[Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
This is on my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop (Dell Latitude D820). I don't know when it started, but every now and then I get into this condition where the UI seems almost completely locked up (the mouse may move a little occasionally but the clock is frozen). The hard drive light is often on for long periods of time, too. But even when I can move the mouse, clicking on a window's close button does nothing. Usually it never recovers from this state and I need to hard power down. The first couple of line from "top -c" read top - 00:13:25 up 6 days, 16:25, 6 users, load average: 16.16, 19.67, 21.58 Tasks: 194 total, 3 running, 189 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie Cpu(s): 13.3%us, 5.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 81.4%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.2%si, 0.0%st Mem: 2060180k total, 2009288k used,50892k free, 3488k buffers Swap: 1574328k total, 1492652k used,81676k free,62024k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND 6835 david 20 0 704m 184m 2352 R 20 9.2 142:15.54 plugin-containe 19747 david 20 0 226m 170m 4868 S 15 8.5 4:07.80 geeqie 1185 root 20 0 231m 82m 6488 S1 4.1 137:38.82 Xorg 6637 david 20 0 1174m 264m 11m D1 13.2 99:02.16 firefox 20780 root 20 0 2548 1240 916 R1 0.1 0:00.04 top 9 root 20 0 000 S0 0.0 0:05.28 events/0 So I don't see what the cores are so busy with. I was only able to get these numbers by eventually getting a text mode screen by pressing Ctr-Alt-F2 (get to a text shell) before it decided to do something. Swap space is low but should be sufficient. What can be locking up my laptop and causing the slowdown? Thanks. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/25/2012 07:35 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: > On 04/24/2012 09:27 PM, David Kramer wrote: >> I cleaned a lot of the cat hair out of my computer, so it no longer >> has R25 insulation ;) I say "a lot of" because I have determined you >> cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever. I >> also blew out the fans, etc. That should make it run cooler. The >> keyboard sure does feel and sound different. > I think the biggest win here is the fans and filters. >> >> - Just an hour ago I took out the 2x1GB sticks and installed 2x2GB >> sticks. According to the BIOS after the system takes its tithe I have >> about 3.35GB for me. I'm sure that will make a huge difference. I >> bought for my wife's laptop (a D830, since she bought hers a year after >> mine). > Looks like a 32-bit system. How does that come into play? Yes, the system has a max of 4GB RAM, and that's how much I put in. According to the BIOS setup screen, the system steals some of that (I assume for integrated graphics, but I though I had a video card with dedicated memory), and it stole more than I would have hoped for, but it's still a lot more RAM for not that much money. Maybe I can sell the 1GB sticks at some point to recoup some of the money. But I don't plan on replacing this laptop in the near future. I have to replace my car before the end of the year, and that's my toy budget right there. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/25/2012 08:54 PM, David Kramer wrote: > On 04/25/2012 07:35 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: >> On 04/24/2012 09:27 PM, David Kramer wrote: >>> I cleaned a lot of the cat hair out of my computer, so it no longer >>> has R25 insulation ;) I say "a lot of" because I have determined you >>> cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever. I >>> also blew out the fans, etc. That should make it run cooler. The >>> keyboard sure does feel and sound different. >> I think the biggest win here is the fans and filters. >>> - Just an hour ago I took out the 2x1GB sticks and installed 2x2GB >>> sticks. According to the BIOS after the system takes its tithe I have >>> about 3.35GB for me. I'm sure that will make a huge difference. I >>> bought for my wife's laptop (a D830, since she bought hers a year after >>> mine). >> Looks like a 32-bit system. > How does that come into play? Yes, the system has a max of 4GB RAM, and > that's how much I put in. According to the BIOS setup screen, the > system steals some of that (I assume for integrated graphics, but I > though I had a video card with dedicated memory), and it stole more than > I would have hoped for, but it's still a lot more RAM for not that much > money. > > Maybe I can sell the 1GB sticks at some point to recoup some of the > money. But I don't plan on replacing this laptop in the near future. I > have to replace my car before the end of the year, and that's my toy > budget right there. Generally you can use about 3.5GB in a 32-bit system. if your system supports PAE you can use more. All modern Linux kernels have PAE capabilities, but not all chips do.. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
I can definitely vouch for Jerry's statement, "you cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever." A few weeks ago the "x" key on my keyboard became intermittent. For most people, this is merely a problem. For us Emacs users, an intermittent "x" key is an unmitigated disaster! So just last week I examined things more closely and found LOTS of cat fur under the keys. Compressed air was useless. Luckily I found a website with instructions on how to remove individual keycaps from my laptop's keyboard. So I pulled the "x" keycap off and picked out bits of cat fur with tweezers, and then with the keycap off and most of the cat fur removed, the compressed air was much more effective. Since there was fur crossing keycap boundaries to adjacent keys, I then gave all the keys surrounding "x" the same treatment. My "x" key now works reliably. However, no matter how hard I tried or how long I spent, there was ALWAYS a little bit of cat fur I couldn't get out. Mark Rosenthal On 4/25/2012 7:35 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: On 04/24/2012 09:27 PM, David Kramer wrote: I cleaned a lot of the cat hair out of my computer, so it no longer has R25 insulation ;) I say "a lot of" because I have determined you cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever. I also blew out the fans, etc. That should make it run cooler. The keyboard sure does feel and sound different. I think the biggest win here is the fans and filters. - Just an hour ago I took out the 2x1GB sticks and installed 2x2GB sticks. According to the BIOS after the system takes its tithe I have about 3.35GB for me. I'm sure that will make a huge difference. I bought for my wife's laptop (a D830, since she bought hers a year after mine). Looks like a 32-bit system. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2411/4957 - Release Date: 04/24/12 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 6:04 PM, MBR wrote: > I can definitely vouch for Jerry's statement, "you cannot remove ALL cat > hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever." A few weeks ago the "x" key > on my keyboard became intermittent. For most people, this is merely a > problem. For us Emacs users, an intermittent "x" key is an unmitigated > disaster! > > So just last week I examined things more closely and found LOTS of cat fur > under the keys. Compressed air was useless. Luckily I found a website with > instructions on how to remove individual keycaps from my laptop's keyboard. > So I pulled the "x" keycap off and picked out bits of cat fur with > tweezers, and then with the keycap off and most of the cat fur removed, the > compressed air was much more effective. Since there was fur crossing keycap > boundaries to adjacent keys, I then gave all the keys surrounding "x" the > same treatment. My "x" key now works reliably. > > However, no matter how hard I tried or how long I spent, there was ALWAYS a > little bit of cat fur I couldn't get out. > > Mark Rosenthal Would an external USB keyboard have helped? Scott > > On 4/25/2012 7:35 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote: >> >> On 04/24/2012 09:27 PM, David Kramer wrote: >>> >>> I cleaned a lot of the cat hair out of my computer, so it no longer >>> has R25 insulation ;) I say "a lot of" because I have determined you >>> cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever. I >>> also blew out the fans, etc. That should make it run cooler. The >>> keyboard sure does feel and sound different. >> >> I think the biggest win here is the fans and filters. >>> >>> - Just an hour ago I took out the 2x1GB sticks and installed 2x2GB >>> sticks. According to the BIOS after the system takes its tithe I have >>> about 3.35GB for me. I'm sure that will make a huge difference. I >>> bought for my wife's laptop (a D830, since she bought hers a year after >>> mine). >> >> Looks like a 32-bit system. >> >> >> >> ___ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss@blu.org >> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> >> - >> No virus found in this message. >> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >> Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2411/4957 - Release Date: 04/24/12 > > ___ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@blu.org > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/24/2012 09:27 PM, David Kramer wrote: > On 04/22/2012 12:25 PM, Rich Braun wrote: >> David Kramer >> I knew, used, and loved Firefox for years. But it's too bloated even for a >> 4GB machine these days, let alone a 2GB. >> * The "RES" column shows how much RAM each process is actually using at the >> moment; in this case, firefox is using 264Mb (out of a total RAM footprint of >> 1174Mb, the rest of which is swapped). > > There's no arguing that Firefox isn't a bloated hulk that leaks memory > like the government leaks money. However, there are certain pieces of > functionality that it just does much better than Chromium, either > through native functionality or because it has plugins that there's no > equivalent for in Chromium. In general, I've been against the Google > Chrome mindset of ultra-simple interface with fewer configuration > options from the very beginning, and it frustrates me still. > > For instance, Firefox allows you to group tabs into sets and switch > between sets of tabs with a hotkey. This is really important to me > because I work on several different projects, and I could have 8-10 tabs > open per project (Agile New England related pages, Arduino related > pages, general browsing, To Do, ...). The closest plugin for Google > Chromium is Tabs Sugar, which by all accounts is buggy as hell and > hasn't been updated in over a year. > > Another feature (albeit through plugins) is one-stop-shopping streaming > video downloads. There's lots of Google Chromium plugins for > downloading streaming videos from certain sites, but nothing that just > kinda works on most sites. > > But I am giving Chromium another try. I've installed some extensions to > make it bearable, but the lack of a way of grouping tabs and swapping > them in and out is a big problem. OK, I'm calling BS on the whole "Chromium will solve world hunger and fix you a lovely grilled cheese sandwich" thing. So I changed Chromium over to be my default browser, and opened up a bunch of the tabs I had open in FireFox. I now know that it is not working any more efficiently for me at all. Remember that Chromium is running a separate process for each tab, this is what I'm seeing: %CPU for chromium-browse or chromium-browser: 94%, 18%, 14%, 12%, 8%, then most of the rest are 0. Memory: 1GB (yes, 1GB of my 3.4GB), 532M, 156M, 133M, 88M, then about 10 more in the 30M-50M range. The facebook tab alone is taking about 90MB and the twitter tab is taking 80MB. I'm also getting very frustrated with the tabs thing. I'm trying to substitute multiple Chromium windows for the tab groups functionality in Firefox, and it's a poor substitute. When I click on a link from another application, whichever Chromium window I hit last gets the new tab, and there's no way to move tabs from one window to another. As my memory gets eaten by it and it slows down, I get more "this page has become unresponsive" dialog boxes from it, too. There's no way to adjust the wait time before that error comes up. There's also no identifier for the window other than the currently selected tab, so when I look at the task bar I have to guess which Chromium window is the one I want by the first few characters of the title of the current tab. As with many Google products, their hype is not justified in my eyes, and their drive for least common denominator feature sets does not meet my needs. Chromium's architecture sounds better, but practically speaking it's not helping me, so I might as well go back to the tool that is a bloated pig too, but does what I want. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 12:17 PM, David Kramer wrote: > I'm also getting very frustrated with the tabs thing. I'm trying to > substitute multiple Chromium windows for the tab groups functionality in > Firefox, and it's a poor substitute. When I click on a link from > another application, whichever Chromium window I hit last gets the new > tab, and there's no way to move tabs from one window to another. I'm surprised to hear this. I haven't tried Chrome on Linux, but I use it all the time on MacOS, and tabs can be trivially moved in and out of different browser windows simply by dragging and dropping them. I would have expected the same behavior on the Linux and Windows versions. -- John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix OLD GnuPG KeyID: D5C7B5D9 / Email: abre...@gmail.com OLD GnuPG FP: 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99 2011 PGP KeyID: 32A492D8 / Email: abre...@gmail.com 2011 PGP FP: 7834 AEC2 EFA3 565C A4B6 9BA4 0ACB AD85 32A4 92D8 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
John Abreau wrote: | | I haven't tried Chrome on Linux, but I useit all the | time on MacOS, and tabs can be trivially moved in and out of different | browser windows simply by dragging and dropping them. I would have expected | the same behavior on the Linux and Windows versions. So how do you make it do this? My two "boxen" run linux, but I have a Macbook Pro laptop, where I have about a dozen browsers installed, including Chrome. When I try drag-and-drop of a Chrome tab to a different Chrome window, it doesn't move that tab to the 2nd window; it creates a new window with the tab's contents. I dug around in the Preferences, but didn't find anything that dealt with this. I've occasionally wanted to move tabs around between windows in various browsers, but I've never seen even a hint that it's possible with any of them. Do you know how to make it work? It is documented anywhere? (Yes, I tried google, but I clearly didn't guess the right keywords. ;-) -- The fewer jobs a tool is designed to do, the better it does each of them. _' O <:#/> John Chambers + /#\ | | ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 4/28/2012 11:43 PM, j...@trillian.mit.edu wrote: So how do you make it do this? To move a tab from one frame to another you drag the tab until it separates from its parent frame and then drag it until it attaches to the target frame. If you don't let it attach itself to the target then it will create a new frame. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/22/2012 12:40 AM, David Kramer wrote: > This is on my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop (Dell Latitude D820). I don't know > when it started, but every now and then I get into this condition where > the UI seems almost completely locked up (the mouse may move a little > occasionally but the clock is frozen). The hard drive light is often > on for long periods of time, too. But even when I can move the mouse, > clicking on a window's close button does nothing. Usually it never > recovers from this state and I need to hard power down. > > The first couple of line from "top -c" read > top - 00:13:25 up 6 days, 16:25, 6 users, load average: 16.16, 19.67, > 21.58 > Tasks: 194 total, 3 running, 189 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie > Cpu(s): 13.3%us, 5.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 81.4%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.2%si, > 0.0%st > Mem: 2060180k total, 2009288k used,50892k free, 3488k buffers > Swap: 1574328k total, 1492652k used,81676k free,62024k cached > > PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND > > 6835 david 20 0 704m 184m 2352 R 20 9.2 142:15.54 > plugin-containe > 19747 david 20 0 226m 170m 4868 S 15 8.5 4:07.80 geeqie > > 1185 root 20 0 231m 82m 6488 S1 4.1 137:38.82 Xorg > > 6637 david 20 0 1174m 264m 11m D1 13.2 99:02.16 firefox > > 20780 root 20 0 2548 1240 916 R1 0.1 0:00.04 top > > 9 root 20 0 000 S0 0.0 0:05.28 events/0 > > > So I don't see what the cores are so busy with. I was only able to get > these numbers by eventually getting a text mode screen by pressing > Ctr-Alt-F2 (get to a text shell) before it decided to do something. > Swap space is low but should be sufficient. > > What can be locking up my laptop and causing the slowdown? I forgot to mention that I suspected heat, as the laptop probably has a lot of cat hair into it. I currently have it sitting on a cooling pad with fans, and it still happened. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
I think the dead give away is the swap numbers. If the hard disk light is basically "on" it means that you are using far more memory than you have RAM. The programs are all now basically idle waiting on swap. You should use top and sort by memory usage. Microcenter has very cheap laptop memory, and your box can support 4G! On 04/22/2012 12:40 AM, David Kramer wrote: This is on my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop (Dell Latitude D820). I don't know when it started, but every now and then I get into this condition where the UI seems almost completely locked up (the mouse may move a little occasionally but the clock is frozen). The hard drive light is often on for long periods of time, too. But even when I can move the mouse, clicking on a window's close button does nothing. Usually it never recovers from this state and I need to hard power down. The first couple of line from "top -c" read top - 00:13:25 up 6 days, 16:25, 6 users, load average: 16.16, 19.67, 21.58 Tasks: 194 total, 3 running, 189 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie Cpu(s): 13.3%us, 5.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 81.4%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.2%si, 0.0%st Mem: 2060180k total, 2009288k used,50892k free, 3488k buffers Swap: 1574328k total, 1492652k used,81676k free,62024k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND 6835 david 20 0 704m 184m 2352 R 20 9.2 142:15.54 plugin-containe 19747 david 20 0 226m 170m 4868 S 15 8.5 4:07.80 geeqie 1185 root 20 0 231m 82m 6488 S1 4.1 137:38.82 Xorg 6637 david 20 0 1174m 264m 11m D1 13.2 99:02.16 firefox 20780 root 20 0 2548 1240 916 R1 0.1 0:00.04 top 9 root 20 0 000 S0 0.0 0:05.28 events/0 So I don't see what the cores are so busy with. I was only able to get these numbers by eventually getting a text mode screen by pressing Ctr-Alt-F2 (get to a text shell) before it decided to do something. Swap space is low but should be sufficient. What can be locking up my laptop and causing the slowdown? Thanks. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/22/2012 12:40 AM, David Kramer wrote: > This is on my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop (Dell Latitude D820). I don't know > when it started, but every now and then I get into this condition where > the UI seems almost completely locked up (the mouse may move a little > occasionally but the clock is frozen). The hard drive light is often > on for long periods of time, too. But even when I can move the mouse, > clicking on a window's close button does nothing. Usually it never > recovers from this state and I need to hard power down. > > The first couple of line from "top -c" read > top - 00:13:25 up 6 days, 16:25, 6 users, load average: 16.16, 19.67, > 21.58 > Tasks: 194 total, 3 running, 189 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie > Cpu(s): 13.3%us, 5.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 81.4%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.2%si, > 0.0%st > Mem: 2060180k total, 2009288k used,50892k free, 3488k buffers > Swap: 1574328k total, 1492652k used,81676k free,62024k cached > > PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND > > 6835 david 20 0 704m 184m 2352 R 20 9.2 142:15.54 > plugin-containe > 19747 david 20 0 226m 170m 4868 S 15 8.5 4:07.80 geeqie > > 1185 root 20 0 231m 82m 6488 S1 4.1 137:38.82 Xorg > > 6637 david 20 0 1174m 264m 11m D1 13.2 99:02.16 firefox > > 20780 root 20 0 2548 1240 916 R1 0.1 0:00.04 top > > 9 root 20 0 000 S0 0.0 0:05.28 events/0 > > > So I don't see what the cores are so busy with. I was only able to get > these numbers by eventually getting a text mode screen by pressing > Ctr-Alt-F2 (get to a text shell) before it decided to do something. > Swap space is low but should be sufficient. > > What can be locking up my laptop and causing the slowdown? I think the first thing to do is to run a memory diagnostic. Also, checn /proc/meminfo to see if the OS detected all your memory. (I agree with Mark regarding the swap). Also I've seen this problem before where the computer is very slow including the mouse. If you are using NFS and have an issue with NFS it can cause this problem. Or related, did you plug in a USB device and unplug without unmounting it. The issue in these cases is that the OS does a stat(2). Normally this should not cause a problem, but I have seen it happen. Have you run vmstat and iostat? Another possible issue is that the Dell is out of warranty and it is time to get another laptop :-) Also, I would try to vacuum out the cat hairs. Even though you have it on a cooling pad, the internal airflow is affected. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/22/2012 12:40 AM, David Kramer wrote: > This is on my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop (Dell Latitude D820). I don't know > when it started, but every now and then I get into this condition where > the UI seems almost completely locked up (the mouse may move a little > occasionally but the clock is frozen). The hard drive light is often > on for long periods of time, too. But even when I can move the mouse, > clicking on a window's close button does nothing. Usually it never > recovers from this state and I need to hard power down. > > The first couple of line from "top -c" read > top - 00:13:25 up 6 days, 16:25, 6 users, load average: 16.16, 19.67, > 21.58 > Tasks: 194 total, 3 running, 189 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie > Cpu(s): 13.3%us, 5.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 81.4%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.2%si, > 0.0%st > Mem: 2060180k total, 2009288k used,50892k free, 3488k buffers > Swap: 1574328k total, 1492652k used,81676k free,62024k cached > > PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND > > 6835 david 20 0 704m 184m 2352 R 20 9.2 142:15.54 > plugin-containe > 19747 david 20 0 226m 170m 4868 S 15 8.5 4:07.80 geeqie > > 1185 root 20 0 231m 82m 6488 S1 4.1 137:38.82 Xorg > > 6637 david 20 0 1174m 264m 11m D1 13.2 99:02.16 firefox > > 20780 root 20 0 2548 1240 916 R1 0.1 0:00.04 top > > 9 root 20 0 000 S0 0.0 0:05.28 events/0 > > > So I don't see what the cores are so busy with. I was only able to get > these numbers by eventually getting a text mode screen by pressing > Ctr-Alt-F2 (get to a text shell) before it decided to do something. > Swap space is low but should be sufficient. > > What can be locking up my laptop and causing the slowdown? Also, try logging in from another computer. I think you will see that ssh could even time out. One clue here is that it is probably not the GUI. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 4/22/2012 8:49 AM, Mark Woodward wrote: I think the dead give away is the swap numbers Seconded. You've got 2GB in there with 50MB free. You have 1.5GB of swap with 80MB free. You've run out of memory and swap, a situation that Linux really doesn't like. Either add more RAM or kill whatever is chewing up so much swap. Or both. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
I was having similar issues on my D600 laptop with 1G RAM. I started using Firefox instead of Chrome as my browser and the 'issue subsided'. Since I found if I start chrome with /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome -process-per-tab It cleared things up for me. Since, I also upgraded to 2G RAM and things run 'smoother' too. I do still have one issue, my mouse. Sometimes it hangs and will not respond to left click. A few times I found the caps lock may have been on, but not necessarily. Un-plugging wait a few seconds then re-plugging in the mouse seems to clear things up. Any suggestions are welcome. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
David Kramer > The first couple of line from "top -c" read Dude, Firefox ate your machine. Switch to Google Chrome and you'll never go back. I've excerpted some of your 'top' command below. Comments: * The 81.4%wa figure (and 13.3/5.0% CPU) means it's I/O bound not CPU (wa = waiting for disk) * Mem of 50892k free plus 62024k cached (which appears on the swap line of output but that figure is not swap, it's the amount available for cache buffers) is a maxed-out situation, less than 10% of total. * The "D" state on the firefox line says at the moment you ran 'top', firefox was waiting on disk. I knew, used, and loved Firefox for years. But it's too bloated even for a 4GB machine these days, let alone a 2GB. * The "RES" column shows how much RAM each process is actually using at the moment; in this case, firefox is using 264Mb (out of a total RAM footprint of 1174Mb, the rest of which is swapped). Get your swap usage down close to zero. By installing Chrome. There might be other culprits but that's the biggie that I've seen in situations like this. 2Gb is not quite adequate for most situations these days, but it's OK for a browser-only laptop. -rich > ... > Cpu(s): 13.3%us, 5.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 81.4%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.2%si, > Mem: 2060180k total, 2009288k used,50892k free, 3488k buffers > Swap: 1574328k total, 1492652k used,81676k free,62024k cached > > PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND > > 6835 david 20 0 704m 184m 2352 R 20 9.2 142:15.54 > plugin-containe > 19747 david 20 0 226m 170m 4868 S 15 8.5 4:07.80 geeqie > > 1185 root 20 0 231m 82m 6488 S1 4.1 137:38.82 Xorg > > 6637 david 20 0 1174m 264m 11m D1 13.2 99:02.16 firefox ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/22/2012 12:25 PM, Rich Braun wrote: > David Kramer >> The first couple of line from "top -c" read > > Dude, Firefox ate your machine. Switch to Google Chrome and you'll never go > back. I've excerpted some of your 'top' command below. Comments: > > * The 81.4%wa figure (and 13.3/5.0% CPU) means it's I/O bound not CPU (wa = > waiting for disk) Ah. The man page on top is wholly insufficient, but I should have learned more about those fields after all these years. > * Mem of 50892k free plus 62024k cached (which appears on the swap line of > output but that figure is not swap, it's the amount available for cache > buffers) is a maxed-out situation, less than 10% of total. OK, so the reason I haven't replied until now is because I've implemented several remedies. - I carved off a bit more than 5GB for additional swapspace, so now I have about 7GB. This is overkill, but it just worked out that way. - I cleaned a lot of the cat hair out of my computer, so it no longer has R25 insulation ;) I say "a lot of" because I have determined you cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever. I also blew out the fans, etc. That should make it run cooler. The keyboard sure does feel and sound different. - Just an hour ago I took out the 2x1GB sticks and installed 2x2GB sticks. According to the BIOS after the system takes its tithe I have about 3.35GB for me. I'm sure that will make a huge difference. I bought for my wife's laptop (a D830, since she bought hers a year after mine). > * The "D" state on the firefox line says at the moment you ran 'top', firefox > was waiting on disk. > I knew, used, and loved Firefox for years. But it's too bloated even for a > 4GB machine these days, let alone a 2GB. > * The "RES" column shows how much RAM each process is actually using at the > moment; in this case, firefox is using 264Mb (out of a total RAM footprint of > 1174Mb, the rest of which is swapped). There's no arguing that Firefox isn't a bloated hulk that leaks memory like the government leaks money. However, there are certain pieces of functionality that it just does much better than Chromium, either through native functionality or because it has plugins that there's no equivalent for in Chromium. In general, I've been against the Google Chrome mindset of ultra-simple interface with fewer configuration options from the very beginning, and it frustrates me still. For instance, Firefox allows you to group tabs into sets and switch between sets of tabs with a hotkey. This is really important to me because I work on several different projects, and I could have 8-10 tabs open per project (Agile New England related pages, Arduino related pages, general browsing, To Do, ...). The closest plugin for Google Chromium is Tabs Sugar, which by all accounts is buggy as hell and hasn't been updated in over a year. Another feature (albeit through plugins) is one-stop-shopping streaming video downloads. There's lots of Google Chromium plugins for downloading streaming videos from certain sites, but nothing that just kinda works on most sites. But I am giving Chromium another try. I've installed some extensions to make it bearable, but the lack of a way of grouping tabs and swapping them in and out is a big problem. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/24/2012 09:49 PM, Theodore Ruegsegger wrote: > Hi David, > > In describing your recent travails, for which it appears others are > helping you more than I could, you happened to mention something that > caught my eye: > >> For instance, Firefox allows you to group tabs into sets and switch >> between sets of tabs with a hotkey. This is really important to me >> because I work on several different projects, and I could have 8-10 tabs >> open per project (Agile New England related pages, Arduino related >> pages, general browsing, To Do, ...). > > This sounds very useful, especially since you describe it later as > >> ...grouping tabs and swapping them in and out... > > If I'm understanding that correctly, I gotta have me some of that! > What plugin does this? Yes. That's what I'm saying ;) It's built-in functionality. You hit the tab groups to get a view of all your different groups and you can drag and drop tabs between them. When you hit Ctrl-` all your current tabs are hidden and all the tabs in the next tab group appear. http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-are-tab-groups All similar plugins for Chromium record sets of URLS and can open up all those URLs into tabs in addition to the existing ones. This actually hides and shows sets of tabs, each one maintaining state and restoring it while hidden. Nothing that I can find for Chromium can do that. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Very slow system, no idle, but nothing running
On 04/24/2012 09:27 PM, David Kramer wrote: > I cleaned a lot of the cat hair out of my computer, so it no longer > has R25 insulation ;) I say "a lot of" because I have determined you > cannot remove ALL cat hair from a years old laptop keyboard. Ever. I > also blew out the fans, etc. That should make it run cooler. The > keyboard sure does feel and sound different. I think the biggest win here is the fans and filters. > > - Just an hour ago I took out the 2x1GB sticks and installed 2x2GB > sticks. According to the BIOS after the system takes its tithe I have > about 3.35GB for me. I'm sure that will make a huge difference. I > bought for my wife's laptop (a D830, since she bought hers a year after > mine). Looks like a 32-bit system. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
