wiki page, explanations for atime is given at the top...
Last edited by toad (2010-02-25 09:46:36)
never trust a toad...
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http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab#atime_options
HTH
EDIT:
Actually, you want to cruise up the wiki page, explanations for atime is given at the top...
I have already set all my drives to noatime.
Yet my disk is used almost continiously.
My fstab
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda10 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda3 /var reiserfs defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda5 /home ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda6 /home/bharani/Downloads ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda7 /home/bharani/Data ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda8 /home/bharani/Music ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/sda9 /home/bharani/Backup ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
Last edited by bharani (2010-02-25 11:34:50)
Tamil is my mother tongue.
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Hmm, I've also used noatime but notice jbd2 regularly. Didn't use to bother me, but I'm trying to reduce power consumption (less I/O more RAM-usage please), so would like to know about this. Would converting ext4 to something else (say.... btrfs) help?
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jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
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I am going to bump this thread because I am now noticing this continual, about every 3 seconds disk access LED light flickering on totally different hardware than my original post (Zotac GF-8200-C-E minITX mobo and Athlon II X2 240 CPU, with latest Arch 64 system. I too am trying to use this machine as a low power unit so want to reduce disk access as much as possible.
Further looking in to output of "iotop -obt follow IO patterns but most of these disk access times show no actual reads/writes to disk. I wonder whether some CPU state is triggering the hard disk LED while not actually reading writing anything? Is this even possible.
At any rate when I do see disk access it is the jdb2 journalling process the majority of the time.
Any further ideas most welcome...
Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.
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I've been using commit=60 for years.
Check whether your syslogger is set to sync to disk, thereby forcing a write rather than caching it.
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I have added "commit=60" to all my mounted filesystems (except swap of course) with no difference to the disk access whatsoever. I have also removed almost every daemon I could (cups, cron, syslog) plus all else except a basic wmii desktop and nothing running except the kernel and am still getting the flashing hard drive LED about every 3-4 seconds. Weird.
Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.
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I am a Ubuntu (sorry ) user and registered because I have been experiencing the same issue. I filed a bug report. If possible, Could you please comment on it?
Last edited by rCX (2010-07-20 04:11:22)
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I finally seem to have discovered the culprit to continual hard drive access light flashing. Killing the HAL daemon stops the access. As yet, I do not know why it is doing this so frequently. So, as I understand it HAL is about to be deprecated anyways, so I am removing it and will either add udev rules for auto-mounting or write some bash functions to do my mounting for me.
Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.
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So it was HAL polling the HDD?
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So it was HAL polling the HDD?
Well put it this way, when I killed the HAL daemon the continual 2-3 second pulsing of the HDD light stopped immediately.
Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.
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nixpunk wrote:So it was HAL polling the HDD?
Well put it this way, when I killed the HAL daemon the continual 2-3 second pulsing of the HDD light stopped immediately.
You need to instruct HAL not to poll on /dev/sda (or whatever). How to do it and whether it's possible - I don't know.
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hal-disable-polling?
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hal-disable-polling?
That's what I was thinking.
lagagnon, check hal-disable-polling's manpage for details.
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stqn wrote:hal-disable-polling?
That's what I was thinking.
lagagnon, check hal-disable-polling's manpage for details.
OP seems to have decided to ditch HAL, so our advice may not matter.
[OT]
I can't find neither hal-do-the-ironing nor hal-wash-the-car - I think I'm opening a bug report upstream ;-)
[/OT]
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