A few years back Mandriva (Mandrake actually) was my first experience with Linux, I have since changed distributions, but always check back to Mandriva every now and then, always try each new release. The problem I have, is that the last few releases, 2007/2007.1 and now 2008 RC1 (yeah I know, but) all have the same problem, they all run like crap for me, where as any other distro I try runs fast and smooth, over that time I've tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, PCLinuxOS, Sidux, and of course the distro I have been using for some time now, Debian (sid), they all run fine. My PC's, while not being bleeding edge, are certainly more than capable of running Mandriva, and I do not have any exotic or unusual hardware, I never have any trouble with hardware/hardware detection with any distor's.

With Mandriva things are just so slow and unresponsive, that I just can't be bothered using it, even things like just opening a directory are noticably slow. I have stopped and uninstalled Beagle, followed threads with recomended services/process's to stop etc, installed from the PowerPack, Free DVD, One CD, no difference, same result. Downloaded each a number of times, md5's always check out fine, the burns and subsequent verification by K3B are always fine, but it's always the same result, Mandriva runs like a Sloth, I just can't use it. This is not just isolated to 1 PC, it does exactly the same on both my PC's, both are similar, but not identical.

When I installed 2008 RC1, it was the same, as mentioned, I stopped, uninstalled Beagle, disabled various services/process's etc, all to no avail. Then one day I booted into 2008, and it was running fine, I thought, well this is good, so I decided to install the available updates, after that I rebooted, and it was back to it's usual slothful self, and has remained that way since.
[edit] it may have run fine for 1 or 2 days, before I decided to install the updates

Gnome system monitor shows CPU usage while the PC is idle, anywhere from 10% to 99%, whereas at the same time top will show things at maybe 1% to 3% at idle, which is roughly what I will get with Debian, although Debians Gnome System Monitor will also show the same 1% to 3%.

So has anyone got any suggestions of what it could be, or what I could try to get Mandriva to run properly, I would like to try 2008 when it is released.

I have experienced some cpu-usage that is unusual on my cooker system. At times the system freezes for some seconds when it reaches 50-100% CPU usage. Beagle is uninstalled, unnecessary services are disabled but still e.g. the mozilla engine eats up the cpu like Homer Simpson eats donuts. I guess that there is a serious memory-leak in one or more packages. But then... Well, it is Cooker. Such things tend happen there.

Cooker running well here, although I'm using XFCE4, not Gnome.
Firefox eats a little bit more resources than usuaal, but nothing dramatic.
I have some trouble with KDE4 (KDE3 isn't installed at all): While parts of it (dolphin, konqueror, kate...) are running fine, I cannot run the desktop environment yet without a big bunch of crashes at initialization. But oh well, it is beta distro (Cooker) and beta desktop (KDE4), I shouldn't really expect much more than that...

just installed task-gnome-minimal it is slow as hell for me too xfce and kde3 are running just fine though.... (xfce seems to be running quite a bit faster for me, well a lot faster than xubuntu anyway...), kde is as fast as kubuntu....

Well just to add my two pennies worth. I'm also running 2008 RC1 with KDE and to me, it's slightly more responsive than 2007. Everything seems to be working just fine, especially Amaroking, Torrenting, K3bing and Web browsing all at the same time. The only issue I had was with it's choice of kernel. I'm really looking forward to the final release. One thing though, I wish they would make Beagle an opt-in choice rather than an opt-out. Keep up the good work Mandriva

Thanks all, thing is for me, it was exactly the same with 2007 and 2007.1, I just gave up on them, thought I would try 2008, but it's the same, I realize that with cooker/RC's, you maybe shouldn't expect to much, but like I said, it's the same for me with 2007 and 2007.1, and I used to use KDE then, not Gnome as I do now .

I just booted into 2008 RC1, but just couldn't use it, and booted back into Debian. Funny thing is, Debian (sid/unstable), is the most stable Distro I have tried.

Oh well, I'll try the next RC, and then the release, but I don't think anything will change, maybe Mandriva just doesn't like me

Why dont you install xfce or kde to see if it is a gnome problem or a general problem?

KDE is all I used in Mandriva 2007/2007.1, and it was the same. I will however try xfce. Let you know how it goes.

tried xfce, same deal :(

Hehe... then give RHEL/CentOS or Debian stable a try. Almost unbreakable. (yeah... I know... unless you do some rm -f -r --no-preserve-root /* nonsense. )

Does gnome-system-monitor show *what* is using all that CPU?

Quandd, check your disk speed with hdparm:

# hdparm -t /dev/<insert drive for root partition>

With certain hardware configurations/kernels I've seen terribly slow disk speeds. Primary culprits are changes in libata in the 2.6.22 series of kernels and pata drives. Ever since they rolled ide/pata support into libata I've seen some really weird problems on certain hardware. Things seem better in 2.6.23 kernels.

It is only the mozilla-firefox-bin that eats up all the memory on my system. from 54% to 97% of cpu ressources, and it happens when I visit regular sites (no flash/java) and very infrequently. There is no real telling what could cause it except a big memory-leak in the package imho.

I'm not sure what you mean, Arctic. If it's a memory leak, it'll use up memory, but won't necessarily use up CPU. Which do you mean, using up memory (resources), or using up CPU? Knowing which will certainly help diagnose the problem.
Obviously if memory gets low then the machine will have to swap to disk which will slow the machine down, but that's not the same as some problem which is using up a lot of CPU but might not take up any memory at all.

Thanks for pointing my nose on it, neddie. And sorry for being a lazy bastard these days (I simply have too much work these days. My brain hurts...). I meant that the firefox eats all cpu resources, not my memory.

This has been an issue when introduced at first ( 2.6.19 I believe ) but since 2.6.21 it's a non-issue.
And hdparm is good only on IDE drives... on SATA ones its next to useless.

Unfortunately, it's still an issue for me:



Other relevant hardware:

intel 965 chipset motherboard
core2duo E6600 2.4GHz
2GB of ram

DVD drive on the single onboard marvell ide port

Seagate 80GB ide hard drive on the Promise controller is the one with the speed problem(tried jumpering both master and cable select with no change in speed).

Two seagate sata drives on the onboard sata ports are fine.

I'm running FC7 with the most recent kernel update, 2.6.22.4-65.fc7 #1 SMP. All earlier FC7 kernels had the same problem. Identical problem with sidux with a 2.6.22.3 kernel which disappeared when I upgraded to the sidux 2.6.22.6 kernel. Speeds are fine with the mdv2007 and mdv2007.1 kernels.

I've also seen similar reports from others, particularly with the 2.6.22 kernels. The 2.6.23 kernels are suppose to have this cleaned up based upon my limited research.

No.



Who is this Quandd you speak of?
Will do when I next boot into Mandriva, although I have started to fear booting into it, it's so painful :(



If it wasn't for the old as Methuselah packages in Debian Etch/Stable, that's where I would be.

From Mandriva 2008

Timing buffered disk reads: 114 MB in 3.03 seconds = 37.64 MB/sec

From Debian

Timing buffered disk reads: 120 MB in 3.05 seconds = 39.40 MB/sec

that's not the problem for you, then. um, I'm really a bit stuck, to be honest. how about if you boot to runlevel 3 - *no* X started at all, just poke around at the console a bit...is it still slow then?

arctic: if you're having troubles with Firefox you may want to try removing / disabling plugins and extensions one by one till you find the culprit...

The only installed plugin I have is flash... will try without it. I have also checked bugzilla and it seems that I am not the only one who experiences firefox eating up the cpu. (Bug is iirc already assigned). I will keep you informed if I find out something new.

PS: Firefox bug is solved by last update.

Well, just for kicks, and for curiosity sake, and the fact that I am a Masochist, I wiped 2008 RC1, and installed 2007.1, disabled beagle, removed beagle, disabled unnecessary services, processes, done all the updates, rebooted, and it's exactly the same as 2007 and 2007.1 has always been for me, exactly the same as 2008 RC1 is, slooooow, and unresponsive, so then just for kicks, and because I had a bit of spare time, I wiped 2007.1, and installed Ubuntu, it is fast and smooth, so I still had a few kicks left in me, a bit more time to blow, so I thought I would install a KDE orientated distro, enter Kubuntu, yep, you guessed it, fast and smooth, a quick look at the old kick meter showed I still had a bit of kick left in me, and time was still on my side, so I thought I would even things out, and try another .rpm based distro, enter PCLinuxOS, yep, fast and smooth.

So I don't know what it is, but Mandriva just doesn't like me, on 2 different PC's it does exactly the same thing, as said before I have downloaded the 2007 and 2007.1 PowerPack, 2007 and 2007.1 Free DVD, and the One cds, all more than once, and each time the md5's, the burn, the verification after the burn all say it's good, so to me that rules out bad download/media, same goes for 2008 RC1, but of course that is cooker, so . . . , but . . .,

With the old kick meter now showing empty, and time running out, I just can't waste anymore time on this, I have reclaimed my HD space for Debian, and unfortunately said my farewells to Mandriva, Introducing all my Mandriva DVD's, and CD's to the hard sharp reality of the corner of my table (there's definitely a media problem now). I still find it strange how every other distro I have tried runs fine, but Mandriva not so, oh well, time to move forward and not look back.



adamw, sorry, I never got to try that, even though I understand where you are coming from, the thought of just pokeing around at the console a bit never really inspired me

Thanks to all who looked in, and gave advice/suggestions.


[unsolved] pending release and installation of Mandriva 2008

by poking around at the console I didn't mean try and do anything to fix the problem, I just mean do *something* - anything at all - and see whether it's slow or not. the idea being to see if the problem happens only in X, or not.

Yes, Thats what I thought you meant, but I had had enough at that time, had to leave Mandriva for a while, but it has lured me back though, my first Linux love you know, I am downloading the 2008 PowerPack DVD torrent now, and currently running the 2007.1 ONE KDE cd Live, and if only Mandriva would run this good for me when installed to disk, except for when it has to access the disk, it's excellent, much better, faster than when I install to disk. Anyway, when I install 2008, I'll see how it goes, and see then if I can get it worked out, maybe it will work fine, but if I had to bet on it, I would say it will be as slow as, but time will tell.

So, I installed MDV 2008 PP, and what do you think happened? The damn thing is running perfectly, been running it for a couple of hours, install was straight forward and trouble free, as always, hardware all detected etc, as always, but the big surprise is that it actually runs so damn good, I got a smile a mile wide.

I'm going to keep testing it for a couple more days, a week maybe, then if everything is still going fine, I'm going to change both my PC's over to 2008, it feels really good so far No sign of high CPU usage, fast, responsive, just excellent, I'm having trouble tearing myself away so I can go to sleep, I got to be up in 4 hours



I'm glad I'm not the betting kind, I would have done my money

hey, that's good news. Glad to hear it

Well that's enough for me, I'm sold, I will be converting my PC's over to Mandriva 2008 this weekend, everything is working absolutely brilliantly, I've still got a smile from ear to ear. Excellent !


SOLVED [by Mandriva 2008]