Re: [SLUG] On fitting an internal hard drive
Also you want to know if it is an IDE drive or a SATA. It's most likely a 2.5 inch drive. Usually these are no hassle to replace. First time round put the screws on the table exactly in the place of where you took them from. Some of these laptops have different length screws. And if you put the long screw in where a short one should have gone, then you find yourself screwing through the motherboard! Not good for warranty repairs... If you are not confident then take it to a computer shop. Ben Ken Wilson wrote: Michael Lake wrote: William Bennett wrote: I have the opportunity to a) upgrade to Fedora 5 and b) buy a Seagate 160MB internal hard drive, hopefully to facilitate the Fedora. It's a Fujitsu S Series Lifebook. I've not done this before. Would the new hard drive fit the laptop and would it give the BIOS a hard time? Make sure you can physically do an install of the drive at home. Do you have the tools to undo little screws with special heads, what other parts of the laptop need to be disassembled to install the hard drive etc. When the screen on my Ti PowerBook broke I found a site on the web that listed all the special tools I would need like star screwdrivers and the actual procedure and I could see that it wasn't going to be easy at all. I would have had to disassemble the entire laptop to get a new screen installed. Mike Hard drives usually are not so bad, but finding a illustrated howto is good for finding out about the hidden screw there usually is Ken -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
And what does this have to do with Linux? I really hate people attempting to bash Microsoft their products on OSS lists. IMHO It really makes everyone look like zealots. Cheers, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 21/02/2007 05:01:19 PM: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do? command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9011523 -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
slug-chat is the best place for this thread Dean Scott Ragen wrote: And what does this have to do with Linux? I really hate people attempting to bash Microsoft their products on OSS lists. IMHO It really makes everyone look like zealots. Cheers, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 21/02/2007 05:01:19 PM: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do? command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9011523 -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:05:31 +1100 Scott Ragen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And what does this have to do with Linux? I really hate people attempting to bash Microsoft their products on OSS lists. IMHO It really makes everyone look like zealots. In Howard's defence, I don't see the article as MS bashing. We have had a reasonable amount of traffic on this list relating to MS problems - as you would expect since it is obvious that a lot of the participants need to advise and maintain MS products. I don't work in such an area, but even so I advise neighbours and friends. It is useful to know the requirements for new systems. So, I didn't mind the post. Cheers, Alan Cheers, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 21/02/2007 05:01:19 PM: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do? command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9011523 -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan Tel: +61 2 4782 2670Mobile: +61 427 486 206 Fax: +61 2 4782 7092FWD: 615662 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
G'day guys, I don't think Howard's actually in the wrong. It sort of belongs in a list somewhere between slug and slug-chat. You've got the MS Bashing aspect that some people will see that makes it appear in the slug-chat area, while you have the administrative IBM think 4GB?! viewpoint that makes a lot of us reel back at a million miles an hour. I don't believe this article is an attempt to bash Microsoft (but from IBM's current stance in the software world who really knows what the comment means in its entirety). However, it does appear to tell administrators and users to think twice before upgrading. At some point in the near future RAM should drop to a nice price where we can all afford to run 4GB beasty laptops... until then, I'm not entirely sure it's a brilliant idea to upgrade unless you're willing to put it to the test (which I'm not). Granted, we're a group of individuals who discuss Linux, an OS that, despite previous statements I've received, will more than happily run on 100mhz and 64mb of RAM (last tested on the 2.6.16-r3 kernel before I tossed that piece of garbage out). In terms of the BSDs they'll also run on similar specs. 100mhz / 64mb RAM / 540mb HDD is enough to run the basics but the world is more interested in what's shiny that what's practical. Take it with a grain of insight - bashing isn't bashing unless it can't prove to be beneficial. Hoo Roo, Alex. Alan L Tyree wrote: On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:05:31 +1100 Scott Ragen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And what does this have to do with Linux? I really hate people attempting to bash Microsoft their products on OSS lists. IMHO It really makes everyone look like zealots. In Howard's defence, I don't see the article as MS bashing. We have had a reasonable amount of traffic on this list relating to MS problems - as you would expect since it is obvious that a lot of the participants need to advise and maintain MS products. I don't work in such an area, but even so I advise neighbours and friends. It is useful to know the requirements for new systems. So, I didn't mind the post. Cheers, Alan Cheers, Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 21/02/2007 05:01:19 PM: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do? command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9011523 -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
On Thu, February 22, 2007 9:46 am, Alexander Stanley wrote: Granted, we're a group of individuals who discuss Linux, an OS that, despite previous statements I've received, will more than happily run on 100mhz and 64mb of RAM (last tested on the 2.6.16-r3 kernel before I tossed that piece of garbage out). with a GUI desktop ? -- Voytek -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 11:45 +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote: Scott Ragen wrote: And what does this have to do with Linux? I really hate people attempting to bash Microsoft their products on OSS lists. IMHO It really makes everyone look like zealots. Au contraire. Perhaps those who suggest that this list should restrict it skills base to Linux, and not consider that there is a mutual need for interoperability with Microsoft, are the ones who are being zealous... Either way, at this point its a meta-discussion: please take it to slug-chat. -Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Gnash or Flash
Hi, Since moving to my AMD64 based machine I have changed my Ubuntu to the 64 bit version. My problem is that I can no longer see flash in web pages. There appears to be no way to get a 64 bit flash 9 player or plugin and using nspluginwrapper -i (directory)/libflashplayer.so with either Flash 7 or 9 gets the same result: nspluginwrapper: libflashplayer.so is not a valid NPAPI plugin I have been able to install gnash as a stand alone but don't know how to install it as a plugin. I tried setting it as an external player but no luck. I have spent a great deal of time googling for an answer, but no useable result. Any clues would be appreciated. Heracles -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
This leads me to ask about the equivalent for most Linux desktop setups. What is the sweet spot for RAM in a typical, say, Ubuntu desktop box? The point at which diminishing returns from improved functionality intersects with the increase in cost. Adam K Howard Lowndes wrote: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9011523 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Gnash or Flash
Adobe/Macromedia Flash doesn't have 64Bit support. As for Gnash (never used it) but you mentioned it has an external player. With an extension can you play embedded flash to the player of you choice. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/446/ After installing flash remains to be embedded, you have to set it to play on an external player. Hi, Since moving to my AMD64 based machine I have changed my Ubuntu to the 64 bit version. My problem is that I can no longer see flash in web pages. There appears to be no way to get a 64 bit flash 9 player or plugin and using nspluginwrapper -i (directory)/libflashplayer.so with either Flash 7 or 9 gets the same result: nspluginwrapper: libflashplayer.so is not a valid NPAPI plugin I have been able to install gnash as a stand alone but don't know how to install it as a plugin. I tried setting it as an external player but no luck. I have spent a great deal of time googling for an answer, but no useable result. Any clues would be appreciated. Heracles -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Simon Males [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
quote who=Adam Kennedy This leads me to ask about the equivalent for most Linux desktop setups. What is the sweet spot for RAM in a typical, say, Ubuntu desktop box? The point at which diminishing returns from improved functionality intersects with the increase in cost. 128-256MB if you just want to run the desktop (not wildly helpful to anyone). 512MB if you want to do some stuff as well (say, Firefox or OpenOffice.org). 1GB if you want to feel fairly pacey while doing some stuff (disk cache). - Jeff -- Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia http://www.opencebit.com.au/ They cosset us with trappings to shut us up. That way when we say 'sharecropper!' you can point to my free suit and say 'Shut up pop star.' - Courtney Love -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Gnash or Flash
I've been using Gnash on Fedora 6 x86_64 for a while now. It's not perfect, but it's coming along. Nothing's been released since 0.7.1, so you're pretty much going to have to install from cvs to get the recent stuff, as you probably know. I've been configuring with the following options pre-make: configure --enable-plugin --enable-sound=sdl When doing the make install, I've found that the plugin gets put into a .firefox/plugins subdirectory under my home directory. I've been copying that into /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins as Firefox seems to pick up plugins from there. There's another configure option that I can use to make sure that the plugin is installed into the right place, but I haven't started using it yet. Hope that helps, Mark C. On Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 12:27:52PM +1100, Heracles wrote: Hi, Since moving to my AMD64 based machine I have changed my Ubuntu to the 64 bit version. My problem is that I can no longer see flash in web pages. There appears to be no way to get a 64 bit flash 9 player or plugin and using nspluginwrapper -i (directory)/libflashplayer.so with either Flash 7 or 9 gets the same result: nspluginwrapper: libflashplayer.so is not a valid NPAPI plugin I have been able to install gnash as a stand alone but don't know how to install it as a plugin. I tried setting it as an external player but no luck. I have spent a great deal of time googling for an answer, but no useable result. Any clues would be appreciated. Heracles -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Wireless card.
On Thursday 22 February 2007 07:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am about to have an adsl2+ broadband service connected. I have a Belkin Wireless G Router. Is there a suitable wireless card for a desktop that is sure to be OK for all or most flavours of Linux? I've a huge pile of paperweights, quest in vain. But I made a DLINK DWL G510 (a current card) using the RaLink chipset work! Also http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/wireless/ James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
G'day all! We're running low on volunteers - anyone else want to represent their favourite distro? Lindsay - Forwarded message from Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: SLUG Activities [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:10:22 +1100 Subject: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting Hi all! We're looking for volunteers to represent Linux distribution at Friday's panel. There will be a bunch of questions from the audience and a number from the moderator, with the session lasting a bit under an hour. If you'd like to be part of the panel, please respond to this email with the distro you'd like to represent. If someone else has already volunteered themselves for your prefered distro, volunteer anyway! We can work out a shared spot on the panel. :-) Thanks! Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG Activities Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html - End forwarded message - -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
On 2/22/07, Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: G'day all! We're running low on volunteers - anyone else want to represent their favourite distro? I've switched from Gentoo to Arch on my main desktop about two weeks ago, I could do either. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
Do you need Debian reps or was this spot filled out the quickest? :-) I'm NOT a Debian Developer but I use it for many years so might be able to fill in. --Amos On 22/02/07, Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: G'day all! We're running low on volunteers - anyone else want to represent their favourite distro? Lindsay - Forwarded message from Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: SLUG Activities [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:10:22 +1100 Subject: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting Hi all! We're looking for volunteers to represent Linux distribution at Friday's panel. There will be a bunch of questions from the audience and a number from the moderator, with the session lasting a bit under an hour. If you'd like to be part of the panel, please respond to this email with the distro you'd like to represent. If someone else has already volunteered themselves for your prefered distro, volunteer anyway! We can work out a shared spot on the panel. :-) Thanks! Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG Activities Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html - End forwarded message - -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 14:34 +1100, Lindsay Holmwood wrote: G'day all! We're running low on volunteers - anyone else want to represent their favourite distro? What ones do you have? Rob -- GPG key available at: http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Gnash or Flash
On Thursday 22 February 2007 13:48, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since moving to my AMD64 based machine I have changed my Ubuntu to the 64 bit version. My problem is that I can no longer see flash in web pages. There appears to be no way to get a 64 bit flash 9 player or plugin and using nspluginwrapper -i (directory)/libflashplayer.so with either Flash 7 or 9 gets the same result: nspluginwrapper: libflashplayer.so is not a valid NPAPI plugin I have been able to install gnash as a stand alone but don't know how to install it as a plugin. I tried setting it as an external player but no luck. I have spent a great deal of time googling for an answer, but no useable result. Any clues would be appreciated. Run 32 bit web browser eg I use firefox without any woes on my x86_64 system. James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
What distro's are currently being represented? James On 2/22/07, Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: G'day all! We're running low on volunteers - anyone else want to represent their favourite distro? Lindsay - Forwarded message from Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Lindsay Holmwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: SLUG Activities [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:10:22 +1100 Subject: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting Hi all! We're looking for volunteers to represent Linux distribution at Friday's panel. There will be a bunch of questions from the audience and a number from the moderator, with the session lasting a bit under an hour. If you'd like to be part of the panel, please respond to this email with the distro you'd like to represent. If someone else has already volunteered themselves for your prefered distro, volunteer anyway! We can work out a shared spot on the panel. :-) Thanks! Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG Activities Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html - End forwarded message - -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
I'm a little puzzled by this: total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem:50050844816352 188732 0 1566443165540 -/+ buffers/cache: 14941683510916 Swap: 10526161052616 0 Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. What sort of utilities are around to analyse swap space? I'd like to get an idea of exactly what's using all of that memory. -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
On Thursday 22 February 2007 13:48, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This leads me to ask about the equivalent for most Linux desktop setups. What is the sweet spot for RAM in a typical, say, Ubuntu desktop box? The point at which diminishing returns from improved functionality intersects with the increase in cost. That is a null question for linux. Enough RAM so that your app does not swap is adequate. Enough so that you never use swap is more than enough. I have a linux video overlay unit that uses 128M for root (initramfs) and app memory. So here 128M is more than enough. You seek a windows metric to be applied to linux. Tilt! eg [tigger] /home/jam [85]% cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 1027420 kB MemFree: 13984 kB Buffers: 46048 kB Cached: 268728 kB SwapCached: 34744 kB Active: 718772 kB Inactive: 163876 kB ... SwapTotal: 1509988 kB SwapFree: 1368380 kB ... I do not perceive any limitation in my desktop, based on memory size. Fast and responsive all the time ... James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
This one time, at band camp, Peter Hardy wrote: Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. Just trust it. It knows what it's doing. Better minds than ours have worked long and hard on this and they're pretty good add it. Swap not getting hit in 15 minutes sounds like it's doing the right thing. Unless you have some really weird requirements, you should be able to leave it be. If you do wanna tweak/learn: http://linux-mm.org/ -- Rev Simon Rumble [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.rumble.net The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. - Somerset Maugham -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On 22/02/07, Peter Hardy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a little puzzled by this: total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem:50050844816352 188732 0 1566443165540 -/+ buffers/cache: 14941683510916 Swap: 10526161052616 0 Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. What sort of utilities are around to analyse swap space? I'd like to get an idea of exactly what's using all of that memory. You're running Linux, right? As of.. urmm.. somewhere in the 2.4 series, or early in the 2.6 series, I forget where, the kernel developers decided to be very, very aggressive about favoring buffers/cache over unrecently-used pages. This can be really great on a system with not much ram where large apps that you haven't used in a while (eg, OOo) will get swapped out when they're not being used, to make lots of space to cache all the pr0^H^H^Himages of your grandmother's birthday party that you're scanning through agressively.. It's tuneable though, via /proc/sys/vm/swappiness. Quick google search shows the below, from http://beranger.org/index.php?article=1547 (which read, for a more detailed explanation) swappiness is a number between 0 and 100, representing how aggressive the swap policy of the kernel is, or where is the balance between swapping applications and freeing cache. -- There is nothing more worthy of contempt than a man who quotes himself - Zhasper, 2004 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Gnash or Flash
On 22/02/07 12:27, Heracles wrote: Since moving to my AMD64 based machine I have changed my Ubuntu to the 64 bit version. My problem is that I can no longer see flash in web pages. Not the easiest solution, but you could always set up a 32 bit chroot for firefox and other apps that rely on 32 bit libraries / codecs. Works pretty well for me. Instructions at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24575, and probably elsewhere too. Adam -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 05:22 +, Rev Simon Rumble wrote: This one time, at band camp, Peter Hardy wrote: Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. Just trust it. It knows what it's doing. Better minds than ours have worked long and hard on this and they're pretty good add it. Swap not getting hit in 15 minutes sounds like it's doing the right thing. Oh, there's absolutely no plans to fiddle with it. But it's a pattern that I've never seen before, and I'm curious about how the memory is being used. And, given the uptime on the machine in question (250 days so far), I'm mildly concerned about very slow memory leaks in the web application it's running. Unless you have some really weird requirements, you should be able to leave it be. If you do wanna tweak/learn: http://linux-mm.org/ Ooo, looks like a pretty good resource. Thanks for the link. -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On Thursday 22 February 2007 14:42, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a little puzzled by this: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 5005084 4816352 188732 0 156644 3165540 -/+ buffers/cache: 1494168 3510916 Swap: 1052616 1052616 0 Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. What sort of utilities are around to analyse swap space? I'd like to get an idea of exactly what's using all of that memory. A perfect example to support my post about memory. More than 1G of your application ram is 'in use' but not being used. Keeping ram for cache where it is used is better than having it occupied and not in-use. Having said that, your example is a little unusual, but without doubt if you explained what you were doing sage heads would say 'cute'. James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On 22/02/07, Howard Lowndes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's recommended that your swap space should be 2x your RAM. In your case it's .2x Blanket statement != useful. On a desktop, where I'm putting OOo in the background and letting firefox chew all my ram for a while - yes, I'll take lots of swap. On a high-performance server - I'll spend the extra couple of hundred and get 2x the RAM instead, I don't want the performance hit that swapping implies. I'll probably add some swap in as a bit of a buffer for pathological cases, but if that swap starts being used I'll be worried. Well, I might be, anyway - it would depend on the exact purpose of the machine and its usage patterns. On my N800, where 'swap' means extraneous writes to flash, I'll pass on swap. My point is, swap is not always a good thing, and 2x is not always the right amount. It used to be a decent guideline, for desktop systems, when ram was expensive and most machines had maybe 128mb of ram. These days, when your average desktop comes with 1Gb, and the upgrade to 2Gb is perhaps $150 more at most... well, maybe swap is not so neccessary In this case, Peter hasn't given us enough information - we don't know if he's working with a low-end server, a desktop, a laptop. He's *probably* not working with an embedded device... We don't know what he's doing with the server, and we don't know what it's running. We really don't know if 2xram is an appropriate amount of swap. Peter Hardy wrote: I'm a little puzzled by this: total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem:50050844816352 188732 0 1566443165540 -/+ buffers/cache: 14941683510916 Swap: 10526161052616 0 Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. What sort of utilities are around to analyse swap space? I'd like to get an idea of exactly what's using all of that memory. -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people http://lannetlinux.com When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- There is nothing more worthy of contempt than a man who quotes himself - Zhasper, 2004 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007, Peter Hardy wrote: I'm a little puzzled by this: total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem:50050844816352 188732 0 1566443165540 -/+ buffers/cache: 14941683510916 Swap: 10526161052616 0 Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. What sort of utilities are around to analyse swap space? I'd like to get an idea of exactly what's using all of that memory. If a background daemon loads a bunch of stuff into memory, but then never accesses those pages, it can get swapped out, in favor of buffering files that *are* being used. This does improve overall performance and is normally useful, though counterintuitive at first. --Jeremy -- /-\ | Jeremy Portzer[EMAIL PROTECTED] trilug.org/~jeremy | | GPG Fingerprint: 712D 77C7 AB2D 2130 989F E135 6F9F F7BC CC1A 7B92 | \-/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
On Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 02:55:47PM +1100, Robert Collins wrote: What ones do you have? Right now, Fedora and Slackware. Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
On Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 03:12:52PM +1100, Michael Kedzierski wrote: I've switched from Gentoo to Arch on my main desktop about two weeks ago, I could do either. Either would be perfect. You can choose on the night. :-) Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]
On Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 03:28:10PM +1100, Amos Shapira wrote: Do you need Debian reps or was this spot filled out the quickest? :-) I'm NOT a Debian Developer but I use it for many years so might be able to fill in. Nobody has put their hand up yet, so look like you're it. :-) If other people want to represent Debian, you can work out a 'repshare' between yourselves. Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Gnash or Flash
On Thursday 22 February 2007 14:42, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since moving to my AMD64 based machine I have changed my Ubuntu to the 64 bit version. My problem is that I can no longer see flash in web pages. Not the easiest solution, but you could always set up a 32 bit chroot for firefox and other apps that rely on 32 bit libraries / codecs. Works pretty well for me. Instructions at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24575, and probably elsewhere too. You don't need that degree of mess. I use SuSE and the 32bit run libs. I read recently how you can apt-get 'ignore architecture' to do the same. Then 'firefox' == 'firefox-32' etc without any mess. [tigger] /home/jam [93]% uname -i x86_64 [tigger] /home/jam [94]% rpm -qi MozillaFirefox Name: MozillaFirefox Relocations: (not relocatable) Version : 1.5.0.7 Vendor: SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany Release : 1.5 Build Date: Thu 28 Sep 2006 04:55:26 PM WST [snip] Distribution: SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 (i586) James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 16:24 +1100, Zhasper wrote: On 22/02/07, Peter Hardy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a little puzzled by this: total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem:50050844816352 188732 0 1566443165540 -/+ buffers/cache: 14941683510916 Swap: 10526161052616 0 Is this sort of usage normal? Filling a gigabyte of swap space while just under 1.5GB of memory is going towards buffers seems odd to me. And vmstat reports no usage of this swap space over a 15 minute period. What sort of utilities are around to analyse swap space? I'd like to get an idea of exactly what's using all of that memory. You're running Linux, right? Aye. It's a 2.4 kernel dating from somewhere before swappiness became tuneable. This can be really great on a system with not much ram where large apps that you haven't used in a while (eg, OOo) will get swapped out when they're not being used, to make lots of space to cache all the pr0^H^H^Himages of your grandmother's birthday party that you're scanning through agressively.. In my rush to be as detailed as possible, I completely forgot to mention what the machine in question is actually doing. Well, it's a web server for a single (fairly high-traffic) domain. Apart from apache and the web application software, there's nothing running on it apart from the usual collection of processes that are essential to a well behave unix system. init, crond, syslogd. This is easily the biggest system I've found myself responsible for, and the way the memory's been allocated doesn't line up with anything else I've seen before. Just curious as to how and why it's being used like this. -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Oddball memory usage?
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 16:24 +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote: It's recommended that your swap space should be 2x your RAM. In your case it's .2x Has anybody seriously made such a recommendation this millenium? In my experience, the formula doesn't really scale at all. I suppose, in certain limited applications, a huge swap space could come in handy. But I'm yet to see a desktop or server system where more than a gigabyte of swap wasn't just plain ludicrous. As for your suggestion I should have TEN gigabytes of swap space? ...why? -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
On Thu, February 22, 2007 11:48 am, Howard Lowndes wrote: Granted, we're a group of individuals who discuss Linux, an OS that, despite previous statements I've received, will more than happily run on 100mhz and 64mb of RAM (last tested on the 2.6.16-r3 kernel before with a GUI desktop ? Out of 9 Linux installations in my immediate SOHO locality, only one, my laptop, has a GUI as standard. I suspect it wouldn't run that happily on 64MB and 100MHz CPU, though will more than happily run on 100mhz and 64mb of RAM -- Voytek -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] IBM calculate that 4Gb RAM is optimal for Vista
On Thu, February 22, 2007 12:46 pm, Jeff Waugh wrote: This leads me to ask about the equivalent for most Linux desktop setups. What is the sweet spot for RAM in a typical, say, Ubuntu desktop box? The point at which diminishing returns from improved functionality intersects with the increase in cost. 128-256MB if you just want to run the desktop (not wildly helpful to anyone). 512MB if you want to do some stuff as well (say, Firefox or OpenOffice.org). 1GB if you want to feel fairly pacey while doing some stuff (disk cache). not unlike XP, I'd guess -- Voytek -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
