Installation frustrations

Thu Sep 25 09:49:33 MST 2014

Actually, nice affects CPU use, but not so much disk use.  If you
'renice' it low enough, it shouldn't be able to affect other processes
that need CPU.

HOWEVER!  CPU isn't the only thing that can create BAD performance
bottlenecks in a computer.  Networking (well, before GigE ;-)), IO,
swapping and paging, and disk IO can all make a system seem slow.

So, if your computer is low on memory (as compared to the memory
required by the program mix you are running at that moment), and you
have a process which is sending the disk off looking all over itself for
files, your system can be VERY slow because when the CPU is ready to run
your program - oops!  It is swapped out!  We've got to go get it in!
Oh, wait, the head of the disk drive is on the WRONG END!  Slew it back
(oh, hey, we're passing that sector we wanted a few hundred ticks back,
lets pause and grab it while we're here!), and when you FINALLY get
there and read the data in, you can then run that program...  Then OOPS!
A different program needs to run, but HE's swapped out too!  Ok, fine,
swap someone out, go read THAT processes data from disk (oh, my, there's
ANOTHER sector we've been wanting - grab it (or write it) as we go by),
and the thrashing goes on.  IF you don't have a process asking for
sectors all over the disk you might not notice this effect as much, but
throw in what amounts to a 'find / -print0 | xargs -0 egrep <whatever>'
in the mix and your computer can be brought to its knees.

And, unfortunately, 'nice' only affects the CPU load part (AFAIK).  So
nice will (or should) help, but it may not help as much as reducing the
memory load (or adding more memory).

What does 'top' say when the system is a dog?

If the process which is doing the 'find' (effectively doing a find) can
be made to pause after every so many files (sleep a second or so,
whatever) that may help even more than 'nice'.

(IMHO,  the resource being contended for is probably either the disk or
memory.  'top' should help tell which, or show that I'm barking in the
wrong direction)

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Michael
Butash
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 9:30 AM
To: plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
Subject: Re: Installation frustrations

Nice just lessens its priority, not to clobber more important apps. That
said, it'll still consume cpu/power if it's being a hog, so if it's
misbehaving, you'll want to fix or bury the carcass.

Sounds like either it's trying to index a literal ton of stuff on your
system, maybe attacking a remote share (ive seen indexing services kill
my pc and network trying to index my central filer), or just broken
somehow.

Maybe start it with a debug flag (if possible) and see why it's freaking
out?

-mb

On 09/24/2014 05:47 PM, Harold wrote:
> I watched the guys at Installfest using the feature, and saw that it 
> has its utility value, but not if it locks up the whole system as it 
> was doing.
>
> What is this "nice"?
> Is it a setting, such as getting the thing to run in the background, 
> or some such reasonable feature?
> I know that the old mainframes used to do all sorts of indexing, and 
> the equivalent of defragging in the background, no problem. That would

> be the way to go.
>
> HM
>
> On Tue, 2014-09-23 at 12:39 -0700, Ed wrote:
>> The indexing service is adjustable - you can 'nice' it or set it to 
>> not run when the desktop is in use.
>>
>> You might reconsider disabling it, especially if you use Gnome3, as 
>> search is a primary access paradigm. Just hit the window key and 
>> start typing and a list of files is shown like in dynamic google -
apps too.
>> Once you try it a while you may find it a faster way of file 
>> retrieval / app launch. For full documentation look at:
>> https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Tracker
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Lisa Kachold <foobar at it-clowns.com>
wrote:
>>> Yo Kid,
>>>
>>> Please check this link for solutions, such as how to remove or 
>>> disable (since Tracker is a dependency for some programs):
>>>
>>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=747689
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 8:16 PM, IscreamKid <iscreamkid at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>> Saturday, at the Installfest, despite cautions from Thomas, I 
>>>> installed CentOS on my new computer.
>>>>
>>>> The install went well from the standpoint of reallocating the 
>>>> partitions and getting Grub to recognize both CentOS and Win 7.
>>>>
>>>> When I started working with it I loaded on my files.
>>>> Files that took forty minutes to backup took two hours to load on a

>>>> faster system.
>>>> The culprit  seems to be Tracker-miner.
>>>>
>>>> It continues to drag the system down when I am trying to do other
things.
>>>>
>>>> I have no idea why I need an application on here to, supposedly 
>>>> help me find files.
>>>> In all of the years I have worked with Linux I can think of only 
>>>> three instances where I have used find to locate a file, and it 
>>>> worked nicely, thank you.
>>>>
>>>> Now I have a system that uses all of its resources to track files I

>>>> will likely never ask for. Grrrrrrrr.
>>>>
>>>> After that the change of Gnome and KDE to eliminate my virtual 
>>>> desktops is unimportant.
>>>>
>>>> Would anyone like to suggest a better distro that will actually run

>>>> and perhaps has more than four desktops, while running Office 
>>>> Libre, and plays You Tube videos in a browser?
>>>>
>>>> Harold
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>>>
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