2.4.5 VM
In my opinion 2.4.x is NOT ready for primetime. The VM has been getting worse since 2.4.0, I believe. Definitely since and including 2.4.3. I cannot even edit a few images in gimp where the entire working set used to fit entirely in memory. The system now locks in some loop (SAK still works).
FILE CACHING IS BROKEN. I don't care who says what, by the time swap is half filled, it is time to start throwing away simple caches. Not wait until there is no more memory free and then lock in an infinite loop.
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Trever Adams
Quoted 1 line
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Linus 2.4.0 notes are quite clear that you need at least twice RAM of swap with 2.4.
Marcelo is working to change that but right now you are running something explicitly explained as not going to work as you want
Quoted 9 lines · Alan Cox
Quoted 2 lines
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Linus 2.4.0 notes are quite clear that you need at least twice RAM of swap with 2.4.
Marcelo is working to change that but right now you are running something explicitly explained as not going to work as you want
Alan,
Actually I have tried 1x,2x,3x. In 2.4.0 to 2.4.3 I had some issues but never a system freeze of any kind. With 2.4.4 I had more problems, but I was ok. 2.4.5 I now have these freezes. Maybe I should go back to 2x, but I still find this behavior crazy.
This still doesn't negate the point of freeing simple caches.
Trever Adams
Quoted 5 lines
Actually I have tried 1x,2x,3x. In 2.4.0 to 2.4.3 I had some issues but never a system freeze of any kind. With 2.4.4 I had more problems, but I was ok. 2.4.5 I now have these freezes. Maybe I should go back to 2x, but I still find this behavior crazy.
This still doesn't negate the point of freeing simple caches.
The caches are in part shared. Remember page cache memory and read only application pages are the same thing - so its not that simple. I found 2.4.5 pretty bad. 2.4.5-ac seems to be better on the whole but I know its definitely not right yet. Marcelo and Rik are working on that more and more.
Marcelo has a test patch to fix the (documented but annoying) 2x memory swap rule stuff. The balancing problem is harder but being worked on.
If you can give Rik a summary of your config/what apps run/ps data then it may be valuable as he can duplicate your exact setup for testing his vm changes and add it to the test sets.
Alan
Hi
I found this post of interest. I have 1.1 Gig of RAM but only 800mb of Swap as I expect NOT to use that much memory... Could this be the cause of the machines VERY erratic behaviour??? Kernel Panics, HUGE INOde and Dcache.... ??
Regards
MarCin
-------------------------------------
# Marcin Kowalski #
On_Linux Developer.
->Datrix Solutions.<-
Tel. 770-6146# Cel. 082-400-7603 #
-------------------------------------
Quoted 14 lines · On Thu, 31 May 2001 [email protected] wrote:
Quoted 1 line
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Linus 2.4.0 notes are quite clear that you need at least twice RAM of swap with 2.4.
Marcelo is working to change that but right now you are running something explicitly explained as not going to work as you want
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I don't know myself, (it sounds like other bigmem problems), but setting up a 2GB swap file is easy enough to test. :-)
-Dave
Quoted 15 lines · Marcin Kowalski
I found this post of interest. I have 1.1 Gig of RAM but only 800mb of Swap as I expect NOT to use that much memory... Could this be the cause of the machines VERY erratic behaviour??? Kernel Panics, HUGE INOde and Dcache.... ??
Quoted 7 lines · On Thu, 31 May 2001 [email protected] wrote:
Quoted 1 line
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Linus 2.4.0 notes are quite clear that you need at least twice RAM of swap with 2.4.
Marcelo is working to change that but right now you are running something explicitly explained as not going to work as you want
I have a 2.4.5-ac3 box with 1G RAM and 2.6G Swap....first time developers hit apache/php/zendcache after reboot and it swapped to a stop.
I stop/restarted apache and it seems very happy...can't goto production like this tho :(
Quoted 5 lines · Alan Cox
Quoted 1 line
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Linus 2.4.0 notes are quite clear that you need at least twice RAM of swap with 2.4.
Quoted 8 lines
Marcelo is working to change that but right now you are running something explicitly explained as not going to work as you want
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--
---------------------------------------------------
Russell Leighton [email protected]
Programming today is a race between software
engineers striving to build bigger and better
idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to
produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the
Universe is winning. - Rich Cook
---------------------------------------------------
Quoted 12 lines · Trever L. Adams
In my opinion 2.4.x is NOT ready for primetime. The VM has been getting worse since 2.4.0, I believe. Definitely since and including 2.4.3. I cannot even edit a few images in gimp where the entire working set used to fit entirely in memory. The system now locks in some loop (SAK still works).
FILE CACHING IS BROKEN. I don't care who says what, by the time swap is half filled, it is time to start throwing away simple caches. Not wait until there is no more memory free and then lock in an infinite loop.
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Quoted 7 lines
Trever Adams
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I've found that with the latest kernel release (2.4.5) VM performance has been greatly improved. kswapd and bdflush no longer use 200% of my cpu cycles when simply doing a dd bs=1024 count=8388608 if=/dev/zero of=test.file. All of my test systems remain responsive with about 180% cpu available. These systems are running software RAID and 3ware IDE raid with 2GB of memory and 4GB swap. Have you tried 2.4.5?
-zim
Christopher Zimmerman
AltaVista Company
Quoted 8 lines · Christopher Zimmerman
I've found that with the latest kernel release (2.4.5) VM performance has been greatly improved. kswapd and bdflush no longer use 200% of my cpu cycles when simply doing a dd bs=1024 count=8388608 if=/dev/zero of=test.file. All of my test systems remain responsive with about 180% cpu available. These systems are running software RAID and 3ware IDE raid with 2GB of memory and 4GB swap. Have you tried 2.4.5?
Quoted 5 lines
-zim
Christopher Zimmerman
AltaVista Company
I have found that 2.4.5 is great, until it decides to stop freeing unused pages
(simple file cache). Then it goes to hell in a handbasket at the speed of light.
Yes, I have tried it, that is what I wrote about.
Trever
Quoted 39 lines · Christopher Zimmerman
Quoted 12 lines · Trever L. Adams
In my opinion 2.4.x is NOT ready for primetime. The VM has been getting worse since 2.4.0, I believe. Definitely since and including 2.4.3. I cannot even edit a few images in gimp where the entire working set used to fit entirely in memory. The system now locks in some loop (SAK still works).
FILE CACHING IS BROKEN. I don't care who says what, by the time swap is half filled, it is time to start throwing away simple caches. Not wait until there is no more memory free and then lock in an infinite loop.
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Quoted 7 lines
Trever Adams
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Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/I've found that with the latest kernel release (2.4.5) VM performance has been greatly improved. kswapd and bdflush no longer use 200% of my cpu cycles when simply doing a dd bs=1024 count=8388608 if=/dev/zero of=test.file. All of my test systems remain responsive with about 180% cpu available. These systems are running software RAID and 3ware IDE raid with 2GB of memory and 4GB swap. Have you tried 2.4.5?
-zim
Christopher Zimmerman
AltaVista Company-
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Actually I take everything back. I've been testing on linux-2.4.5-xfs and seen major improvements.
-zim
Quoted 41 lines · Christopher Zimmerman
Quoted 39 lines · Christopher Zimmerman
Quoted 12 lines · Trever L. Adams
In my opinion 2.4.x is NOT ready for primetime. The VM has been getting worse since 2.4.0, I believe. Definitely since and including 2.4.3. I cannot even edit a few images in gimp where the entire working set used to fit entirely in memory. The system now locks in some loop (SAK still works).
FILE CACHING IS BROKEN. I don't care who says what, by the time swap is half filled, it is time to start throwing away simple caches. Not wait until there is no more memory free and then lock in an infinite loop.
My system has 128 Meg of Swap and RAM.
Quoted 7 lines
Trever Adams
-
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Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/I've found that with the latest kernel release (2.4.5) VM performance has been greatly improved. kswapd and bdflush no longer use 200% of my cpu cycles when simply doing a dd bs=1024 count=8388608 if=/dev/zero of=test.file. All of my test systems remain responsive with about 180% cpu available. These systems are running software RAID and 3ware IDE raid with 2GB of memory and 4GB swap. Have you tried 2.4.5?
-zim
Christopher Zimmerman
AltaVista Company-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [email protected]
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Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/