From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Basil Chupin Subject: Re: What does this mean? Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 16:33:31 +1000 Message-ID: <3D4F6DBB.7030002@tpg.com.au> References: <3D2993E5.6030707@tpg.com.au> <20020708190923.A928@namesys.com> <3D29BA3F.7010201@tpg.com.au> <200207081228.56302.kuba@mareimbrium.org> <3D2E6DAB.9050400@tpg.com.au> <200207121326.g6CDQu3u003587@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> <3D2FFA1B.8050302@tpg.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: reiserfs-list@namesys.com Basil Chupin wrote: > Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > >> On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 15:48:27 +1000, Basil Chupin said: >> >> >> >>> Please let me give a brief resume of why I am trying to find out why >>> my HD is being accessed every 5 seconds (actually it is also >>> occurring on another computer at home and a friend's machine -- and >>> all are running SuSE 8.0). >>> >>> I first asked this Q isn another forum and received the general >>> reply that it all had to do with the reiser fs -- which I didn't >>> really believe. Why? because I didn't recall having this "problem" >>> when I was running SuSE v7.2 with reiser fs. But just to be sure I >>> started doing some testing. >>> >>> I have another HD which I use for testing purposes and on this one I >>> installed SuSE v7.2 undere reiserfs. There was no 5 second accessing >>> on the HD. >>> >>> I then installed SuSE 8 with ext3 (because someone said that the 5 >>> seconds-thingie only happened under reiser) - and I still got the 5 >>> secs access. So, it wasn't confined to reiserfs. >>> >> >> >> Note that ext3 *also* has a 'kjournald' that ticks every 5 seconds. >> >> > Ah, so it has similarities with reiser. > >> I'm willing to bet that the system that wasn't seeing the ticking had all >> the filesystems mounted as ext2, which doesn't have a journal. >> >> > Had you bet you would have lost! :-). All systems are operating under > reiserfs. > > You mentioning kjournald brought to min a conversation I had with a > friend of mine who tends to have a similar approach to me when > starting to run a new system (Linux [SuSE] in this case) and who also > uses a second HD to test new installations before putting them onto > the 'main' system. > > We compared the outputs from the 'ps aux' command and what I found is > that I am not running the kjournald process on any of my (3) 'systems' > while he is (on his 2 'systems') even though our setups are almost > identical (with regards to running SuSE v8 ). I thought kjournald was > part and parcel of reiserfs but then why isn't it running on my > 'systems'? Just another mystery. > > Anyway, I think I have found the reason why I (and my friend and some > other(s)) am having the HD accessed every 5 seconds, and after I have > re-checked my finding I'll post the reason. It may not have anything > directly to do with reiserfs but it may be that another application > may be causing reiserfs to misbehave (in this 5-second syndrome) or, > of course, it has a bug in it causing the kernel to do the 'wrong > thing' (the application does a patch to the kernel). > > Cheers. > I apologise for the delay in following-up on this topic but I have been occupied on other things (including upgrading my system). What I found is that, at least in my case (and my friend's), the 5-second accessing of the HD is caused by Win4Lin. As soon as I/we boot into SuSE without the win4lin kernel the accessing stops and the system is quiet as a mouse. I am in touch with NeTraverse (Win4Lin) and they are investigating this matter. In a different forum someone mentioned that when he un-installed seti-at-home the 5-second accessing on his system stopped - I mention this in case this is of interest to anyone. I did some extensive (for me, that is :-)) testing and found that the 5-second accessing occurs when either reiser or ext3 file systems are installed but the access time "drops" to once every 35 seconds if ext2 fs is used. Interesting (?). Cheers.