>> I've been running without swap for quite a while, but my system goes >> into a near freeze whenever I undertake a large emerge such as >> chromium or openoffice. Is there anything I can do to prevent this >> besides turning swap back on? I have 3GB RAM and MAKEOPTS="-j1". >> >> - Grant >> > The "near freeze" is probably the result from Linux' bad IO-scheduling. > I know the phenomena :( > I'm very much looking forward to some future changes in the kernel :) > > For now it'll help to use "ionice -c 3". This is the IO-equivalent to > "nice -n 19". > > $ ionice -c 3 emerge something > > Bye, > Daniel
Thanks Daniel, that got me through the chromium emerge without a single hiccup. - Grant