From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266443AbUG0Plx (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Jul 2004 11:41:53 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266381AbUG0Plx (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Jul 2004 11:41:53 -0400 Received: from holomorphy.com ([207.189.100.168]:13956 "EHLO holomorphy.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266449AbUG0Ph5 (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Jul 2004 11:37:57 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 08:32:29 -0700 From: William Lee Irwin III To: Joel.Becker@oracle.com, Tim Connors , Con Kolivas , Clemens Schwaighofer , Andrew Morton , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: Autotune swappiness01 Message-ID: <20040727153229.GC2334@holomorphy.com> Mail-Followup-To: William Lee Irwin III , Joel.Becker@oracle.com, Tim Connors , Con Kolivas , Clemens Schwaighofer , Andrew Morton , Linux Kernel Mailing List References: <20040726202946.GD26075@ca-server1.us.oracle.com> <20040726134258.37531648.akpm@osdl.org> <4105A761.9090905@tequila.co.jp> <20040726180943.4c871e4f.akpm@osdl.org> <4105AD1C.2050507@tequila.co.jp> <20040727034739.GA2161@ca-server1.us.oracle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040727034739.GA2161@ca-server1.us.oracle.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040523i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 08:47:39PM -0700, Joel Becker wrote: > I happen to be a person who rolls his eyes at everyone's mention > of micro-optimized "feel". I've found that any system faster than > 300MHz is pretty decent for normal desktop work (that is, moz + lots of > terminals in gnome/kde). Yes, I'm a luddite, I used to wait 45 seconds > for moz to start in the morning on the 300Mhz. I survived. > In general, I can't notice the difference between 2.6.anything > on my 1GHz. Maybe everyone else can, but I can't. > HOWEVER, the swappiness of '60' puts my system into > fits-and-starts mode. Not "It feels slower", but "It pauses for seconds > at a time." So I chimed in on this. > And yes, I'd give up oodles of pagecache to avoid fits and > starts. But there's got to be a way to use the pagecache and not hang > for seconds at a time. I've had similar experiences except for the pauses. Could you identify this as idle time, iowait, or cpu time (user/kernel)? Also, does this behavior change at all as the IO scheduler varies? And could you describe the system, e.g. IO devices/etc.? -- wli