Re: [gentoo-user] trouble starting bash
On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 8:07 PM, David Relson rel...@osagesoftware.comwrote: On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 19:13:33 -0500 Willie Wong wrote: On Sat, Feb 06, 2010 at 06:29:27PM -0500, David Relson wrote: Your replies are much appreciated as we're in an area of Linux about which I'm poorly informed. Output (below) of rc-status sysinit indicated devfs stopped, so I started devfs (which didn't change /dev/pt*), then restarted udev (which didn't affect /dev/pt*). Right, but can you ssh in to the machine now (or open a terminal emulator in X)? /dev/pts is just the mount point for the devpts pseudo filesystem. In modern versions of linux the pts devices are created on-the-fly when requested (as opposed to other versions and some modern unixes where there will be a fixed number of device nodes under /dev/pts or equivalent). All that just goes to say that if /dev/pts is empty right after you restart the devfs service, it is normal. A device file should be created automatically now when userspace programs demand it. (E.g. if you now ssh in, and if it succeeds, ls /dev/pts should show one entry.) Try it, let me know if the problem is still there. Nope. Both ssh and X terminal emulators are still broken. No change in behavior. FWIW, most of the entries in /dev are timestamped 02/02 23:34 which is when I updated udev earlier this week. Today's upgrade/downgrade emerge hasn't affected the timestamps. A comparison of /etc/udev/rules.d to a saved copy didn't show much. The only puzzling difference is: --- 90-hal.rules (revision 51) +++ 90-hal.rules (working copy) @@ -1,2 +1,2 @@ # pass all events to the HAL daemon -RUN+=socket:/org/freedesktop/hal/udev_event +RUN+=socket:@/org/freedesktop/hal/udev_event removing the @ and restarting udev hasn't helped. Since the rule is hal related, I also restarted hald -- which hasn't helped. What happens if you do: mount -t devpts none /dev/pts Does the problem go away? -James
Re: [gentoo-user] remove unneeded package.keywords entries
On Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:22:19 -0600, Dale wrote: True but if the OP hasn't cleaned his before, he may very well have a lot of cleaning to do as well. I clean mine every few months and it still has some size to the output. That's why I run it every week :) You got to much time on your hands. You need better things to do. lol :-) When maintaining a Gentoo system, little and often usually take less time in the ling run. I get emailed the results of eix-test-obsolete, revdep-rebuild -p and a couple of other checks from each computer each week. Most weeks I just scan the mails and move on as nothing is reported. Occasionally I remove a line or two from /etc/portage/*, which is far less work than trying to decipher the mess after leaving it for several months. -- Neil Bothwick ... I'm simply not a nice girl, she whispered tartly. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] bluetooth devices can connect only once
hi, my system is gentoo amd64, kde 4.3.4. i have a m$ bluetooth mouse. if i start my laptop, and connect to my mouse. it is fine. but if i stopped bluetooth, or disconnected the mouse, i cannot connect to my mouse unless i restart my system. in the /var/log/message, i found Connection refused (111) logged when i tried to reconnect my mouse. i searched for a while, and found a solution. i emerged the hidd tool and use this tool to connect to my mouse. this tool success every time. i just wonder, since the hcitool can connect to my mouse once, why it cannot connect to my mouse afterward? does some one have a better solutiion. -- Best Regards, David Shen http://twitter.com/davidshen84/
Re: [gentoo-user] trouble starting bash
On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 02:20:19 -0800 James Ausmus wrote: On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 8:07 PM, David Relson rel...@osagesoftware.comwrote: On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 19:13:33 -0500 Willie Wong wrote: On Sat, Feb 06, 2010 at 06:29:27PM -0500, David Relson wrote: Your replies are much appreciated as we're in an area of Linux about which I'm poorly informed. Output (below) of rc-status sysinit indicated devfs stopped, so I started devfs (which didn't change /dev/pt*), then restarted udev (which didn't affect /dev/pt*). Right, but can you ssh in to the machine now (or open a terminal emulator in X)? /dev/pts is just the mount point for the devpts pseudo filesystem. In modern versions of linux the pts devices are created on-the-fly when requested (as opposed to other versions and some modern unixes where there will be a fixed number of device nodes under /dev/pts or equivalent). All that just goes to say that if /dev/pts is empty right after you restart the devfs service, it is normal. A device file should be created automatically now when userspace programs demand it. (E.g. if you now ssh in, and if it succeeds, ls /dev/pts should show one entry.) Try it, let me know if the problem is still there. Nope. Both ssh and X terminal emulators are still broken. No change in behavior. FWIW, most of the entries in /dev are timestamped 02/02 23:34 which is when I updated udev earlier this week. Today's upgrade/downgrade emerge hasn't affected the timestamps. A comparison of /etc/udev/rules.d to a saved copy didn't show much. The only puzzling difference is: --- 90-hal.rules (revision 51) +++ 90-hal.rules (working copy) @@ -1,2 +1,2 @@ # pass all events to the HAL daemon -RUN+=socket:/org/freedesktop/hal/udev_event +RUN+=socket:@/org/freedesktop/hal/udev_event removing the @ and restarting udev hasn't helped. Since the rule is hal related, I also restarted hald -- which hasn't helped. What happens if you do: mount -t devpts none /dev/pts Does the problem go away? -James Eureka! Problem fixed. Looking in /etc/mtab, the last line is: none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0 Perhaps the mount devpts command should have been issued as part of emerging udev, openrc, or sysinit ??? Should this be reported to b.g.o.?? David
[gentoo-user] Problem compiling freemind
Hello List, I thought I'd have a play with a mind mapping program, so I tried to install freemind on this ~amd64 box. This is an excerpt from the log: Compiling source in /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind ... * Using following ANT_TASKS: ant-nodeps ant-trax jibx xsd2jibx Buildfile: build.xml init: [echo] FreeMind Version = 0.9.0_RC_6, build 11. xmlbind.checkStatusOfGeneration: gen: [mkdir] Created dir: /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding [mkdir] Created dir: /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/src [mkdir] Created dir: /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/run [mkdir] Created dir: /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/classes [javac] Compiling 1 source file to /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/run [delete] Deleting directory /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/run [javac] Compiling 100 source files to /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/classes [echo] Running binding compiler... [bind] Failed setting classpath from Ant task [jar] Building jar: /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/lib/bindings.jar [delete] Deleting directory /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding build: [...etc...] Successful completion is announced, but when I run the program from a terminal I get this: $ freemind Traceback (most recent call last): File /usr/bin/gjl-2.6, line 266, in module vm = get_vm(pkg) File /usr/bin/gjl-2.6, line 159, in get_vm target, needs_jdk = get_needed_target2(pkg) File /usr/bin/gjl-2.6, line 51, in get_needed_target2 target = pkg.target() File /usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/java_config_2/Virtual.py, line 112, in target return self.get_provider().query(TARGET) AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'query' Couldn't get needed information Can someone who knows more Java than I do see what's missing? This may help: $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: 1) IcedTea6-bin 1.7 [icedtea6-bin] *) Sun JDK 1.5.0.22 [sun-jdk-1.5] -- Rgds Peter.
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem compiling freemind
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 6:46 AM, Peter Humphrey pe...@humphrey.ukfsn.org wrote: Hello List, I thought I'd have a play with a mind mapping program, so I tried to install freemind on this ~amd64 box. This is an excerpt from the log: SNIP Can someone who knows more Java than I do see what's missing? This may help: $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: 1) IcedTea6-bin 1.7 [icedtea6-bin] *) Sun JDK 1.5.0.22 [sun-jdk-1.5] -- Rgds Peter. Runs for me. I don't know how to use it but the GUI comes up and it allows me to start creating something. AMD64 stable except for a few packages. m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: 1) IcedTea6-bin 1.6.2 [icedtea6-bin] *) Sun JRE 1.6.0.17 [sun-jre-bin-1.6] VMs marked as Build Only may contain Security Vulnerabilities and/or be EOL. Gentoo recommends not setting these VMs as either your System or User VM. Please see http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/java.xml#build-only for more information m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ cat /etc/portage/package.keywords sys-kernel/gentoo-sources ~amd64 sys-apps/portage ~amd64 sys-apps/sandbox ~amd64 app-cdr/cdrtools ~amd64 x11-misc/read-edid ~amd64 sys-kernel/rt-sources ~amd64 media-sound/alsa-tools ~amd64 games-action/extreme-tuxracer ~amd64 media-sound/jack-audio-connection-kit ~amd64 dev-php5/php-gtk ~amd64 media-tv/huludesktop ~amd64 m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem compiling freemind
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 7:06 AM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 6:46 AM, Peter Humphrey pe...@humphrey.ukfsn.org wrote: Hello List, I thought I'd have a play with a mind mapping program, so I tried to install freemind on this ~amd64 box. This is an excerpt from the log: SNIP Can someone who knows more Java than I do see what's missing? This may help: $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: 1) IcedTea6-bin 1.7 [icedtea6-bin] *) Sun JDK 1.5.0.22 [sun-jdk-1.5] -- Rgds Peter. Runs for me. I don't know how to use it but the GUI comes up and it allows me to start creating something. AMD64 stable except for a few packages. m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: 1) IcedTea6-bin 1.6.2 [icedtea6-bin] *) Sun JRE 1.6.0.17 [sun-jre-bin-1.6] VMs marked as Build Only may contain Security Vulnerabilities and/or be EOL. Gentoo recommends not setting these VMs as either your System or User VM. Please see http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/java.xml#build-only for more information m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ cat /etc/portage/package.keywords sys-kernel/gentoo-sources ~amd64 sys-apps/portage ~amd64 sys-apps/sandbox ~amd64 app-cdr/cdrtools ~amd64 x11-misc/read-edid ~amd64 sys-kernel/rt-sources ~amd64 media-sound/alsa-tools ~amd64 games-action/extreme-tuxracer ~amd64 media-sound/jack-audio-connection-kit ~amd64 dev-php5/php-gtk ~amd64 media-tv/huludesktop ~amd64 m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ - Mark NOTE: It also worked the same for me when I switched to Iced-Tea6-bin, both stable and ~amd64. m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: *) IcedTea6-bin 1.6.2 [icedtea6-bin] 2) Sun JRE 1.6.0.17 [sun-jre-bin-1.6] VMs marked as Build Only may contain Security Vulnerabilities and/or be EOL. Gentoo recommends not setting these VMs as either your System or User VM. Please see http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/java.xml#build-only for more information m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: *) IcedTea6-bin 1.7 [icedtea6-bin] 2) Sun JRE 1.6.0.17 [sun-jre-bin-1.6] VMs marked as Build Only may contain Security Vulnerabilities and/or be EOL. Gentoo recommends not setting these VMs as either your System or User VM. Please see http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/java.xml#build-only for more information m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ java-config -l [ant-core] Java-based build tool similar to 'make' that uses XML configuration files. (/usr/share/ant-core/package.env) [cyrus-sasl-2] The Cyrus SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer). (/usr/share/cyrus-sasl-2/package.env) [db-4.7] Oracle Berkeley DB (/usr/share/db-4.7/package.env) [antlr] A parser generator for C++, C#, Java, and Python (/usr/share/antlr/package.env) [gjdoc] A javadoc compatible Java source documentation generator. (/usr/share/gjdoc/package.env) [xulrunner-1.9] Mozilla runtime package that can be used to bootstrap XUL+XPCOM applications (/usr/share/xulrunner-1.9/package.env) [pdflib-5] A library for generating PDF on the fly. (/usr/share/pdflib-5/package.env) [subversion] Advanced version control system (/usr/share/subversion/package.env) [pilot-link] suite of tools for moving data between a Palm device and a desktop (/usr/share/pilot-link/package.env) [freemind] Mind-mapping software written in Java (/usr/share/freemind/package.env) [libidn] Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) implementation (/usr/share/libidn/package.env) m...@firefly ~/Desktop $ Cheers, Mark Cheers, Mark
[gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
Hi, I got a WD 1T drive to use in a new machine for my dad. I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the technical details when I purchased it other than it was SATA2, big, and the price was good. Here's the NewEgg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136490 I installed the drive, created some partitions and set off to put ext3 on it using just mke2fs -j /dev/sda3. The partitions gets written and everything works but when I started installing Gentoo on it I was getting some HUGE delays at times, such as when unpacking portage.latest.tar.bz. Basically the tar step would be rolling along and then the drive would literally appear to stop for 1 minute before proceeding. No CPU usage, the machine is alive in other terminals, but anything directed at the disk just seems dead. Sticking my ear on the drive it doesn't sound like the drive is doing anything. I was trying to determine what to do - I.e is this a bad drive, how to return it, etc. - and started reading the reviews at NewEgg. One guy using it with Linux had this to say: QUOTE 4KB physical sectors: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Pros: Quiet, cool-running, big cache Cons: The 4KB physical sectors are a problem waiting to happen. If you misalign your partitions, disk performance can suffer. I ran benchmarks in Linux using a number of filesystems, and I found that with most filesystems, read performance and write performance with large files didn't suffer with misaligned partitions, but writes of many small files (unpacking a Linux kernel archive) could take several times as long with misaligned partitions as with aligned partitions. WD's advice about who needs to be concerned is overly simplistic, IMHO, and it's flat-out wrong for Linux, although it's probably accurate for 90% of buyers (those who run Windows or Mac OS and use their standard partitioning tools). If you're not part of that 90%, though, and if you don't fully understand this new technology and how to handle it, buy a drive with conventional 512-byte sectors! /QUOTE Now, I don't mind getting a bit dirty learning to use this correctly but I'm wondering what that means in a practical sense. Reading the mke2fs man page the word 'sector' doesn't come up. It's my understanding the Linux 'blocks' are groups of sectors. True? If the disk must use 4K sectors then what - the smallest block has to be 4K and I'm using 1 sector per block? It seems that ext3 doesn't support anything larger than 4K? As a test I blew away all the partitions and made one huge 1 terabyte partition using ext3. I think tried untarring the portage snapshot and then deleting the directory where I put it a bunch of times. I get very different times each time I do this. untarring varies from 6 minutes 24 seconds to 10 minutes 25 seconds. Removing the directory varies from 3 seconds to 1 minute 22 seconds. Every time there is an apparent delay I just see the hard drive light turned on solid. That said as far as I know if I wait for things to complete the data is there but I haven't tested it extensively. Is this a bad drive or am I somehow using it incorrectly? Thanks, Mark gandalf TestMount # time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/TestMount/usr real6m24.736s user0m9.969s sys 0m3.537s gandalf TestMount # time rm -rf /mnt/TestMount/usr/ real0m3.229s user0m0.110s sys 0m1.809s gandalf TestMount # mkdir usr gandalf TestMount # time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/TestMount/usr real7m50.193s user0m8.647s sys 0m2.811s gandalf TestMount # time rm -rf /mnt/TestMount/usr/ real0m3.234s user0m0.119s sys 0m1.792s gandalf TestMount # mkdir usr gandalf TestMount # time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/TestMount/usr real10m25.926s user0m8.645s sys 0m2.765s gandalf TestMount # time rm -rf /mnt/TestMount/usr/ real1m22.330s user0m0.124s sys 0m1.810s gandalf TestMount # mkdir usr gandalf TestMount # time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/TestMount/usr real8m12.307s user0m8.463s sys 0m2.708s gandalf TestMount # time rm -rf /mnt/TestMount/usr/ real0m29.517s user0m0.114s sys 0m1.810s gandalf TestMount # gandalf ~ # hdparm -tT /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: Timing cached reads: 11362 MB in 2.00 seconds = 5684.46 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 314 MB in 3.00 seconds = 104.64 MB/sec gandalf ~ #
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem compiling freemind
On Sunday 07 February 2010 15:06:37 Mark Knecht wrote: Runs for me. I don't know how to use it but the GUI comes up and it allows me to start creating something. Hmm. After switching to iced-tea I get the same compile error* but the GUI comes up and the program appears to work. What the hell. * [javac] Compiling 100 source files to /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/classes [echo] Running binding compiler... [bind] Failed setting classpath from Ant task Thanks for the reply, Mark. -- Rgds Peter.
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sunday 07 February 2010 19:27:46 Mark Knecht wrote: Every time there is an apparent delay I just see the hard drive light turned on solid. That said as far as I know if I wait for things to complete the data is there but I haven't tested it extensively. Is this a bad drive or am I somehow using it incorrectly? Is there any related info in dmesg?
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem compiling freemind
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 9:16 AM, Peter Humphrey pe...@humphrey.ukfsn.org wrote: On Sunday 07 February 2010 15:06:37 Mark Knecht wrote: Runs for me. I don't know how to use it but the GUI comes up and it allows me to start creating something. Hmm. After switching to iced-tea I get the same compile error* but the GUI comes up and the program appears to work. What the hell. * [javac] Compiling 100 source files to /tmp/portage/app- misc/freemind-0.9.0_rc6/work/freemind/binding/classes [echo] Running binding compiler... [bind] Failed setting classpath from Ant task Thanks for the reply, Mark. -- Rgds Peter. What do you see with java-config -l ? In my previous response it showed some ant stuff. Seems like that's possibly part of the difference? Note that I didn't look very hard for compile errors or anything else. If you want me to let me know what to look for. I just built it and ran it. Cheers, Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sonntag 07 Februar 2010, Alexander wrote: On Sunday 07 February 2010 19:27:46 Mark Knecht wrote: Every time there is an apparent delay I just see the hard drive light turned on solid. That said as far as I know if I wait for things to complete the data is there but I haven't tested it extensively. Is this a bad drive or am I somehow using it incorrectly? Is there any related info in dmesg? or maybe there is too much cached and seeking is not the drives strong point ...
[gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
Hi folks, I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). Link to forum post: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-792424-highlight-5300.html I'm a gentoo newbie and therefore would be very glad, if anyone could give me an advice in the right direction. Thank you very much! Best regards Shoka
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Alexander b3n...@yandex.ru wrote: On Sunday 07 February 2010 19:27:46 Mark Knecht wrote: Every time there is an apparent delay I just see the hard drive light turned on solid. That said as far as I know if I wait for things to complete the data is there but I haven't tested it extensively. Is this a bad drive or am I somehow using it incorrectly? Is there any related info in dmesg? No, nothing in dmesg at all. Here are two tests this morning. The first is to the 1T drive, the second is to a 120GB drive I'm currently using as a system drive until I work this out: gandalf TestMount # time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/TestMount/usr real8m13.077s user0m8.184s sys 0m2.561s gandalf TestMount # m...@gandalf ~ $ time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /home/mark/Test_usr/ real0m39.213s user0m8.243s sys 0m2.135s m...@gandalf ~ $ 8 minutes vs 39 seconds! The amount of data written appears to be the same: gandalf ~ # du -shc /mnt/TestMount/usr/ 583M/mnt/TestMount/usr/ 583Mtotal gandalf ~ # m...@gandalf ~ $ du -shc /home/mark/Test_usr/ 583M/home/mark/Test_usr/ 583Mtotal m...@gandalf ~ $ I did some reading at the WD site and it seems this drive does use the 4K sector size. The way it's done is the addressing on cable is still 512 byte 'user sectors', but they are packed into 4K physical sectors and internal hardware does the mapping. I suspect the performance issue is figuring out how to get the file system to keep things on 4K boundaries. I assume that's what the 4K block size is for when building the file system but I need to go find out more about that. I did not select it specifically. Maybe I need to. Thanks, Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] trouble starting bash
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 09:35:54AM -0500, David Relson wrote: Looking in /etc/mtab, the last line is: none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0 Perhaps the mount devpts command should have been issued as part of emerging udev, openrc, or sysinit ??? Should this be reported to b.g.o.?? Odd, that's one of the two things /etc/init.d/devfs is supposed to do. (The other is to mount tmpfs.) The whole point of that script is to provide those two filesystems in case the user forgot to specify them in /etc/fstab. If this is reproducible (say, after next reboot devpts still doesn't come up, while devfs is started), then something is wrong. Filing a bug report likely won't help because it works on mostly everyone else's system; you should probably ping the list again to find out what the source of the problem is. A work around would be to just add the appropriate line to /etc/fstab. the devfs script is smart enough to check if the devpts and tmpfs are already mounted, so it should break anything additional. Cheers, W -- Willie W. Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sonntag 07 Februar 2010, Mark Knecht wrote: On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Alexander b3n...@yandex.ru wrote: On Sunday 07 February 2010 19:27:46 Mark Knecht wrote: Every time there is an apparent delay I just see the hard drive light turned on solid. That said as far as I know if I wait for things to complete the data is there but I haven't tested it extensively. Is this a bad drive or am I somehow using it incorrectly? Is there any related info in dmesg? No, nothing in dmesg at all. Here are two tests this morning. The first is to the 1T drive, the second is to a 120GB drive I'm currently using as a system drive until I work this out: gandalf TestMount # time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/TestMount/usr real 8m13.077s user 0m8.184s sys 0m2.561s gandalf TestMount # m...@gandalf ~ $ time tar xjf /mnt/TestMount/portage-latest.tar.bz2 -C /home/mark/Test_usr/ real 0m39.213s user 0m8.243s sys 0m2.135s m...@gandalf ~ $ 8 minutes vs 39 seconds! The amount of data written appears to be the same: gandalf ~ # du -shc /mnt/TestMount/usr/ 583M /mnt/TestMount/usr/ 583M total gandalf ~ # m...@gandalf ~ $ du -shc /home/mark/Test_usr/ 583M /home/mark/Test_usr/ 583M total m...@gandalf ~ $ I did some reading at the WD site and it seems this drive does use the 4K sector size. The way it's done is the addressing on cable is still 512 byte 'user sectors', but they are packed into 4K physical sectors and internal hardware does the mapping. I suspect the performance issue is figuring out how to get the file system to keep things on 4K boundaries. I assume that's what the 4K block size is for when building the file system but I need to go find out more about that. I did not select it specifically. Maybe I need to. Thanks, Mark no. 4k block size is the default for linux filesystems. But you might have 'misaligned' the partitions. There is a lot of text to read about 'eraseblocks' on ssds and how important it is to align the partitions. You might want to read up on that to learn how to align partitions.
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: On Sonntag 07 Februar 2010, Alexander wrote: On Sunday 07 February 2010 19:27:46 Mark Knecht wrote: Every time there is an apparent delay I just see the hard drive light turned on solid. That said as far as I know if I wait for things to complete the data is there but I haven't tested it extensively. Is this a bad drive or am I somehow using it incorrectly? Is there any related info in dmesg? or maybe there is too much cached and seeking is not the drives strong point ... It's an interesting question. There is new physical seeking technology in this line of drives which is intended to reduce power and noise, but it seem unlikely to me that WD would purposely make a drive that's 10-20x slower than previous generations. Could be though... Are there any user space Linux tools that can test that? The other thing I checked out was that when the block size is not specified it seems that mke2fs uses the default values from /etc/mke2fs.conf and my file says blocksize = 4096 so it would seem to me that if all partitions use blocks then at least the partitions would be properly aligned. My question about that would be when I write a 1 byte file to this drive do I use all 4K of the block it's written in? It's wasteful, but faster, right? I want files to be block-aligned so that the drive isn't doing lots of translation to get the right data. It seems that's been the problem with these drives in the Windows world so WD had to release updated software to get the Windows disk formatters to do things right, or so I think. Thanks Volker. Cheers, Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:21:20 +0100, Shoka sh...@gmx.ch wrote: Hi folks, I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). Link to forum post: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-792424-highlight-5300.html I'm a gentoo newbie and therefore would be very glad, if anyone could give me an advice in the right direction. Thank you very much! Best regards Shoka You should be able to find the iwlagn in Device Drivers - Network Device Support - Wireless Lan There you need to set Intel Wireless Wifi and then the option should appear :-) -- Zeerak
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 08:27:46AM -0800, Mark Knecht wrote: QUOTE 4KB physical sectors: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Pros: Quiet, cool-running, big cache Cons: The 4KB physical sectors are a problem waiting to happen. If you misalign your partitions, disk performance can suffer. I ran benchmarks in Linux using a number of filesystems, and I found that with most filesystems, read performance and write performance with large files didn't suffer with misaligned partitions, but writes of many small files (unpacking a Linux kernel archive) could take several times as long with misaligned partitions as with aligned partitions. WD's advice about who needs to be concerned is overly simplistic, IMHO, and it's flat-out wrong for Linux, although it's probably accurate for 90% of buyers (those who run Windows or Mac OS and use their standard partitioning tools). If you're not part of that 90%, though, and if you don't fully understand this new technology and how to handle it, buy a drive with conventional 512-byte sectors! /QUOTE Now, I don't mind getting a bit dirty learning to use this correctly but I'm wondering what that means in a practical sense. Reading the mke2fs man page the word 'sector' doesn't come up. It's my understanding the Linux 'blocks' are groups of sectors. True? If the disk must use 4K sectors then what - the smallest block has to be 4K and I'm using 1 sector per block? It seems that ext3 doesn't support anything larger than 4K? The problem is not when you are making the filesystem with mke2fs, but when you partitioned the disk using fdisk. I'm sure I am making some small mistakes in the explanation below, but it goes something like this: a) The harddrive with 4K sectors allows the head to efficiently read/write 4K sized blocks at a time. b) However, to be compatible in hardware, the harddrive allows 512B sized blocks to be addressed. In reality, this means that you can individually address the 8 512B-sized chunks of the 4K sized blocks, but each will count as a separate operation. To illustrate: say the hardware has some sector X of size 4K. It has 8 addressable slots inside X1 ... X8 each of size 512B. If your OS clusters read/writes on the 512B level, it will send 8 commands to read the info in those 8 blocks separately. If your OS clusters in 4K, it will send one command. So in the stupid analysis I give here, it will take 8 times as long for the 512B addressing to read the same data, since it will take 8 passes, and each time inefficiently reading only 1/8 of the data required. Now in reality, drives are smarter than that: if all 8 of those are sent in sequence, sometimes the drives will cluster them together in one read. c) A problem occurs, however, when your OS deals with 4K clusters but when you make the partition, the partition is offset! Imagine the physical read sectors of your disk looking like but when you make your partitions, somehow you partitioned it This is possible because the drive allows addressing by 512K chunks. So for some reason one of your partitions starts halfway inside a physical sector. What is the problem with this? Now suppose your OS sends data to be written to the block. If it were completely aligned, the drive will just go kink-move the head to the block, and overwrite it with this information. But since half of the block is over the phsical sector, and half over , what the disk now needs to do is to pass 1) read pass 2) modify the second half of to match the first half of pass 3) write pass 4) read pass 5) modify the first half of to match the second half of pass 6) write Or what is known as a read-modify-write operation. Thus the disk becomes a lot less efficient. -- Now, I don't know if this is the actual problem is causing your performance problems. But this may be it. When you use fdisk, it defaults to aligning the partition to cylinder boundaries, and use the default (from ancient times) value of 63 x (512B sized) sectors per track. Since 63 is not evenly divisible by 8, you see that quite likely some of your partitions are not aligned to the physical sector boundaries. If you use cfdisk, you can try to change the geometry with the command g. Or you can use the command u to change the units used in the partitioning to either sectors or megabytes, and make sure your partition sizes are a multiple of 8 in the former, or an integer in the latter. Again, take what I wrote with a grain of salt: this information came from the research I did a little while back after reading the slashdot article on this 4K switch. So being my own understanding, it may not completely be correct. HTH, W -- Willie W. Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire et vice versa ~~~
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 07:21:20PM +0100, Shoka wrote: I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. You said that the module didn't get compiled: did you configure the kernel to include it? I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). If you are in menuconfig, you can always hit / to bring up the search screen, and type in IWL as your search string. In 2.6.31-gentoo-r9, go to Device Drivers - Network device support - Wireless LAN - Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) - Intel Wireless Wifi to enable IWLWIFI first, and then you should be able to see the Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN option. Cheers, W -- Willie W. Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
On 07.02.2010 20:29, Zeerak Waseem wrote: On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:21:20 +0100, Shoka sh...@gmx.ch wrote: Hi folks, I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). Link to forum post: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-792424-highlight-5300.html I'm a gentoo newbie and therefore would be very glad, if anyone could give me an advice in the right direction. Thank you very much! Best regards Shoka You should be able to find the iwlagn in Device Drivers - Network Device Support - Wireless Lan There you need to set Intel Wireless Wifi and then the option should appear :-) Hi Zeerak, When calling make menuconfig, then enter section Device Drivers -- Network Device Support -- Wireless LAN, all I can see are these options: [ ] Wireless LAN (pre-802.11) [ ] Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Network Connection I have selected both Intel PRO/Wireless sections and the only sup-options that appeared were: [ ] promiscuous mode [ ] full debugging output But there was nothing written about Intel Wireless Wifi or iwlagn stuff Even if I checked all the options nothing more appeared. Shoka
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Willie Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu wrote: On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 08:27:46AM -0800, Mark Knecht wrote: QUOTE 4KB physical sectors: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Pros: Quiet, cool-running, big cache Cons: The 4KB physical sectors are a problem waiting to happen. If you misalign your partitions, disk performance can suffer. I ran benchmarks in Linux using a number of filesystems, and I found that with most filesystems, read performance and write performance with large files didn't suffer with misaligned partitions, but writes of many small files (unpacking a Linux kernel archive) could take several times as long with misaligned partitions as with aligned partitions. WD's advice about who needs to be concerned is overly simplistic, IMHO, and it's flat-out wrong for Linux, although it's probably accurate for 90% of buyers (those who run Windows or Mac OS and use their standard partitioning tools). If you're not part of that 90%, though, and if you don't fully understand this new technology and how to handle it, buy a drive with conventional 512-byte sectors! /QUOTE Now, I don't mind getting a bit dirty learning to use this correctly but I'm wondering what that means in a practical sense. Reading the mke2fs man page the word 'sector' doesn't come up. It's my understanding the Linux 'blocks' are groups of sectors. True? If the disk must use 4K sectors then what - the smallest block has to be 4K and I'm using 1 sector per block? It seems that ext3 doesn't support anything larger than 4K? The problem is not when you are making the filesystem with mke2fs, but when you partitioned the disk using fdisk. I'm sure I am making some small mistakes in the explanation below, but it goes something like this: a) The harddrive with 4K sectors allows the head to efficiently read/write 4K sized blocks at a time. b) However, to be compatible in hardware, the harddrive allows 512B sized blocks to be addressed. In reality, this means that you can individually address the 8 512B-sized chunks of the 4K sized blocks, but each will count as a separate operation. To illustrate: say the hardware has some sector X of size 4K. It has 8 addressable slots inside X1 ... X8 each of size 512B. If your OS clusters read/writes on the 512B level, it will send 8 commands to read the info in those 8 blocks separately. If your OS clusters in 4K, it will send one command. So in the stupid analysis I give here, it will take 8 times as long for the 512B addressing to read the same data, since it will take 8 passes, and each time inefficiently reading only 1/8 of the data required. Now in reality, drives are smarter than that: if all 8 of those are sent in sequence, sometimes the drives will cluster them together in one read. c) A problem occurs, however, when your OS deals with 4K clusters but when you make the partition, the partition is offset! Imagine the physical read sectors of your disk looking like but when you make your partitions, somehow you partitioned it This is possible because the drive allows addressing by 512K chunks. So for some reason one of your partitions starts halfway inside a physical sector. What is the problem with this? Now suppose your OS sends data to be written to the block. If it were completely aligned, the drive will just go kink-move the head to the block, and overwrite it with this information. But since half of the block is over the phsical sector, and half over , what the disk now needs to do is to pass 1) read pass 2) modify the second half of to match the first half of pass 3) write pass 4) read pass 5) modify the first half of to match the second half of pass 6) write Or what is known as a read-modify-write operation. Thus the disk becomes a lot less efficient. -- Now, I don't know if this is the actual problem is causing your performance problems. But this may be it. When you use fdisk, it defaults to aligning the partition to cylinder boundaries, and use the default (from ancient times) value of 63 x (512B sized) sectors per track. Since 63 is not evenly divisible by 8, you see that quite likely some of your partitions are not aligned to the physical sector boundaries. If you use cfdisk, you can try to change the geometry with the command g. Or you can use the command u to change the units used in the partitioning to either sectors or megabytes, and make sure your partition sizes are a multiple of 8 in the former, or an integer in the latter. Again, take what I wrote with a grain of salt: this information came from the research I did a little while back after reading the slashdot article on this 4K switch. So being my own understanding, it may not completely be correct. HTH, W -- Willie W. Wong
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:55:00 +0100, Shoka sh...@gmx.ch wrote: On 07.02.2010 20:29, Zeerak Waseem wrote: On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:21:20 +0100, Shoka sh...@gmx.ch wrote: Hi folks, I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). Link to forum post: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-792424-highlight-5300.html I'm a gentoo newbie and therefore would be very glad, if anyone could give me an advice in the right direction. Thank you very much! Best regards Shoka You should be able to find the iwlagn in Device Drivers - Network Device Support - Wireless Lan There you need to set Intel Wireless Wifi and then the option should appear :-) Hi Zeerak, When calling make menuconfig, then enter section Device Drivers -- Network Device Support -- Wireless LAN, all I can see are these options: [ ] Wireless LAN (pre-802.11) [ ] Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Network Connection I have selected both Intel PRO/Wireless sections and the only sup-options that appeared were: [ ] promiscuous mode [ ] full debugging output But there was nothing written about Intel Wireless Wifi or iwlagn stuff Even if I checked all the options nothing more appeared. Shoka What does searching for iwlwifi in the kernel yield? (kernel search is prompted by /) -- Zeerak
[gentoo-user] Re: revdep-rebuild keeps reinstalling binutils
On 02/06/2010 10:05 PM, Konstantinos Bekiaris wrote: ...i upgrade my system through emerge -uDN world and then i run emerge --depclean and revdep-rebuild. After that when i tried gcc/g++ i get: gcc-config: error: could not run/locate 'gcc'. Additionally, i noticed that there is a problem with python, because when i try to use vi i get: vi: error while loading shared libraries: libpython2.5.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. If i try to emerge -uDN world, the upgrade fails. Also, the revdep-rebuild fails. I attached a log. Any ideas? I'm guessing that depclean removed some packages that are still needed. Do you have python-2.6.4 on your machine? You should. What about gcc-config-1.4.1 and gcc-4.3.4? vi is linked to an obsolete version of python, so it needs to be re-emerged manually if revdep-rebuild won't run properly. I'm guessing that vi may not be the only package that's linked against an obsolete python library, so python-updater may be worth a try.
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
Shoka wrote: On 07.02.2010 20:29, Zeerak Waseem wrote: On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:21:20 +0100, Shoka sh...@gmx.ch wrote: Hi folks, I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). Link to forum post: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-792424-highlight-5300.html I'm a gentoo newbie and therefore would be very glad, if anyone could give me an advice in the right direction. Thank you very much! Best regards Shoka You should be able to find the iwlagn in Device Drivers - Network Device Support - Wireless Lan There you need to set Intel Wireless Wifi and then the option should appear :-) Hi Zeerak, When calling make menuconfig, then enter section Device Drivers -- Network Device Support -- Wireless LAN, all I can see are these options: [ ] Wireless LAN (pre-802.11) [ ] Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Network Connection I have selected both Intel PRO/Wireless sections and the only sup-options that appeared were: [ ] promiscuous mode [ ] full debugging output But there was nothing written about Intel Wireless Wifi or iwlagn stuff Even if I checked all the options nothing more appeared. Shoka You need to enable Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) first. You don't need either of the 2100 or the 2200 modules; once you select Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) a new slew of options should come up, including the Intel Wireless Wifi option, and in there you should find your wireless card. John Moe
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: revdep-rebuild keeps reinstalling binutils
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 10:41 PM, walt w41...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/06/2010 10:05 PM, Konstantinos Bekiaris wrote: ...i upgrade my system through emerge -uDN world and then i run emerge --depclean and revdep-rebuild. After that when i tried gcc/g++ i get: gcc-config: error: could not run/locate 'gcc'. Additionally, i noticed that there is a problem with python, because when i try to use vi i get: vi: error while loading shared libraries: libpython2.5.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. If i try to emerge -uDN world, the upgrade fails. Also, the revdep-rebuild fails. I attached a log. Any ideas? I'm guessing that depclean removed some packages that are still needed. Do you have python-2.6.4 on your machine? You should. What about gcc-config-1.4.1 and gcc-4.3.4? vi is linked to an obsolete version of python, so it needs to be re-emerged manually if revdep-rebuild won't run properly. I'm guessing that vi may not be the only package that's linked against an obsolete python library, so python-updater may be worth a try. Ok, nice approach. The problem is that no package can be installed because the compiler gcc is not working...this is Gentoo...everything has to do with compiling. The solution of the problem starts with fixing gcc by hand. (You are right about python, i have an older version).So?
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
On Mon, 2010-02-08 at 06:55 +1000, John H. Moe wrote: You need to enable Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) first. You don't need either of the 2100 or the 2200 modules; once you select Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) a new slew of options should come up, including the Intel Wireless Wifi option, and in there you should find your wireless card. John Moe Also make sure Networking = Wireless = [*] Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211) and maybe [*] cfg80211 - wireless configuration API
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Willie Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu wrote: On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 08:27:46AM -0800, Mark Knecht wrote: QUOTE 4KB physical sectors: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Pros: Quiet, cool-running, big cache Cons: The 4KB physical sectors are a problem waiting to happen. If you misalign your partitions, disk performance can suffer. I ran benchmarks in Linux using a number of filesystems, and I found that with most filesystems, read performance and write performance with large files didn't suffer with misaligned partitions, but writes of many small files (unpacking a Linux kernel archive) could take several times as long with misaligned partitions as with aligned partitions. WD's advice about who needs to be concerned is overly simplistic, IMHO, and it's flat-out wrong for Linux, although it's probably accurate for 90% of buyers (those who run Windows or Mac OS and use their standard partitioning tools). If you're not part of that 90%, though, and if you don't fully understand this new technology and how to handle it, buy a drive with conventional 512-byte sectors! /QUOTE Now, I don't mind getting a bit dirty learning to use this correctly but I'm wondering what that means in a practical sense. Reading the mke2fs man page the word 'sector' doesn't come up. It's my understanding the Linux 'blocks' are groups of sectors. True? If the disk must use 4K sectors then what - the smallest block has to be 4K and I'm using 1 sector per block? It seems that ext3 doesn't support anything larger than 4K? The problem is not when you are making the filesystem with mke2fs, but when you partitioned the disk using fdisk. I'm sure I am making some small mistakes in the explanation below, but it goes something like this: a) The harddrive with 4K sectors allows the head to efficiently read/write 4K sized blocks at a time. b) However, to be compatible in hardware, the harddrive allows 512B sized blocks to be addressed. In reality, this means that you can individually address the 8 512B-sized chunks of the 4K sized blocks, but each will count as a separate operation. To illustrate: say the hardware has some sector X of size 4K. It has 8 addressable slots inside X1 ... X8 each of size 512B. If your OS clusters read/writes on the 512B level, it will send 8 commands to read the info in those 8 blocks separately. If your OS clusters in 4K, it will send one command. So in the stupid analysis I give here, it will take 8 times as long for the 512B addressing to read the same data, since it will take 8 passes, and each time inefficiently reading only 1/8 of the data required. Now in reality, drives are smarter than that: if all 8 of those are sent in sequence, sometimes the drives will cluster them together in one read. c) A problem occurs, however, when your OS deals with 4K clusters but when you make the partition, the partition is offset! Imagine the physical read sectors of your disk looking like but when you make your partitions, somehow you partitioned it This is possible because the drive allows addressing by 512K chunks. So for some reason one of your partitions starts halfway inside a physical sector. What is the problem with this? Now suppose your OS sends data to be written to the block. If it were completely aligned, the drive will just go kink-move the head to the block, and overwrite it with this information. But since half of the block is over the phsical sector, and half over , what the disk now needs to do is to pass 1) read pass 2) modify the second half of to match the first half of pass 3) write pass 4) read pass 5) modify the first half of to match the second half of pass 6) write Or what is known as a read-modify-write operation. Thus the disk becomes a lot less efficient. -- Now, I don't know if this is the actual problem is causing your performance problems. But this may be it. When you use fdisk, it defaults to aligning the partition to cylinder boundaries, and use the default (from ancient times) value of 63 x (512B sized) sectors per track. Since 63 is not evenly divisible by 8, you see that quite likely some of your partitions are not aligned to the physical sector boundaries. If you use cfdisk, you can try to change the geometry with the command g. Or you can use the command u to change the units used in the partitioning to either sectors or megabytes, and make sure your partition sizes are a multiple of 8 in the former, or an integer in the latter. Again, take what I wrote with a grain of salt: this information came from the research I did a little while back after reading the slashdot article on this 4K switch. So being my own understanding, it may not completely be correct. HTH, W -- Willie W. Wong
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
4KB physical sectors: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Good article by Theodore T'so, might be helpful: http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/02/20/aligning-filesystems-to-an-ssds-erase-block-size/ -- Kyle
[gentoo-user] help with inaccessible (trashed?) file
WALRUS ~ # whoami root WALRUS ~ # ls -l /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/ ls: cannot access /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild: Permission denied total 12 -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot2675 2008-05-09 09:37 ChangeLog -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot 771 2008-05-09 09:37 Manifest ?? ? ? ? ?? icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild -rw-r--r-- 1 portage portage 224 2003-07-07 09:54 metadata.xml The situation with icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild above is disallowing a complete emerge --sync. I don't know how to resolve the problem since even root can't access/overwrite this (bogus?) file. Any help available?
Re: [gentoo-user] help with inaccessible (trashed?) file
On 02/07/2010 11:08 PM, Walt Rarus wrote: WALRUS ~ # whoami root WALRUS ~ # ls -l /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/ ls: cannot access /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild: Permission denied total 12 -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot2675 2008-05-09 09:37 ChangeLog -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot 771 2008-05-09 09:37 Manifest ?? ? ? ? ?? icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild -rw-r--r-- 1 portage portage 224 2003-07-07 09:54 metadata.xml The situation with icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild above is disallowing a complete emerge --sync. I don't know how to resolve the problem since even root can't access/overwrite this (bogus?) file. Any help available? Most likely a filesystem corruption. - fsck signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] help with inaccessible (trashed?) file
Walt Rarus writes: WALRUS ~ # whoami root WALRUS ~ # ls -l /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/ ls: cannot access /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild: Permission denied total 12 -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot2675 2008-05-09 09:37 ChangeLog -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot 771 2008-05-09 09:37 Manifest ?? ? ? ? ?? icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild -rw-r--r-- 1 portage portage 224 2003-07-07 09:54 metadata.xml The situation with icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild above is disallowing a complete emerge --sync. I don't know how to resolve the problem since even root can't access/overwrite this (bogus?) file. Any help available? Looks like a corrupted file system. A fsck might fix this. You can force one by 'shutdown -Fr now'. Sync your portage tree after this to make sure it is in a clean state. Good luck, Wonko
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem configuring Intel Wireless 5300 device
On 07.02.2010 20:46, Willie Wong wrote: On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 07:21:20PM +0100, Shoka wrote: I got stuck when trying to get the Intel Wireless 5300 device running. I'm using the 2.6.31.gentoo-r6 kernel source and have tried several configuration options for getting this driver to work. The gentoo os is running on a lenovo x200 notebook. It seems that the iwlagn module doesn't get compiled at all. When trying to run modprobe iwlagn I get the message Module iwlagn not found. The device is properly recognized when using the Gentoo Live CD. There it uses the iwlagn module. So it should be possible to configure the kernel to do the same. You said that the module didn't get compiled: did you configure the kernel to include it? I have found this forum post about configuring the 5300 device, but this guy used the 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 kernel source and it looks like the kernel config options in menuconfig have changed. I cannot find a kernel config option called Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN (iwlagn). If you are in menuconfig, you can always hit / to bring up the search screen, and type in IWL as your search string. In 2.6.31-gentoo-r9, go to Device Drivers - Network device support - Wireless LAN - Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) - Intel Wireless Wifi to enable IWLWIFI first, and then you should be able to see the Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN option. Cheers, W Hi Willie, I finally found the problem: I had to enable the option General Setup [ ] Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers I recognized that after invoking a search on iwlwifi. There was a dependency to EXPERIMENTAL. And this is exactly the mentioned switch above. After selecting this option, I was able to select the Intel Wireless stuff. Thanks to all for giving hints into the right direction :-) Shoka
Re: [gentoo-user] Problem compiling freemind
On Sunday 07 February 2010 18:12:58 Mark Knecht wrote: What do you see with java-config -l ? $ java-config -L The following VMs are available for generation-2: *) IcedTea6-bin 1.7 [icedtea6-bin] 2) Sun JDK 1.5.0.22 [sun-jdk-1.5] -- Rgds Peter.
[gentoo-user] When is a disk not a disk?
Hello again List, $ sudo fdisk -l Unable to seek on /dev/sda What am I to make of this? The system runs ok, but apparently the underlying disk subsystem isn't happy. This box has only the one disk at the moment. Google doesn't help. The box is a new Armari system with an Asus P7P55D motherboard and a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA II hdd. -- Rgds Peter.
[gentoo-user] Re: When is a disk not a disk?
On 02/08/2010 02:27 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: Hello again List, $ sudo fdisk -l Unable to seek on /dev/sda Not sure what's going on, but you might want to post more info so that others might have an idea about what's wrong. First, clean dmesg: sudo dmesg -c /dev/null Then try fdisk again: /sbin/fdisk -l (No need to be root for fdisk -l.) Then post the output of: dmesg (If there's any output.) And finally, post the output of: mount cat /proc/partitions
Re: [gentoo-user] When is a disk not a disk?
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Peter Humphrey pe...@humphrey.ukfsn.org wrote: Hello again List, $ sudo fdisk -l Unable to seek on /dev/sda What am I to make of this? The system runs ok, but apparently the underlying disk subsystem isn't happy. This box has only the one disk at the moment. Google doesn't help. The box is a new Armari system with an Asus P7P55D motherboard and a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA II hdd. -- Rgds Peter. Very strange. What's in dmesg when the machine boots? Is it possible an older driver got loaded and it's showing up as hda instead of sda? I found that on one of my machines recently. - Mark
Re: [gentoo-user] help with inaccessible (trashed?) file
On Monday 08 February 2010 01:02:39 Alex Schuster wrote: Walt Rarus writes: WALRUS ~ # whoami root WALRUS ~ # ls -l /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/ ls: cannot access /usr/portage/x11-misc/icesndcfg/icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild: Permission denied total 12 -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot2675 2008-05-09 09:37 ChangeLog -rw-r--r-- 1 rootroot 771 2008-05-09 09:37 Manifest ?? ? ? ? ?? icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild -rw-r--r-- 1 portage portage 224 2003-07-07 09:54 metadata.xml The situation with icesndcfg-1.3.ebuild above is disallowing a complete emerge --sync. I don't know how to resolve the problem since even root can't access/overwrite this (bogus?) file. Any help available? Looks like a corrupted file system. A fsck might fix this. You can force one by 'shutdown -Fr now'. Sync your portage tree after this to make sure it is in a clean state. In my experience, fsck consistently detects file systems corruption, and consistently fails to do anything useful about it. However, it's pretty common for users to have made a separate volume for the portage tree (i.e. something mounted at /usr/portage). If so, just trash the thing, download a new-ish tarball of the tree, resync and you're back in business. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: When is a disk not a disk?
On Monday 08 February 2010 00:39:50 Nikos Chantziaras wrote: Not sure what's going on, but you might want to post more info so that others might have an idea about what's wrong. First, clean dmesg: sudo dmesg -c /dev/null OK. Then try fdisk again: /sbin/fdisk -l $ sudo /sbin/fdisk -l Unable to seek on /dev/sda Then post the output of: dmesg $ dmesg [null] And finally, post the output of: mount $mount rootfs on / type rootfs (rw) /dev/root on / type ext4 (rw,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered) proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime) rc-svcdir on /lib64/rc/init.d type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime) udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,mode=755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620) shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime) /dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,noatime) /dev/sda7 on /home/prh/common type ext4 (rw,noatime) tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=9G) cat /proc/partitions $cat /proc/partitions major minor #blocks name 80 976762584 sda 81 112423 sda1 82 112455 sda2 83 104422 sda3 84 1 sda4 85 62918509 sda5 86 41945683 sda6 87 64685691 sda7 88 2925 sda8 89 1431 sda9 8 10 10490413 sda10 8 11 10482381 sda11 8 12 20980858 sda12 8 13 10490413 sda13 [HTH] -- Rgds Peter.
Re: [gentoo-user] When is a disk not a disk?
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Mark Knecht markkne...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Peter Humphrey pe...@humphrey.ukfsn.org wrote: Hello again List, $ sudo fdisk -l Unable to seek on /dev/sda What am I to make of this? The system runs ok, but apparently the underlying disk subsystem isn't happy. This box has only the one disk at the moment. Google doesn't help. The box is a new Armari system with an Asus P7P55D motherboard and a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA II hdd. -- Rgds Peter. Very strange. What's in dmesg when the machine boots? Is it possible an older driver got loaded and it's showing up as hda instead of sda? I found that on one of my machines recently. - Mark sorry to have forgotten is but simply do df and see what it says is mounted
Re: [gentoo-user] When is a disk not a disk?
On Monday 08 February 2010 00:46:33 Mark Knecht wrote: What's in dmesg when the machine boots? See attachment. Is it possible an older driver got loaded and it's showing up as hda instead of sda? I found that on one of my machines recently. I hope not. This is a new installation on a new machine. -- Rgds Peter. Linux version 2.6.32-gentoo-r3 (r...@wstn) (gcc version 4.3.4 (Gentoo 4.3.4 p1.0, pie-10.1.5) ) #1 SMP Sun Jan 31 01:34:50 GMT 2010 Command line: root=/dev/sda5 raid=noautodetect vga=0x31A video=vesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap fbcon=scrollback:128k splash=silent KERNEL supported cpus: Intel GenuineIntel AMD AuthenticAMD Centaur CentaurHauls BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e820: - 0009e800 (usable) BIOS-e820: 0009e800 - 000a (reserved) BIOS-e820: 000e4000 - 0010 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0010 - bf77 (usable) BIOS-e820: bf77 - bf788000 (ACPI data) BIOS-e820: bf788000 - bf7dc000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: bf7dc000 - c000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: fee0 - fee01000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: ffe0 - 0001 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0001 - 00014000 (usable) DMI 2.6 present. AMI BIOS detected: BIOS may corrupt low RAM, working around it. e820 update range: - 0001 (usable) == (reserved) last_pfn = 0x14 max_arch_pfn = 0x4 MTRR default type: uncachable MTRR fixed ranges enabled: 0-9 write-back A-B uncachable C-C write-protect D-D uncachable E-E7FFF write-through E8000-F write-protect MTRR variable ranges enabled: 0 base 0 mask F write-back 1 base 1 mask FC000 write-back 2 base 0C000 mask FC000 uncachable 3 disabled 4 disabled 5 disabled 6 disabled 7 disabled x86 PAT enabled: cpu 0, old 0x7040600070406, new 0x7010600070106 e820 update range: c000 - 0001 (usable) == (reserved) last_pfn = 0xbf770 max_arch_pfn = 0x4 initial memory mapped : 0 - 2000 init_memory_mapping: -bf77 00 - 00bf60 page 2M 00bf60 - 00bf77 page 4k kernel direct mapping tables up to bf77 @ 1-15000 init_memory_mapping: 0001-00014000 01 - 014000 page 2M kernel direct mapping tables up to 14000 @ 13000-19000 ACPI: RSDP 000fb970 00024 (v02 ACPIAM) ACPI: XSDT bf770100 0006C (v01 112309 XSDT1401 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: FACP bf770290 000F4 (v03 112309 FACP1401 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: DSDT bf7704a0 0E8F0 (v01 A1326 A1326001 0001 INTL 20060113) ACPI: FACS bf788000 00040 ACPI: APIC bf770390 000CC (v01 112309 APIC1401 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: MCFG bf770460 0003C (v01 112309 OEMMCFG 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: OEMB bf788040 00072 (v01 112309 OEMB1401 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: HPET bf77f4a0 00038 (v01 112309 OEMHPET 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: DMAR bf7880c0 00090 (v01AMI OEMDMAR 0001 MSFT 0097) ACPI: ASPT bf77f740 00034 (v06 112309 PerfTune 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: OSFR bf77f780 000B0 (v01 112309 OEMOSFR 20091123 MSFT 0097) ACPI: SSDT bf789760 00363 (v01 DpgPmmCpuPm 0012 INTL 20060113) ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee0 (7 early reservations) == bootmem [00 - 014000] #0 [00 - 001000] BIOS data page == [00 - 001000] #1 [006000 - 008000] TRAMPOLINE == [006000 - 008000] #2 [000100 - 000154c328]TEXT DATA BSS == [000100 - 000154c328] #3 [09e800 - 10]BIOS reserved == [09e800 - 10] #4 [000154d000 - 000154d2bc] BRK == [000154d000 - 000154d2bc] #5 [01 - 013000] PGTABLE == [01 - 013000] #6 [013000 - 014000] PGTABLE == [013000 - 014000] [ea00-ea00045f] PMD - [88002860-88002bdf] on node 0 Zone PFN ranges: DMA 0x0010 - 0x1000 DMA320x1000 - 0x0010 Normal 0x0010 - 0x0014 Movable zone start PFN for each node early_node_map[3] active PFN ranges 0: 0x0010 - 0x009e 0: 0x0100 - 0x000bf770 0: 0x0010 - 0x0014 On node 0 totalpages: 1046270 DMA zone: 56 pages used for memmap DMA zone: 104 pages reserved DMA zone: 3822 pages, LIFO batch:0 DMA32 zone: 14280 pages used for memmap DMA32 zone: 765864 pages, LIFO batch:31 Normal zone: 3584 pages used for memmap Normal zone: 258560 pages, LIFO batch:31 ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808 ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee0 ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x04] enabled) ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04]
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 01:42:18PM -0800, Mark Knecht wrote: OK - it turns out if I start fdisk using the -u option it show me sector numbers. Looking at the original partition put on just using default values it had the starting sector was 63 - probably about the worst value it could be. As a test I blew away that partition and created a new one starting at 64 instead and the untar results are vastly improved - down to roughly 20 seconds from 8-10 minutes. That's roughly twice as fast as the old 120GB SATA2 drive I was using to test the system out while I debugged this issue. That's good to hear. I'm still a little fuzzy about what happens to the extra sectors at the end of a track. Are they used and I pay for a little bit of overhead reading data off of them or are they ignored and I lose capacity? I think it must be the former as my partition isn't all that much less than 1TB. As far as I know, you shouldn't worry about it. The head/track/cylinder addressing is a relic of an older day. Almost all modern drives should be accessed via LBA. If interested, take a look at the wikipedia entry on Cylinder-Head-Sector and Logical Block Addressing. Basically, you are not losing anything. Cheers, W -- Willie W. Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire et vice versa ~~~ I. Newton
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: When is a disk not a disk?
and what happens if you don't use crap - aka sudo but do it the right way - aka su to root?
Re: [gentoo-user] When is a disk not a disk?
On Monday 08 February 2010 01:27:33 Mark Knecht wrote: sorry to have forgotten is but simply do df and see what it says is mounted $ df FilesystemSize Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 60G 25G 32G 44% / /dev/root 60G 25G 32G 44% / rc-svcdir 1.0M 108K 916K 11% /lib64/rc/init.d udev 10M 144K 9.9M 2% /dev shm 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda6 40G 6.4G 32G 17% /home /dev/sda7 61G 23G 36G 39% /home/prh/common tmpfs 9.0G 1.8M 9.0G 1% /tmp Now, ever since I upgraded to openrc (by setting ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~amd64 when I installed this system) my root partition has not been shown as a physical partition. I decided to let it go for the time being. -- Rgds Peter.
[gentoo-user] Re: When is a disk not a disk?
On 02/08/2010 02:27 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: Hello again List, $ sudo fdisk -l Unable to seek on /dev/sda You said that Google didn't help, but still, I've found some info about it. In short, I've found two things: a) cfdisk might work while fdisk does not. b) You have a corrupted partition table that you can try to repair with the testdisk tool (after you make a full backup of your disk.) Another thing: are you using busybox here or the normal version of fdisk? (Busybox comes with its own fdisk.)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: revdep-rebuild keeps reinstalling binutils
=== On Sun, 02/07, Konstantinos Bekiaris wrote: === Ok, nice approach. The problem is that no package can be installed because the compiler gcc is not working...this is Gentoo...everything has to do with compiling. The solution of the problem starts with fixing gcc by hand. (You are right about python, i have an older version).So? === try gcc-config first. See if that clears it up. then source /etc/profile. -- Keith Dart -- -- ~ Keith Dart ke...@dartworks.biz public key: ID: 19017044 http://www.dartworks.biz/ =
Re: [gentoo-user] help with inaccessible (trashed?) file
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.comwrote: In my experience, fsck consistently detects file systems corruption, and consistently fails to do anything useful about it. In my case, reiserfsck --fix-fixable did the trick, i.e., detected and fixed the exact problem with the directory and file. However, it's pretty common for users to have made a separate volume for the portage tree (i.e. something mounted at /usr/portage). If so, just trash the thing, download a new-ish tarball of the tree, resync and you're back in business. Hmm, something to think about should I ever restructure my setup. Thanks to Daniel, Alex, and Alan for your helpful comments. Walt
Re: [gentoo-user] 1-Terabyte drives - 4K sector sizes? - bar performance so far
Mark Knecht wrote: On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Willie Wong ww...@math.princeton.edu wrote: [snip] OK - it turns out if I start fdisk using the -u option it show me sector numbers. Looking at the original partition put on just using default values it had the starting sector was 63 - probably about the I too was wondering why a Toshiba HDD 1.8 MK2431GAH (4kB-sector), 240 GB I've recently obtained was slow: - time tar xfj portage-latest.tar.bz2 real16m5.500s user0m28.535s sys 0m19.785s Following your post I recreated a single partition (reiserfs 3.6) starting at the 64th sector: Disk /dev/sdb: 240.1 GB, 240057409536 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 29185 cylinders, total 468862128 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xe7bf4b8e Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 64 468862127 234431032 83 Linux and the time was improved - time tar xfj portage-latest.tar.bz2 real2m15.600s user0m28.156s sys 0m18.933s -- Valmor
[gentoo-user] Re: revdep-rebuild keeps reinstalling binutils
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:48 AM, Keith Dart ke...@dartworks.biz wrote: === On Sun, 02/07, Konstantinos Bekiaris wrote: === Ok, nice approach. The problem is that no package can be installed because the compiler gcc is not working...this is Gentoo...everything has to do with compiling. The solution of the problem starts with fixing gcc by hand. (You are right about python, i have an older version).So? === try gcc-config first. See if that clears it up. then source /etc/profile. I think we are close to the problem. However, whatever i try, i get: Gentoo kostas # gcc-config -l * gcc-config: Active gcc profile is invalid! [1] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.4 Gentoo kostas # gcc-config -E * gcc-config: Active gcc profile is invalid! [1] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.4 Gentoo kostas # gcc-config -B * gcc-config: Active gcc profile is invalid! [1] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.4 Gentoo kostas # gcc-config -X * gcc-config: Active gcc profile is invalid! [1] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-4.3.4
