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KDE freezes temporarily [solved]


neil-a1000
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Have recently upgraded from 2006 to 2007 Mandriva.

 

Completed a fresh install and everything worked right out of the box. I use a full wireless system so have a USB dongle for my network and a USB dongle for my Keyb/Mouse, Had problems with these unde 2006 yet they worked first time with 2007.

 

Problem I have is this. When I first start the box and login to KDE the system uses approx 150mb of my RAM (noted whhen I press ctrl+esc) however I use the system for a while, run and close a few applications and try ctrl+esc again. Now I am using 380mb of RAM and only have 4mb free. Something has eaten al the memory.

 

I only noticed this as I am having problems with the computer freezing totally for about 2mins if I try to run a heavy app like firefox or opera. What I also noticed is that the swap partition is unused totally. I have set aside 1gb for this and it is redundant.

 

Is there anything I can do (without re-booting that will clear the memory back to normal?

 

Is there a reason why the swap file is not being used?

 

What application runs away with the memory like this?

 

I have checked through /etc/cron and there is nothing new in therre to suggest it is an AT job, I have disabled IPv6 still with no change.

 

Thanks in advance.

Neil

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What services do you have enabled?

 

chkconfig --list

 

and post the output, we can then see what's safe to disable to free up some memory. KDE/Gnome use a lot of memory, so 384MB isn't a great deal, but you shouldn't be as bad as you seem to be experiencing.

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[@neil]# chkconfig --list
acpi			0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
acpid		   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
alsa			0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
atd			 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
autofs		  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
avahi-daemon	0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
clamd		   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
crond		   0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
dkms			0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
dm			  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:on	6:off
freshclam	   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
haldaemon	   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
harddrake	   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
keytable		0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
kheader		 0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:off   5:on	6:off
lisa			0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
messagebus	  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
mtink		   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
netfs		   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
network		 0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
network-up	  0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
nfslock		 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
numlock		 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
oki4daemon	  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
partmon		 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
portmap		 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
sound		   0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
syslog		  0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
wltool		  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
xfs			 0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
[@neil]#

 

Here is the output from chkconfig.

 

All help is greatly recieved.

Neil

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[@neil]# chkconfig --list
atd			 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
autofs		  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
crond		   0:off   1:off   2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
harddrake	   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
lisa			0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
netfs		   0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
nfslock		 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
portmap		 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
[@neil]#

 

You can safely disable the above services. I'll explain:

 

atd - used for scheduling. If you're not worried about schedule jobs/tasks, disable it.

autofs - don't need it. The hal daemon takes care of mounting disks. If you want them to mount automatically, you can add entries to /etc/fstab and free up a service.

crond - same as atd, for scheduling.

harddrake - I don't tend to disable this unless I need to. Hardware detection will not work any longer, but if you don't plug in USB disks, etc, and your hardware doesn't change often, then you can disable it. I only need this enabled for when I use USB disks, or usb sticks.

lisa - meant to be like Network Neighbourhood for Windows, drop it, not really required.

netfs - Unless your using nfs for connecting between Linux machines for filesharing, disable it.

nfslock - same as above for netfs

portmap - same as above for netfs

 

I tend to do this:

 

chkconfig netfs off
service netfs stop
urpme lisa portmap

 

it will also remove nfs-utils-clients (think that's the same), which is the nfsutils service. Either that, or just disable the service in the gui, or using the chkconfig command as I gave as an example here.

 

I leave crond on my system, but it's up to you if you want these kinds of jobs to run.

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I have run the system now for a few days with the changes as above.

 

I am still suffering greatly with the problem of my memory being eaten.

 

Something in the background seems to be eating all the memory or at least not releasing the memory when I close applications.

 

Is there something runing in the memory that does not show up in Ksysguard?

 

Is there a way of checking deeper than ksysguard for running applications

 

There has to be a reason for this - my PC is 2Ghz with 384mb of RAM and a dedicated 1gb swap drive which is never touched by KDE. I really do hope I dont have to start using Gnome (no offence meant).

 

Neil

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Is the fact your memory is being used causing you any problems? It's common for a Linux system to use all your available ram, and the fact that it does this without using swap means your system is configured correctly and working fine.

 

And when you mean KDE freezes, where, and what doing?

 

This is what my system looks like:

 

[ian@europa ~]$ free
		 total	   used	   free	 shared	buffers	 cached
Mem:		515544	 453080	  62464		  0	  33588	 198592
-/+ buffers/cache:	 220900	 294644
Swap:	  1076312		  0	1076312

[ian@europa ~]$ uptime
07:51:18 up 14 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.59, 0.70, 0.47

 

Note that my system has only been up 14 minutes, but it works perfectly fine. My swap isn't being used either. I have 512MB of ram and all of it is used.

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When I say freezes I mean the whole system just hangs. I am unable to use the mouse or keyboard.

 

Occasionally I can use the keyboard enough to press ctrl+esc and get into ksysguard, once there I can do nothing.

 

Sometimes I get the system back within 30 seconds, sometimes it is around 2 minutes.

 

I have disabled as much of KDE as possible from services in control centre, I have dissabled as much as possible from boot up services. Still the system hangs.

 

Neil

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Hmm, sounds odd, never experienced that, well unless I'm using Gnome in Mandriva 2006 and gdm as my login manager.

 

Is gdm your login manager just out of curiosity? Have you set up your easyurpmi sources for main/contrib/updates, and applied all to the system with:

 

urpmi --auto-select

 

let me know.

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All updates have been applied. There are none left in the list.

 

Well Ithink so anyhow - I am now unable to use Software Manager in MCC - Another problem with 2007?

 

Things I have tried to resolve this problem: -

 

1 - Removed services as above,

2 - Removed all services from KDE control centre/Components/Services,

3 - Removed Knemo - This semed to be doing a lot in the background

4 - Spent the last two days geting the andriva suplied ZD1211 driver working with my wireless dongle - a thread I read suggested that sometimes code errors in new drivers caused memory trap problems.

5 - puled out lots of hair out trying to figure this out - no longer need to get a hair cut.

 

Neil

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OK, without the gui, you can check it all this way. Here is an example from my machine:

 

[root@europa ian]# urpmq --list-media
Powerpack DVD i586
Powerpack DVD i586 (non-free)
updates
main
contrib
plf-free
plf-nonfree

[root@europa ian]# urpmi.update -a
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.Powerpack DVD i586.cz]
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.Powerpack DVD i586 (non-free).cz]
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.updates.cz]
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.main.cz]
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.contrib.cz]
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.plf-free.cz]
examining MD5SUM file
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.plf-nonfree.cz]

[root@europa ian]# urpmi --auto-select
The package(s) are already installed

 

The first one lists what media you have, you should have your normal one, plus main/contrib/updates at least. I also have plf sources too, but this isn't too important for standard systems - just for extra apps.

 

The second command updates your urpmi database to get the latest list files.

 

The third command then interrogates the urpmi database and installs the updates where necessary. In fact, this command does more than just updates, it would do all packages possible for upgrade.

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  • 1 month later...

SOLVED AT LAST

 

Having tried numerous different things to get my system working correctly I came up with quite a cheeky solution.

 

For all those with a similar problem here is my solution.

 

1. Drop out of KDE into a console.

2. Login as root.

3. type urpme kde

Wait while this completes

4. type urpmi gnome

Wait while this completes

5. Reboot.

 

Bye Bye all the problems. In plain English BYE BYE KDE...!!!!

 

 

Neil

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