chris:b Posted May 4, 2003 Report Share Posted May 4, 2003 Hi, I am Anna, new to linux and mdk 9.1 - the last weeks have been a great experience, learning and enjoying. Not everything worked immediately but I could find a solution. But there is one thing I don't understand on my pc, KDE apps are starting quite slow, the first time Kmail: 7 sec, the first time konquerer 10 sec. The second start: ca. 5 sec. It's only the start, once started, its fast (enough) Even the standard console takes about 7 sec. I found out, that a different terminal (RXvt) starts fast, < 1 sec. I have no idea if this is 'normal'? (no, none of my friends are using linux, can't ask..) I tried: a static IP, no changes. Some changes in kde behaviour, yes, a little bit faster. Phoenix - yes, a little bit faster than konqueror, but not really. I took a look what happens when I'am starting the apps, running gKrellm, but basically I don't really understand what I'am doing ... 180 MB Ram free, 494 swap free. My pc: P4 2 Ghz, MSI board, 256 ram, 80 gig hd, nVidea Gef 4, ps/2 mouse, ps/2 keyboard, Realtek lan onboard, onoard soundcard C-Media, i-net via hardware-router - everything is working fine. Hm, its not a big problem, but I'd love to understand ... Can you help me? Regards, Anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qnr Posted May 4, 2003 Report Share Posted May 4, 2003 If you are coming straight from Windows or a Mac, things will seems slower to originally start. The main reason for this is that Microsoft and Apple have operating systems where huge amounts of tools and utilities are built into one big monolithic whole. Since they are already installed when you boot up Windows (for example) they don't need to be loaded when you run Internet Expolorer, or Word, or other programs. Unix/BSD/Linux on the other hand, tends to make programs more functional (read that to mean, adding functions - not necessarily "more functional than Windows") by adding lots of little programs, as it needs them. This slows the loading down, as it takes a while to load all of the utilities, but it gives you finer grained control, as you can generally decide for yourself whether you want a feature, or if you want it performed by a totally different program than the one assigned as a default. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted May 4, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2003 thank you, qnr, for the explanation :P Do I get it right that most of the mdk 9.1 - users with a sort of standard-installation (what I did) have this loading time? And maybe some others decide to disable some utils or programs to make it faster? -anna (sorry for my English, its not my mother tongue ...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted May 4, 2003 Report Share Posted May 4, 2003 I think your launch times are quite long given your hardware. I have a P4 2.53 GHz with 512 MB of ram and kmail launches in under a second. Although my Win 98 is definitely zippier, I don't have the speed differences you describe. If you want to check your memory usage, run the following in a console: $ free To get a list of running processes, and associated memory/cpu usage, run: $ ps aux A lot of times network and security settings can cause a system to run slow. Try setting your security to Standard in Mandrake Control Center>Security>DrakSec and see if that makes a difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted May 4, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2003 output with 'free': total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 256016 249920 6096 0 5492 167296 -/+ buffers/cache: 77132 178884 Swap: 506008 180 505828 ps aux: a long list, mostly o%CPU, 4,3% console, 2,3% phoenix ... security settings were on standard. Any idea? -anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted May 5, 2003 Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 You could check to see if you have dma enabled on your hard drive with the following: $ su <password> # hdparm -v /dev/hdx where "x" is the letter corresponding to your hard drive. Unless you have an unusual hardware configuration and since you only have one hard drive, that will probably be either hda (primary master), hdb (primary slave), hdc (secondary master), or hdd (secondary slave). Most likely it will be hda. Check the line that says "using_dma" You can check how fast your reading from your hard drive with : # hdparm -t /dev/hdx You should be getting around 30 to 40 MB/sec if dma is enabled. Not having dma enabled on a hard drive that can work with dma can really slow things up. With dma not enabled you can usually not get faster than 5 MB/sec. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted May 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 seems, dma is 'on': /dev/hda: multcount = 16 (on) IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) geometry = 9729/255/63, sectors = 156301488, start = 0 and here the speed: /dev/hda: Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.44 seconds = 26.23 MB/sec btw i 'think' the dma2 mode is running ... I appreciate your help, pmpatrick 8) Thanks! its late in the night here(look at the link) in Amsterdam, i'll be back tomorrow, maybe if someone has any idea what's up with my 'weird' system... -anna http://www.zien.info/grachtw.ukb/J2956902.HTM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGuy© Posted May 5, 2003 Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 The IO_support = line can speed things up by 30 to 50%, yours is set to a very conservative 16 bit setting. So that it will work with the oldest of hard drives. But, it's slow. # hdparm -c3 /dev/hda /dev/hda: setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 3 IO_support = 3 (32-bit w/sync) # hdparm -v /dev/hda /dev/hda: multcount = 16 (on) IO_support = 3 (32-bit w/sync) unmaskirq = 1 (on) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) geometry = 1868/255/63, sectors = 30015216, start = 0 Try the new setting, you should notice a big difference, and you can add the command to the boot up so it will use the new setting every time. Add hdparm -c3 /dev/hda to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local touch /var/lock/subsys/local hdparm -c3 /dev/hda <---like so: See man hdparm for more information. Using the free command with the -m switch will print to screen the numbers in megabytes which is a lot easier to read, ie, free -m Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGuy© Posted May 5, 2003 Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 Add hdparm -c3 /dev/hda to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local Forgot to mention, when you edit rc.local or any script file, TURN OFF THE WORD WRAP SETTING first! Word wrapping a script can mess you up fast after you save the edit. And you need the same permissions after you save the file, usually it is not a problem though. $ ls -l /etc/rc.d/rc.local -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1676 Apr 13 17:05 /etc/rc.d/rc.local the rc.local script must be executable or it will not load during the boot process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 5, 2003 Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 anna wrote: /dev/hda: multcount = 16 (on) IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) Also, to add to BobGuy, your readahead is probably set a little low as well. What you're seeing is the kernel default in most cases. You can do the following to get info. Note: the * next to udma2. This shows what your dma is set to. If higher values are possible they will be listed as well, and can be changed and set at boot the same way. [root@localhost bvc]# hdparm -i /dev/hda /dev/hda: Model=Maxtor 5T030H3, FwRev=TAH71DP0, SerialNo=T3R72NMC Config={ Fixed } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=60030432 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 0: 1 2 3 4 5 6 hdparm -I /dev/hda will give a lot more info. For a quick reference with less detail do; hdparm ---help. This is how it's suggested to use hdparm from /etc/rc/d/rc.sysinit, ensuring that the changes are made at the correct time. rc.local is executed last, so a lot more is going on with the hd when hdparm is executed from here....but a lot of people do it. I use the harddisks files. # Turn on harddisk optimization# There is only one file /etc/sysconfig/harddisks for all disks # after installing the hdparm-RPM. If you need different hdparm parameters # for each of your disks, copy /etc/sysconfig/harddisks to # /etc/sysconfig/harddiskhda (hdb, hdc...) and modify it. # Each disk which has no special parameters will use the defaults. # Each non-disk which has no special parameters will be ignored. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted May 5, 2003 Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 Just a little thought on the side, can you start those slow programs from a terminal (konsole) and see if it gives you some more info? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted May 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 hello BobGuy, bvc, aRTee et al, thank you for your replies and advices. I tried the 'hdparm -i' - thing first to get an impression, funny, no modus had a *-flag. man hdparm said I could try the -I (capital letter..), yes, the *flag was set to udma5. Then I tried the settings: -c3, -u1, different readahead - ( various combinations)alas, couldn't get the speed higher. The best is 27,8 MB/s. So I thought I better look for a sort of test of my drive, Seagate ST380020A on some websites - ha, its a slow one, the speed 27-28 MB/s seems ok, the testers did not get more. Mandrake install did it ok, huh? Is it the drive - what do you think? Possibly its related to my (OEM) hardware ('optimized for win xp' or such stuff').. Trying now to launch a programm via terminal... -anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted May 5, 2003 Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 I have a ST380021A and my best is 32.49 MB/sec. I only have it running on udma4, even though it says it is capable of udma5. I've read the hdparm --help and don't see how to set it to udma5. I have some slow loading of programs, too. I'm using Gnome and Galeon takes about 5 secs to start. Gnome-terminal is almost instantaneous. My processor is only a 750 MHz, so I still have much faster startup times than you comparatively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted May 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 launching a program from a terminal: krusader: ~ 6 sec opera: ~ 8 sec midnight commander: < 1 sec (very nice, should I go back there?) This is getting interesting, though. 4 weeks ago, after the installation, the only thing that didn't work, has been getting sound out of audio-cd's. mp3's and system sound was fine. Until I found the solution, here on the board, my drive is not connected to the sound card, so I had to install a small plugin to enable digital output, and bingo! - anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted May 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2003 Steve, your model is the faster one - with 7200 rpm. Have you tried: # hdparm -X69 /dev/hd(x) And I've read Gnome to be a bit faster than KDE ? -anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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