2.4.10-ac3+preempt opening PDF eliminates responsiveness

2.4.10-ac3+preempt opening PDF eliminates responsiveness

[brian]

I'm running 2.4.10-ac3+preempt on a K6-3/366 with 128MB RAM.

I tried to open the file flag.pdf in ghostview 

-rw-r--r--   1 brian    console    229365 Oct  1 22:49 flag.pdf

The system became almost completely unresponsive.  The mouse would
move every 20 seconds or so.   The hard drive indicator on the laptop
was basically on the whole time, and I could hear the drive
making noise.

The computer was working just had become nearly unresponsive just
occasionally moving the mouse pointer every 20 seconds or so.

I ctrl-alt-bs'd the X session and eventually the X session came down and
everything returned to normal as far as responsiveness is concerned.

Just brought X back up and continued as normal.

The behavior is repeatable.  And the same thing happens if I try to
open the flag.pdf file in gimp.

I suppose if I waited long enough both gimp and ghostview would
eventually come up.

However, I'm sure the system isn't meant to grind to a halt while
bringing up that file.

-- 
Brian Litzinger <brian@worldcontrol.com>

    Copyright (c) 2000 By Brian Litzinger, All Rights Reserved

Re: 2.4.10-ac3+preempt opening PDF/netscape eliminates responsiveness

[brian]

On Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 04:34:44PM -0700, Brian Litzinger wrote:
> I'm running 2.4.10-ac3+preempt on a K6-3/366 with 128MB RAM.
> 
> I tried to open the file flag.pdf in ghostview 
> 
> -rw-r--r--   1 brian    console    229365 Oct  1 22:49 flag.pdf
> 
> The system became almost completely unresponsive.  The mouse would
> move every 20 seconds or so.   The hard drive indicator on the laptop
> was basically on the whole time, and I could hear the drive
> making noise.

-ac5 did not help with long periods of frozen X syndrome.

A number of people suggested trying 2.4.11pre2 or later.

Unfortunately, I was unable to build 2.4.11pre4 and ext3.

Newest patch at http://www.uow.edu.au/~andrewm/linux/ext3/
is for 2.4.10 and that patch had more patch errors than I
could manage when applied to 2.4.11pre4.

I did however find another easy way to cause the problem to happen:

point netscape 4.78 at

http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0109.3/index.html

Do an edit/find on the word 'netcon'.

The second I press find, the X cursor is frozen for 8 seconds,
then moves a little bit, and then is frozen for another 50 seconds.

This is 2.4.10-ac5 on a K6-3/366 with 128MB RAM.

-- 
Brian Litzinger <brian@worldcontrol.com>

    Copyright (c) 2000 By Brian Litzinger, All Rights Reserved