Re: [gentoo-user] Memory manager
On 19/10/2019 16:24, Mick wrote: On Saturday, 19 October 2019 14:11:26 bstmad.scientist.at.la...@tutanota.com wrote: Do systems run different memory management when swap is on versus no swap? The answer to this question is an unqualified yes, although you do not define your meaning of "different memory management". The existence of swap space and the kernel's swappiness setting will change the way memory is dynamically allocated to processes at runtime and may affect the responsiveness of your system. Memory management was massively rewritten roundabout kernel 2.4. The original swap algorithm NEEDED twice ram as swap. And when Linus ripped out all the "optimisation", the vanilla kernels only needed to touch swap, and if they didn't have twice ram they would crash. At that point, the recommendation changed to "no swap is fine, twice or more is fine, just don't have swap less than twice ram". My personal rule is to take the motherboard's max ram, double it, and create a swap partition that size on every disk. So my current desktop system has 80GB of ram/swap - 4x4GB slots times 2 disk drives. And my new system has 4x8GB so that'll be 160GB!!! HOWEVER - Richard Brown of SUSE said that's dangerous - if somebody fork-bombs you it'll take a long time to fill that much swap and regaining control of your system could well be a big red switch job. Cheers, Wol
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: syslog-ng 10s pause during startup
moriah ~ # esearch haveged [ Results for search key : haveged ] [ Applications found : 1 ] * sys-apps/haveged Latest version available: 1.9.2-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of downloaded files: 483 kB Homepage: http://www.issihosts.com/haveged/ Description: A simple entropy daemon using the HAVEGE algorithm License: GPL-3+ moriah ~ # On 19/10/19 10:34 pm, Daniel Frey wrote: > On 10/18/19 5:47 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2019-10-18, Daniel Frey wrote: >> >>> It is waiting for entropy to build. >> >> Interesting -- what does syslog-ng need entropy for? >> >>> Moving mouse or typing on keyboard will speed it up but I have >>> machines only controlled by IR so this was not helpful. >> >> Thanks, I'll try that. >> > > I'm not sure actually. I only found it after 15 minutes of > troubleshooting while noting the time when things started/stopped. I > came across a log entry with something saying "waiting for entropy" > and when I noted when boot continued another entry like "entropy > gathered." > > Those aren't the actual log entries but what I "translated" the > entries to. > > Thankfully I wasn't scratching my head for hours over that one. I did > find if you left it long enough (my IR device would continue boot on > its own after 20 minutes or so) it would eventually boot. > > Waiting 20 minutes for a MythTV appliance to start is pretty silly > though. > > Dan > >
Re: [gentoo-user] Memory manager
On Saturday, 19 October 2019 14:11:26 BST mad.scientist.at.la...@tutanota.com wrote: > Do systems run different memory management when swap is on versus no swap? The answer to this question is an unqualified yes, although you do not define your meaning of "different memory management". The existence of swap space and the kernel's swappiness setting will change the way memory is dynamically allocated to processes at runtime and may affect the responsiveness of your system. However, you may not experience any difference by having swap on, if your swappinness setting is low and in addition you never run a high enough number of memory hungry processes to consume all available RAM. > I know that in the past it was recommended to have at least a small swap so > the system used a better memory manager. Wondering specifically if I > should set up a small ram drive for swap just to get better memory > management or if I should run swapless as this particular machine has a > slightly obscene amount of ram available so I shouldn't need a proper swap > partition unless it affects memory management. > > -- “The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” The handbook recommendation to set up a swap space (partition) is probably made as a low cost, safe configuration to have, which may even save your bacon one day. It is conceivable you could set portage to run a large enough number of jobs on a memory hungry compile, e.g. chromium, to end up with no memory left. In addition, if you tried to Suspend-to-RAM, at a point when all of your RAM is being used, you would soon discover you can't do it without any swap space made available. If you hibernate, then a swap space (file/ partition) will be used, which makes it reasonable to have a swap space set up for this purpose in advance. For a desktop, the relative low cost of disk space today suggests it is a good idea to set up some swap space, even if you hardly ever going to use it. With the arrival of SSDs the usage of swap was discouraged, because repeated read/writes tended to age prematurely the (early) SSDs. I still use spinning disks for swap, but I don't know what the prevailing wisdom/experience suggest these days. Have a look at this for generalities: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Knowledge_Base:Is_swap_space_really_necessary And this for an alternative, or complimentary solution: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Zram -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: syslog-ng 10s pause during startup
On 2019-10-19, Daniel Frey wrote: > On 10/18/19 5:47 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2019-10-18, Daniel Frey wrote: >> >>> It is waiting for entropy to build. >> >> Interesting -- what does syslog-ng need entropy for? >> >>> Moving mouse or typing on keyboard will speed it up but I have >>> machines only controlled by IR so this was not helpful. >> >> Thanks, I'll try that. That doesn't seem to make any difference. > I'm not sure actually. I only found it after 15 minutes of > troubleshooting while noting the time when things started/stopped. I > came across a log entry with something saying "waiting for entropy" and > when I noted when boot continued another entry like "entropy gathered." Hmm. No messages like that in demsg output. My next guess would be that the wifi interface isn't up yet, and it's a DNS lookup timing out. > Waiting 20 minutes for a MythTV appliance to start is pretty silly though. Yea, that's definitely beyond the pale. How's MythTV these days? I ran Myth for 10+ years, but got frustrated at the lack of a small cheap silent front-end. Does the server still refuse to run on a headless machine without X11 and demand that you configure it via a MythTV client on a UI layed out for a TV? When I gave up on Myth I switched to SageTV. When Google bought that and shut it down, I switched to to Plex. Both SageTV and Plex can run on a server without X11 can be configured via a web UI. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: New monitor & wine ==> crash
Mick: Thanks, Mick. >I'm not the right person to advise on this problem because I have very limited >experience with Nvidia cards and even less with WINE. Nevertheless, the >(generic) way I would go about it would be to try an HDMI cable first in case >the higher bitrate makes any difference in what the kernel/driver sees and can >drive. There is indeed a HDMI connector besides the two DVI. A small one, probably a mini HDMI. The card is several years old and I have forgotten the specs. The documentation seems to be on a CD. In form of windows programs. Bah. The new monitor came with a HDMI cable. I will have to obtain a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable or an adapter to try. But I doubt the result will help. Consider that using wine-vanilla-4.01 all resolutions appear as choice in the games. I have visited WineHQ and subscribed to a forum there, Wine Help. Of course it is moderated and of course the first three postings need approval from a moderator. Takes time. In old times there was a news group with the name wine-user. It was abandoned years ago in favor of a forum. Grrr. If there is no improvement, then I would look into feeding a custom >EDID file for the new monitor to the kernel and see if WINE performance >improves. Have a look at 'xrandr --prop' to see what the new Vs the old >monitor display and read this for more: > >/usr/src/linux/Documentation/EDID/HOWTO.txt In the past, long ago, I have played a little with EDID, using the documentation of Nvidia and the Gentoo package read-edid. Hartmut
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: syslog-ng 10s pause during startup
On 10/18/19 5:47 PM, Grant Edwards wrote: On 2019-10-18, Daniel Frey wrote: It is waiting for entropy to build. Interesting -- what does syslog-ng need entropy for? Moving mouse or typing on keyboard will speed it up but I have machines only controlled by IR so this was not helpful. Thanks, I'll try that. I'm not sure actually. I only found it after 15 minutes of troubleshooting while noting the time when things started/stopped. I came across a log entry with something saying "waiting for entropy" and when I noted when boot continued another entry like "entropy gathered." Those aren't the actual log entries but what I "translated" the entries to. Thankfully I wasn't scratching my head for hours over that one. I did find if you left it long enough (my IR device would continue boot on its own after 20 minutes or so) it would eventually boot. Waiting 20 minutes for a MythTV appliance to start is pretty silly though. Dan
[gentoo-user] Memory manager
Do systems run different memory management when swap is on versus no swap? I know that in the past it was recommended to have at least a small swap so the system used a better memory manager. Wondering specifically if I should set up a small ram drive for swap just to get better memory management or if I should run swapless as this particular machine has a slightly obscene amount of ram available so I shouldn't need a proper swap partition unless it affects memory management. -- “The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!”
Re: [gentoo-user] New monitor & wine ==> crash
On Saturday, 19 October 2019 09:11:17 BST Hartmut Figge wrote: > Greetings, > > I am somewhat desperate. Before I obtained a new monitor, my installed > games on wine worked fine. Now many of them crash at startup. Most of > them run still fine under wine-vanilla-4.0.1 but not under > wine-vanilla-4.17. > > After some tinkering I found a hint when using OblivionLauncher.exe. > > In wine-vanilla-4.0.1 the available resolutions are > http://www.triffids.de/pub/aoc/wine-4.01_oblivionlauncher.png > > In wine-vanilla-4.17 the available resolutions are > http://www.triffids.de/pub/aoc/wine-4.17_oblivionlauncher.png > > You can see that most of the resolutions are missing under 4.17. If I > select the available resolution 800x600 in 4.17 then oblivion starts and > runs without problems. > > But many of the games do not have a launcher to choose a resolution > from. I assume when a games tries to start with a resolution which now > seems unsupported it runs into difficulties. > > So the question is, how to get wine-vanilla-4-17 to accept the available > resolutions? This problem didn't occur with the old monitor. > > Some info: > > xrandr old monitor: > Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 16384 x 16384 > DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) > DVI-I-1 connected 1600x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y > axis) 367mm x 275mm >1600x1200 60.00*+ >1280x1024 75.0260.02 >1152x864 75.00 >1024x768 75.0360.00 >800x600 75.0060.32 >640x480 75.0059.94 > HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) > DVI-D-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) > > xrandr new monitor > Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384 > DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) > DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) > HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) > DVI-D-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y > axis) 725mm x 428mm >2560x1440 59.95 + >1920x1080 60.00* >1680x1050 59.95 >1440x900 59.89 >1280x1440 59.91 >1280x1024 75.0260.02 >1280x960 60.00 >1280x720 60.00 >1024x768 75.0370.0760.00 >800x600 75.0072.1960.3256.25 >720x576 50.00 >720x480 59.94 >640x480 75.0072.8159.94 > > nvidia-drivers-435.21 > > Hartmut I'm not the right person to advise on this problem because I have very limited experience with Nvidia cards and even less with WINE. Nevertheless, the (generic) way I would go about it would be to try an HDMI cable first in case the higher bitrate makes any difference in what the kernel/driver sees and can drive. If there is no improvement, then I would look into feeding a custom EDID file for the new monitor to the kernel and see if WINE performance improves. Have a look at 'xrandr --prop' to see what the new Vs the old monitor display and read this for more: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/EDID/HOWTO.txt HTH. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] New monitor & wine ==> crash
Greetings, I am somewhat desperate. Before I obtained a new monitor, my installed games on wine worked fine. Now many of them crash at startup. Most of them run still fine under wine-vanilla-4.0.1 but not under wine-vanilla-4.17. After some tinkering I found a hint when using OblivionLauncher.exe. In wine-vanilla-4.0.1 the available resolutions are http://www.triffids.de/pub/aoc/wine-4.01_oblivionlauncher.png In wine-vanilla-4.17 the available resolutions are http://www.triffids.de/pub/aoc/wine-4.17_oblivionlauncher.png You can see that most of the resolutions are missing under 4.17. If I select the available resolution 800x600 in 4.17 then oblivion starts and runs without problems. But many of the games do not have a launcher to choose a resolution from. I assume when a games tries to start with a resolution which now seems unsupported it runs into difficulties. So the question is, how to get wine-vanilla-4-17 to accept the available resolutions? This problem didn't occur with the old monitor. Some info: xrandr old monitor: Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 16384 x 16384 DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-I-1 connected 1600x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 367mm x 275mm 1600x1200 60.00*+ 1280x1024 75.0260.02 1152x864 75.00 1024x768 75.0360.00 800x600 75.0060.32 640x480 75.0059.94 HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-D-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) xrandr new monitor Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384 DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-D-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 725mm x 428mm 2560x1440 59.95 + 1920x1080 60.00* 1680x1050 59.95 1440x900 59.89 1280x1440 59.91 1280x1024 75.0260.02 1280x960 60.00 1280x720 60.00 1024x768 75.0370.0760.00 800x600 75.0072.1960.3256.25 720x576 50.00 720x480 59.94 640x480 75.0072.8159.94 nvidia-drivers-435.21 Hartmut
