Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 17:39:56 -0400
From: Christopher Kalos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] Re: Back, with Linux!
On May 25, 2005, at 4:10 PM, Richard Mittendorfer wrote:
kdrive, framebuffer version: 12.1% memory usage, 14272 VIRT, 7452
RES, 1312 SHR. The neofb module to make this work may suck up a bit
more RAM on top of that, but right now, with multi-aterm, galeon,
and gkrellm running, I'm only 9 megs into swap. sshd runs via init,
I'm in runlevel 5, and no ftpd, as I tend to know what I'm looking
for, and can use SSH to grab/drop it off.
this kdrive sounds very interesting. but you need fb to use it? maybe
i'll test it out.
You need fb to use it on the Libretto. Their VESA server doesn't seem
to work right, and they didn't build a neomagic version.
fb is usually the first thing i switch off when i install a new system
and i tend to not build support for it into the kernel. i set vga=5 and
enable vga stretch. i don't know what fb's really is good for. even i
like typing more than point'n'click i like to work in a gui. a lot of
the XFree stuff get's swapped out (and never used again) anyway.
I use the fbdev support to get a 100x30 display in textmode, and that's
about it. Aside from that, it's just a neat toy with few practical
applications... until I set up kdrive.
I'm not running an NFS server, and I use it more like an overgrown
PDA, so I'm never reliably on the same WLAN all the time. I've never
been a fan of that type of remote storage on a laptop anyway, that's
what I use rsync for :)
my fast one (celeron, scsi, dvd+rw,..) is some kind of SOHO (more like
sozial homing) server and is up 24/7 (mail,nfs,samba,squid,apache,..).
there is a 3-APs-wide wireless lan and i can get in from the cafe
across
the street and from a nearby park too :)
My fast one is a Sempron/Socket 754 gaming system, leaving me on
Windows. The server's actually a hair better than the Libretto, being
a PII-233 with 64MB of RAM and a 40 GB drive. It's really there as a
lightweight mailserver and firewall, and running FreeBSD, it's kept me
happily locked down since 2000 or so, with various upgrades over time
to the OS and a replacement of the once-dead hard disk.
as i still have the original TOSHIBA MK4310MAT in the lib and i usually
have 70% full with oggs, so i'm in need of some extra space. nfs is
IMHO
the fastest/best solution here. i'm going to buy a bigger drive soon,
but can't afford it now.
I see your point, I'm just one of those people who was brought up with
an innate distrust when it comes to NFS. :)
The Fedora kernel, which I've rebuilt at times, doesn't seem too
cooperative on the Libretto, even though I've dealt with FC1 and FC2
on various systems, all the way up to Dual-proc Opterons. On the
other hand, it has EVERYTHING I need available as a module, including
Toshiba ACPI support, Cardbus, and so on.
i have never had fedora installed, but you can take a vanilla from [1]
if you think it's fedora's fault. i know the libretto working with
2.2.20, 2.4.18 and .24, 2.6.8-11. i've put the configuration i use
(2.6.11) to [2]. some more info at [3]. HTH
[1] http://www.kernel.org
[2] http://www.mittendorfer.com/rm/temp/lib110ct_kconfig.txt
[3] http://www.mittendorfer.com/rm/temp/l110ct.txt
btw: this use of cflags is quite debatably, but i use -O3 -fforce-mem
-ftracer -pipe -fexpensive-optimizations when i compile 2.6 (and some
2.4) kernels. IMHO they are faster then..
i dont't use this flags on productive systems only privatly and havn't
seen any problems:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ uptime
21:57:41 up 142 days, 1:41, 3 users, load average: 0.82, 0.29, 0.28
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$
Also, in the end, the whole thing's barely worthwhile to me. It runs,
it's a hair slower than it could be, and sure, some stuff could go from
modular to built-in for a meager boost, but it's a P-233, not a P-66.
I honestly believe that I have more than enough clock cycles when I
trim the really fat stuff, like a RAM-chugging overly-dependent GNOME
(or KDE) setup. I certainly don't care enough about the Libretto's
stability to worry about aggressive optimizations, but I would love a
faster startup time for X/fluxbox.
I've heard good things about cfq, but it's even more rough around the
edges than anticipatory. Deadline's great on RAID arrays and the
like, though I've got an entire spiel about 2.4, 2.6, Opterons, RAID,
and the like that has nothing to do with the Libby.
i used the CFQ some time, put i am switching between CFQ and AS now.
ide
performance is that bad on the lib - a good scheduler helps. messured
with hdparm -t shows the old 2.4. ide driver still (lill' bit) ahead of
the 2.6 elevator.
Yeah, same on Opteron, not so much on Xeons, and NPTL on the Libretto
may or may not be a big deal.
GKrellm indicates a temp of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit under normal
situations, spiking to around 140 if I don't force ACPI throttling to
100CT clock speeds.
cat /proc/acpi/prozessor/CPU0/throttling
the 110ct seems to have 15 throttling states. what do you use to
throttle the cpu. AFAIK cpudyn or cpufreq don't work on the moblie
pentium mmx, do they?
echo [value] > /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/throttling
I go for around 4 when I'm not in need of full power, though I'm
thinking of tossing in an ACPI hook to drop it to 15 or so, disable any
inserted PCMCIA devices, and turn down the sleep timing for /dev/hda to
5 seconds, for a sleep mode without the lag of sleep mode. Of course,
the ACPI Lid hook sucks so bad that I doubt it's worth the trouble.
i've clocked mine to 266MHz and it stays quite cool. these mere 33MHz
don't do much, but i'm one of those dangerous sysadmins with a
screwdriver and a soldering iron in the hand :> i get this temperatures
from /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature. exactly once. time over.
how to you read the temperatures? if you get them via ACPI, can you
please post the dmesg part about ACPI and
$ cd /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM
$ for i in *; do echo -n " $i = "; cat $i; done
thanks a lot - i really want to get the thermal part working. i have
tried various kernels, some selfmade patches and also tried a custom
dsdt - no avail.
It's coming from ACPI, alright, and for the moment, it seems stuck at
140 F. It's using the toshiba_acpi module for 2.6, though, which is
supposedly trustworthy. I'll get back to you once I'm sure I've got
valid output.
i compile on a faster local machine which is also the server for
bigger remote apps like audacity, openoffiice, firefox, gimp,...
I do this as needed, but the stuff that I want has been abandoned by
most people, sadly.
I did just rediscover Galeon, and GNOME's been getting on my nerves
lately with that. It seems that nothing I do resets all these Gnome
apps' desire to show toolbars with icons AND text. I'm sorry, but at
800x480, that eyecandy goes right out the window. As do most pixmaps,
since I honestly don't need to suck up more RAM and CPU time loading
and drawing those everywhere. It *is* possible to get a clean, good
looking environment without all the blasted pixmaps, but apparently no
one cares anymore.
galeon was great. i just spotted it in my debian sarge sources again.
version 1.3.20. firefox is ok too (but not on a lib).
Was, yes. I forced the pixmaps off via gconf, and it's still a dog. I
suppose giving up tabs is acceptable, but dillo's really far behind the
curve, and I'm not in the mood to deal with recompiling it at the
moment, especially if the developers don't even trust their SSL
implementation yet. (Why rely on security which may not even work
properly?)
i used gnome some time ago, but switched away because all the ad-ons
that come with it but which i don't need just take away resources..
felt
like back in ms times. i use a lightweight wm now also on fast
machines.
most time i'm in aterm anyway - aterm is my favorite. it's small and
can
do pseudo-transperency :)
Multi-aterm's about as good, but with tabs, so I can bounce around a
lot without the extra resource usage of yet another window.
xfce is a good looking and light environment too. but it's based on
gtk(2)
too. gnome is IMO too heavy, but you could try to use this "gconf" tool
to get those menues right. IIRC it's called gconf-editor or that like.
i prefer openbox or fluxbox. xfe as filemanager.
I'm sticking with fluxbox, as I'm learning how to use its tabbing, and
subtly tweaking the environment as needed. The lack of a decent SSL
capable browser and IMAP client are killing me, though.
CK
