Linux-Misc Digest #579, Volume #26 Mon, 18 Dec 00 10:13:01 EST
Contents:
Re: Question about KDE2 (David Liana)
Re: Do Linux ext2 partition need defrag? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
kickstart, LILO and starting cylinder (Lee Allen)
Re: Swap File Size (Jean-David Beyer)
Re: Duplicate a sample setup environment (RH mkkickstart) (Lee Allen)
Re: ATI All-In-Wonder + RH7 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
X memory usage (Arnaud Kok)
Re: Do Linux ext2 partition need defrag? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Question about KDE2 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Problem with tar/ssh (Jochen Witte)
Re: linux + adaptec 29160 ("D. Stimits")
bootable raid 1 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Liana <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: Question about KDE2
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 08:15:07 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I have open ssl installed and it complains about stuff that kde needs
even when i install the libraries
Dave
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Do Linux ext2 partition need defrag?
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 13:18:43 GMT
> As title, do I need to defrag it to maintain performance just
> like Windows platform?
Basically: yes. Fragmentation occurs on any filesystem and especially
ext2fs (together with NTFS, for example) is rather susceptible to it.
That's because ext2fs uses a kind of hardcoded scatter to place files on
disk. In many situations this "more intelligent" file placement strategy
causes higher file fragmentation than it would do on a (V)FAT
filesystem.
IMHO much worse than file fragmentation is directory fragmentation. This
is, what really cuts performance! While a dozen extra harddisk seeks on
a 10 MB file due to file fragmentation won't really hurt, numerous seeks
while scanning some directories (using 'du', 'find' or others
frequently) do indeed! This is what makes your harddisk really go
crazy. Unfortunately, even a large filesystem cache can't essentially
help on that. Disk defragmentation can, when invoked using a directory
inode list, but unfortunately also only up to a certain extent.
> If yes, any defrag software avaliable? I have download one from
> freshmeat but it need a ext2.h file and I don't have it...
The only defragmenter I know about is 'e2defrag' (probably the one you
got). Though it's rather old, doesn't seem to be maintained actively,
uses a risky approach (uninterruptible all-at-once procedure), seems to
have some cleanup problems with partitions >2 GB and has only limited
feature capabilities (many limitations are imposed by the filesystem
itself), it seems like a suitable tool to me (funny but true ;-J ). It
is able to reduce harddisk trashing while scanning directories by a
considerable amount. I would say, it's absolutely worth it, especially
when many file and directory creations and removals occur on your
filesystem.
I remember having had some hard time to make it run also. That is
probably mainly because it's so old and wasn't written for the 2.2.x
kernels. The simpliest way might be, to comment out the defective
'ext2.h'-inclusion, look at the resulting list of undefined symbols,
search for them in the header files of your kernel and include those new
files instead. If you don't know what this means or how to do that, then
mail me and perhaps I can explain it to you a little bit more detailed.
BTW: there should already / still be some binary compilations of
'e2defrag' available at some locations.
Hope to have inspired you.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lee Allen)
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.install,linux.redhat.misc
Subject: kickstart, LILO and starting cylinder
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 13:34:17 GMT
I am having a problem with kickstart under RedHat 6.2 that I have not
been able to resolve after weeks of effort.
Basically, the way kickstart partitions the disk is weird, and I
cannot persuade it to put the kernel image -- or the partition
containing the kernel image -- at the beginning of the disk.
Inevitably it seems to fall somewhere beyond cylinder 1023.
I have tried both a separate 16MB /boot partition, and no /boot
partition (so the /boot directory is in / (root) ).
Basically I need a 128MB swap partition, a 16MB /boot partition, a
couple of GB for / (root) and a couple more GB for a data partition.
I have tried omitting the /boot partition so the /boot directory is
within the / (root) partition, but the kernel still ends up at a high
cylinder number. And, it creates extended partitions, which I don't
like, but I guess that has no real problem.
Is there any way to cause kickstart to put partitions in a particular
order?
The other problem is, it doesn't seem to reliably clear the previous
partitioning before laying down the new partitions. I am using
--clearpart all
in my kickstart file.
Thanks for any help. I apologize for a little cross-posting.
-Lee Allen
------------------------------
From: Jean-David Beyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Swap File Size
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 08:37:17 -0500
Stefano Ghirlanda wrote (in part):
> If you have more than one disk, performance will improve with one swap
> partition on each disk.
I think this depends on many factors. I have two hard drives, with a
swap partition on each. Both are activated. However, the configuration
is the default that Red Hat 6.0 gives me, and as such, it uses the
entire first swap partition before it starts with the second. So I do
not see from where the performance improvement would come. I would have
to do something about the priorities of the partitions. They are
presently -1 and -2. I guess I would have to set them both to -1 or
something like that, to get it to use both at once.
Since I have so much memory (512 Megabytes) for a desktop machine, only
22 Megabytes are swapped out at the moment (and, IIRC, this is something
of a record) and I almost never see any swapping take place. Therefore,
for me, swapping performance is of little interest.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey
^^-^^ 8:30am up 13 days, 17:17, 2 users, load average: 3.24, 3.28, 3.27
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lee Allen)
Subject: Re: Duplicate a sample setup environment (RH mkkickstart)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 13:39:33 GMT
On 15 Dec 2000 00:58:49 -0400, * Tong * <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Hi,
>
>How can I setup a sample environment (meaning carefully pick the
>right packages to install, not much not less) and then do further
>installation based on this sample environment?
>
>Seems to me that in RedHat I can use "mkkickstart" to do it, but
>reading the man page gave my no clue how to do it.
>
>How can I do it, w/ or w/o mkkickstart? Note keeping a
>"configuration" is far more space-saving than keeping a installed
>Linux system. This is my goal. Thanks for your help!
I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, the 'bare metal recovery' approach I
use for the systems we install is (1) re-install Linux using
kickstart, (2) restore user stuff from backup.
You should create a kickstart file from scratch. It's not that hard
-- the file is pretty short. It's documented under the kickstart
section of this document (go to the bottom of the index):
http://www.redhat.com/support/manuals/RHL-6.2-Manual/ref-guide/
(Note: I will be on vacation this week and I won't be checking
newsgroups or email)
-Lee Allen
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: ATI All-In-Wonder + RH7
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 13:52:09 GMT
Daniel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Do you know if you can make open gl applications work with ATI all-in-
> wonder and RH7 I have both, but I'm wondering if anyone has info for
> that, because I want to play some open gl games like unreal etc. Thanks.
There is some *basic* hardware acceleration for Rage 128 cards in XFree86
4.0.1. If your AIW is Rage Pro based, you'll need to downgrade to 3.3.6
for 3D acceleration.
Check out http://dri.sourceforge.net for more info on the DRI. Take a look
at the Users Guide.
The Rage 128 3D driver has recently undergone an important rewrite, giving
it an impressive boost in framerate. This code has not made it into the
XFree86 tree, yet. It *might* be included in XFree86 4.0.2.
Adam
------------------------------
From: Arnaud Kok <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: X memory usage
Date: 18 Dec 2000 13:55:01 GMT
Hi all,
After I recently screwed up my system enough to warrent a reinstall, I
installed RH7.0 (the only distro I could get my hands on in 5 minutes).
As I understand it RH7 installs both XFree 3.3.6 and XFree 4.0.1. Well the
install went without any major problems, however X shows some erratic memory
behaviour. Both XF86_SVGA (3.3.6) and XFree86 (4.0.1) use a huge amount of
memory when left alone. I have a P200MMX with 64Mb memory and 114Mb swap.
X can use up to 50% of the memory and alot of swap. When I was gone over the
weekend I ran a cron job to write the memery use by /etc/X (linked to
XFree86) every hour. Nothing special was running, just seti, xlock, xmms
(not playing), xosview, xload, and a few shells.
My window manager is tvtwm.
At the end of this post I show the log, with most entries deleted. I will
give a summery of what happened.
Memory usage when I am working is about 25% (still high IMHO). When i left
for the weekend memory usage slowly increased to 50%. It stayed stable around
that value until abou 7 am sunday morning when it suddenly dropped to 25%
again. It the rose to 50% until i came back and started to work again when
it returned to the value of 25%.
The swap usage is another matter, it's usage went upto approximately 100Mb.
And after a few hours of work today it has dropped to about 30Mb.
My question is: why is X using so much memory?
Grt,
Arnaud.
=======
LOG:
Fri Dec 15 12:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 3.3 25.4 48272 16136 ? S Dec14 42:23 /etc/X11/X :0
Fri Dec 15 13:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 3.6 27.3 48272 17372 ? S Dec14 48:18 /etc/X11/X :0
Fri Dec 15 15:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 3.8 21.9 48296 13884 ? S Dec14 56:02 /etc/X11/X :0
Fri Dec 15 17:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 4.0 26.9 48296 17096 ? S Dec14 64:03 /etc/X11/X :0
Fri Dec 15 21:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 4.3 31.3 48296 19896 ? R Dec14 79:25 /etc/X11/X :0
Fri Dec 15 22:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 4.4 32.6 48296 20712 ? S Dec14 84:10 /etc/X11/X :0
Sat Dec 16 02:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 4.8 40.2 48296 25524 ? S Dec14 102:14 /etc/X11/X :0
Sat Dec 16 10:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 5.3 43.5 53284 27640 ? S Dec14 138:46 /etc/X11/X :0
Sat Dec 16 11:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 5.3 42.5 53228 27008 ? S Dec14 142:46 /etc/X11/X :0
Sat Dec 16 14:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 5.5 49.0 58584 31128 ? S Dec14 156:12 /etc/X11/X :0
Sat Dec 16 17:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 5.6 53.7 66748 34100 ? S Dec14 170:37 /etc/X11/X :0
Sat Dec 16 18:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 5.7 50.6 66976 32104 ? R Dec14 175:52 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 07:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.2 25.9 91712 16480 ? S Dec14 241:06 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 08:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.2 32.9 94484 20880 ? R Dec14 245:20 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 09:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.3 38.4 97280 24416 ? S Dec14 251:29 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 14:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.4 47.4 102916 30092 ? S Dec14 276:52 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 15:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.5 49.8 108360 31616 ? S Dec14 283:07 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 17:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.5 48.9 108660 31040 ? S Dec14 291:57 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 19:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.6 50.6 114292 32116 ? S Dec14 303:07 /etc/X11/X :0
Sun Dec 17 21:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.6 50.8 119524 32268 ? S Dec14 313:57 /etc/X11/X :0
Mon Dec 18 10:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.9 47.7 141916 30280 ? S Dec14 382:31 /etc/X11/X :0
Mon Dec 18 11:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.9 30.3 125496 19244 ? S Dec14 384:19 /etc/X11/X :0
Mon Dec 18 12:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.8 25.0 125496 15888 ? S Dec14 385:25 /etc/X11/X :0
Mon Dec 18 13:01:01 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.9 25.9 123388 16432 ? S Dec14 390:46 /etc/X11/X :0
Mon Dec 18 14:01:00 CET 2000
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 797 6.9 26.1 48248 16596 ? S Dec14 397:57 /etc/X11/X :0
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Do Linux ext2 partition need defrag?
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 14:16:23 GMT
> > As title, do I need to defrag it to maintain performance just like
> > Windows platform?
> Fragmentation is not always a detrement to performance. In certain
> classes of system (of which Linux is one), fragmentation isn't the
> performance impact that it is in MSWindows (sometimes it can even
> enhance performance).
I disagree. Fragmentation is not that important as long as all the data
can be accessed through the filesystem cache. That's because there won't
be any harddisk seeking at all when all data is already in RAM. But as
far as I examined running Linux systems, this is rarely the case.
Fragmentation considerations only apply when talking about actual disk
accesses.
BTW: due to a bug in the 2.2.x cache management (at least I suspect it
to be a bug), by just reading in a number of directories, the file
system cache may be emptied almost entirely. All subsequently requested
data has to be read in again. You should be able to watch this via 'top'
or 'free' when your cache is well filled by just performing a 'du -kcs
/', for example.
And don't forget the ATime-attribute of Inodes which is usually set and
causes every read operation in a directory (maybe from cache) to be
followed by a write operation (definitely to the disk). In this case
even lazy write buffering doesn't help, when the particular Inodes are
scattered wildly across the disk (Inode groups). Defragmenting and
trying to put all contents of a directory close together, does.
Especially with respect to the ATime feature of Linux I would even state
that the fragmentation impact in Windows is less than in Linux! Windows
usually uses to access more files in a more frequent manner than Linux
does. Additionally, the cache management of NT4 is a kind of broken,
which reduces harddisk access savings also. Even on a defragmented file
system. So I think that Linux would benefit more from a properly
defragmented filesystem.
Besides, I wonder what you mean by "sometimes [fragmentation] can even
enhance performance"? Probably not that of your running system but that
of your harddisk manufacturer's sales? ;-)
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: Question about KDE2
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 14:32:40 GMT
Be sure that you have downloaded qt-...rpm files from KDE2 ftp directory
and then come out of X in console use this command :
rpm -i --force --replacefiles .. .rpm
first install the qt-... then kdesupport, kdelibs, kdebase, ...
I hope your eyes don't blow out when you see kde2 environment for the
first time :)
Dejkam
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I just bought Red Hat 7.0 and would like to upgrade to KDE 2.0.1. I
> downloaded all the files from their ftp server for it... Just have a
> few questions:
>
> 1. It complains about dependencies.. how do i fix?
>
> 2. I force the install, and some of the menu icons are bigger than the
> others. How do i fix it?
>
> 3. KDE is the default desktop on my system. How do i fix the login
> screen because it looks messed up? (some of the graphics arent there)
>
> Dave
>
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Jochen Witte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Problem with tar/ssh
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:59:35 +0100
Hello everybody,
My problem:
I want to redirect the output from tar over ssh to a file on a different
computer. I tested
tar cOphz <directory> | ssh <remote-host> "cat > test"
So far everything worked properly, but when I untar on the remote side,
i get the following:
news/
news/news.crit
news/news.err
news/news.notice
gzip: stdin: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
(news was the test-directory). The data seemed ok, but I don`t wan`t to
see the error at the end...
When I make the following
tar cOph <directory> | ssh <remote-host> "cat > test"
(without compression) everything works fine (as we all expect).
Can anybody tell me what the problem is?
--
Jochen Witte
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 08:03:22 -0700
From: "D. Stimits" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: linux + adaptec 29160
Laurent wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have a linux box with a kernel 2.2.17-21mdksmp #1smp (mandrake 7.2). I put an
> ultra 160 scsi 29160 adaptec card inside. The problem is that the card isn't
> seen by Linux. It's a PCI 64 card and there nothing in /proc/pci.
> Has someone an idea how to solve that problem ?
>
> Thanks - Laurent
>
> ------
> User of http://www.foorum.com/. The best tools for usenet searching.
Just guessing, maybe the hardware hasn't been initialized. IRQ, etc.
Being a PCI card, you should check in your BIOS that "O/S is NOT
plug-n-play aware". And if you want to boot from this device, be sure to
set "boot offboard devices first" in the BIOS.
FYI, the integrated versions of such cards do work nicely with the
aic7xxx driver.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
alt.linux,alt.os.linux.mandrake,alt.os.linux.slackware,alt.uu.comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,linux.dev.kernel
Subject: bootable raid 1
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:05:06 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I am currently doing bootable raid 1 with all of the latest patches
for
2.2.18 and then some.
When I try to boot the system with either drive removed, I get a bunch
of
010101010's in an endless loop.
Yet, when both drives are in, the system comes up fine. What am I
doing
wrong?
Using lilo 21.5
lilo.conf.hda
disk=/dev/md0
bios=0x80
sectors=63
heads=15
cylinders=13328
partition=/dev/md1
start=63
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=vmlinux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=vmlinuz
root=/dev/md0
append=" ide3=autotune ide1=autotune ide2=autotune hdh=ide-scsi"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinux
label=vmlinux
root=/dev/md0
append=" ide3=autotune ide1=autotune ide2=autotune hdh=ide-scsi"
read-only
lilo.conf.hdc
disk=/dev/md0
bios=0x81
sectors=63
heads=16
cylinders=16278
partition=/dev/md1
start=63
boot=/dev/hdc
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=vmlinux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=vmlinuz
root=/dev/md0
append=" ide3=autotune ide1=autotune ide2=autotune hdh=ide-scsi"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinux
label=vmlinux
root=/dev/md0
append=" ide3=autotune ide1=autotune ide2=autotune hdh=ide-scsi"
read-only
------------------------------
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