Help Diagnose Slow Disc Access
by Mike McCarty
My machine has been running slower and slower, and top seems
to indicate lots of I/O wait. I have two ATA discs on a single
cable, wired for cable select. The master is much faster than
the slave, which seems to indicate a hardware, possibly disc,
problem.
Trimmed output:
$ mount
/dev/hda5 on / type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hdb1 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hda3 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
Here's the master, and faster, disc:
$ sudo /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/hda
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77545 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 8625 4346968+ b W95 FAT32
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda2 * 8626 60915 26354160 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda3 60916 61118 102312 83 Linux
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda4 61119 77545 8279208 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hda5 61119 76505 7755016+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 76506 77545 524128+ 82 Linux swap
Here's the slave, and slower, disc:
$ sudo /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/hdb
Disk /dev/hdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 38913 312568641 83 Linux
Here are some timings on an otherwise completely
unloaded machine:
$ ls -l *.iso /tmp/*.iso
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jmccarty jmccarty 724559872 Nov 17 22:23
KNOPPIX_V6.2CD-2009-11-18-EN.iso
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jmccarty jmccarty 724559872 Feb 5 17:30
/tmp/KNOPPIX_V6.2CD-2009-11-18-EN.iso
$ time cp KNOPPIX_V6.2CD-2009-11-18-EN.iso fred.iso
real 16m19.492s
user 0m0.169s
sys 0m5.461s
$ time cp /tmp/KNOPPIX_V6.2CD-2009-11-18-EN.iso /tmp/fred.iso
real 1m12.639s
user 0m0.165s
sys 0m5.414s
All discs pass fsck with no problems, though the larger (slower)
disc takes an extremely long time to do so.
I tried using smartctl and it doesn't report any anomalies that
I can see, though when I tried running the self tests, the "fast"
disc passed, but the "slow" disc didn't complete the test in a
reasonable amount of time (over 1/2 hour) each time I tried.
This was done with all file systems mounted.
I have shut down, powered down, and unplugged, then reseated
the all the ATA cable connectors, and reseated all RAM, and
the add-on video board etc., with no change to the timings.
Can anyone give me advice on how to proceed with diagnostics?
What diagnostics does Linux provide which can help me figure
out what's going on? Is there a way to get statistics on
missing interrupts, for example? Perhaps the disc is not generating,
or the cable is dropping, IRQs, and the kernel is falling back
to polling, for example. That's the kind of information I'm
looking for. Something to point me in the direction of where
I may be having a hardware problem.
Mike
--
p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
Oppose globalization and One World Governments like the UN.
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
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I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!
14 years, 3 months
Brother HL-2040 not printing
by Philip Heron
Hi all,
Has anyone had any success printing to a Brother HL-2040 in Fedora
11/12? I've had one for a few years now and it's worked right up until
F11. I thought it was the printer itself at the time, but someone just
tried it with a Mac and it worked fine.
There is no error on the computer, it tells me the document printed. The
printer LED starts to blink as though it is about to start but after
about 10 seconds it stops again.
I'm using the "Brother HL-2060 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.4 Simplified" driver.
-Phil
14 years, 3 months
RE: Trying to convert a LVM partition to non-LVM
by Styma, Robert E (Robert)
> Subject: Re: Trying to convert a LVM partition to non-LVM
>
> I've never gone from LVM to native disk, but are you sure you have
> copied your MBR to the new disk?
>
>
> On 1 March 2010 11:18, Styma, Robert E (Robert)
> <robert.styma(a)alcatel-lucent.com> wrote:
> > I was working on a linux box which had a failing disk over
> > the weekend. It still booted, but flagged smartd errors
> > and had a couple of damaged files which were fortunately
> > replaceable (eclipse install tgz).
> >
> > I booted Spinrite to make the drive readable and then planned
> > to use system rescue CD and gparted to copy to an identical
> > drive. Unfortunately, the machine used the default boot
> > partition (ext3) and LVM for the root and swap partitions.
> > gpartd cannot currently deal with LVM partitions. This is
> > too bad as it is a great tool.
> >
> > I initially tried laying out the partitions without LVM and
> > tar copying the root partition over. The /boot partition had
> > gone across with gpartd. I changed the grub.conf file and
> > the /etc/fstab file and even the /etc/mtab file. In each
> > case, the system would start to boot and then the kernel would
> > panic looking for the logical volumes.
> >
> > In the end, I just laid out the partitions to match the original
> > drive and dd'ed both physical partitions to the new drive and it
> > worked.
> >
> > My question becomes, "What file(s) other than fstab and grub.conf
> > need to change to change the root parttion from an LVM parition
> > to a normal ext partition such as sda2?"
> >
> > I feel like I am close, but no cigar
> >
> > Bob Styma
I forgot to mention that I used the grub command from system rescue CD
to fix up the mbr after I put the new drive in the machine by itself:
grub
...
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
It is possible that I needed to also setup the partition boot record.
with
setup (hd0,0)
14 years, 3 months
RE:Emacs has very large characters
by Vincent
> Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:10:11 -0500
> From: "Steven F. LeBrun" <steven(a)lebruns.com>
> Subject: Re: Emacs has very large characters
> On 02/26/2010 02:35 PM, Vincent Onelli wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I installed emacs from software that comes with Fedora 12, the
> > characters are so large that makes unusable. Any body know how to
> > correct it to a standard font?
> >
> >
> Emacs, by default, should be using the system standard font unless
> otherwise specified to use a different font. You should check your X
> resources files (~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources) and your .emacs file
to
> see if something is specifying the large font that you are seeing.
>
>
> There are a couple of ways that you can specify the font to be used
in
> emacs.
>
> One way is to set the value in your ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources
file.
>
> emacs.font: 8x16
>
> Another way is to set it for an individual session of Emacs by using
> command line arguments:
>
> emacs --font=9x15
>
> Yet another way, which is my preference, involve setting the font in
> emacs itself using emacs-lisp. Basically what you want to do is
change
> the value of emacs variable default-frame-alist which controls how
new
> frames are created. Again, there are several ways to do this.
>
> Method 1: Customization
> 1) Start emacs
> 2) Enter Cntrl-H v default-frame-alist
> 3) Move your cursor over the underlined "customize" that is in
the
> sentence just above "Value:"
> 4) Hit Enter
> 5) This brings you to a customization frame where you can set
values
> in default-frame-alist.
> 6) If the Parameter font already exists, change its value to the
> font that you want.
> 7) Otherwise, click (using enter key) the last "INS" button.
> 7a) replace the nil on the Parameter line with font.
> 7b) replace the nil on the Value line with the name of the X
> font that you want.
> 8) Click (using the enter key) the button near the top with the
label
> "Save for future sessions". This will add emacs-lisp code to your
> .emacs file to automatically set the font value each time you start
emacs.
>
>
> Method 2: Modifying .emacs - adding to default-frame-alist
> Add the following line to your .emacs file:
>
> (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(font . "9x15"))
>
> where the 9x15 is the name of the font that you want to use.
>
> Method 3: Modifying .emacs - setting default-frame-alist
> Add the following emacs-lisp code to your .emacs file, modifying as
desired:
>
> (setq default-frame-alist
> '((width . 80)
> (height . 40)
> (menu-bar-lines . 1)
> (background-color . "cornsilk")
> (foreground-color . "navy")
> (name . "Emacs")
> (horizontal-scroll-bars . 1)
> (vertical-scroll-bars . 1)
> (font . "8x16")
> ))
>
> This is the method that I use because I like setting colors and a few
> other frame parameters to my liking.
>
> For list of available fonts, look in the fonts.alias files in
> /usr/share/X11/fonts/*/ directories.
>
> --
> Steven F. LeBrun
Thank you so much for detail info, those are big help since I am at very
beginning of using emacs. The problem was not within emacs, I had some
other strange conditions also, it was do to the upgrading that I had
done from f11 to f12, it was suggested to me that it is best to do a
fresh installation so I did a fresh total installation and every thing
wend back to normal. Thank you again
Vinny
14 years, 3 months
logwatch customizing?
by Tom Horsley
I was formerly able to edit the file
/usr/share/logwatch/scripts/services/dovecot
to discard all the individual dovecot deliver messages
about storing each message in each mailbox.
Now, even though my pattern clearly matches the
message, my changes no longer take effect.
Is logwatch doing some sort of "compilation" process
or something on these scripts which I need to do
to make my changes take effect?
14 years, 3 months
info about how much memory ramfs is using
by Gianluca Cecchi
Hello,
If I set a ramfs file system like this on a Fedora 12 system (but I think it
is the same in general):
mkdir /ramfs
mount -t ramfs -o size=10m ramfs /ramfs
I can see it via mount but not via df command.
[root@tekkaman ~]# mount
ramfs on /ramfs type ramfs (rw,size=10m)
As ramfs is dynamic and can go beyond initial set, how can I see how much
memory is using?
For example in my case where I set 10MB, I can do
[root@tekkaman ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/ramfs/testfile bs=1024k count=30
30+0 records in
30+0 records out
31457280 bytes (31 MB) copied, 0.0393341 s, 800 MB/s
But mount gives the same result
ramfs on /ramfs type ramfs (rw,size=10m)
Is there any other virtual file to show up its usage?
Thanks,
Gianluca
14 years, 3 months
KMail / Akonadi mess
by John Aldrich
I would like to apologize for my tone yesterday but I was (and still
am) very frustrated over Fedora updates that appear to have broken my
KMail.
Here's what I get when I try to run "akonadictl start" from Konsole:
I tried starting Akonadiserver manually from Konsole, but "akonadictl
start" just gets me this:
[akonadiserver] "[
[akonadiserver] 0: akonadiserver(_Z11akBacktracev+0x39) [0x40ac09]
[akonadiserver] 1: akonadiserver [0x40b152]
[akonadiserver] 2: /lib64/libc.so.6 [0x31c04332f0]
[akonadiserver] 3: /lib64/libc.so.6(gsignal+0x35) [0x31c0433275]
[akonadiserver] 4: /lib64/libc.so.6(abort+0x175) [0x31c0434a55]
[akonadiserver] 5:
/usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(_Z17qt_message_output9QtMsgTypePKc+0x74)
[0x3fb4a6b7e4]
[akonadiserver] 6:
akonadiserver(_ZN15FileDebugStream9writeDataEPKcx+0xa8) [0x40c278]
[akonadiserver] 7:
/usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(_ZN9QIODevice5writeEPKcx+0x78) [0x3fb4af9c68]
[akonadiserver] 8: /usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4 [0x3fb4b0b729]
[akonadiserver] 9:
/usr/lib64/libQtCore.so.4(_ZN11QTextStreamD1Ev+0x39) [0x3fb4b0c919]
[akonadiserver] 10: akonadiserver(_ZN6QDebugD1Ev+0x4e) [0x4068fe]
[akonadiserver] 11:
/usr/lib64/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServer25startMysqlDatabaseProcessEv+0x182b)
[0x3fb5c5946b]
[akonadiserver] 12:
/usr/lib64/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServer20startDatabaseProcessEv+0x2e0)
[0x3fb5c5dfd0]
[akonadiserver] 13:
/usr/lib64/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServerC1EP7QObject+0x76)
[0x3fb5c5e276]
[akonadiserver] 14:
/usr/lib64/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServer8instanceEv+0x4a)
[0x3fb5c5f57a]
[akonadiserver] 15: akonadiserver(main+0x3b8) [0x405f28]
[akonadiserver] 16: /lib64/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xfd) [0x31c041ea4d]
[akonadiserver] 17: akonadiserver [0x405a79]
[akonadiserver] ]
[akonadiserver] "
ProcessControl: Application 'akonadiserver' returned with exit code
255 (Unknown error)
[akonadiserver] search paths: ("/usr/lib64/qt-3.3/bin",
"/usr/kerberos/sbin", "/usr/kerberos/bin", "/usr/lib64/ccache",
"/usr/local/bin", "/usr/bin", "/bin", "/usr/local/sbin", "/usr/sbin",
"/sbin", "/home/john/bin", "/usr/sbin", "/usr/local/sbin",
"/usr/local/libexec", "/usr/libexec", "/opt/mysql/libexec",
"/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin")
[akonadiserver] Database process exited unexpectedly during initial
connection!
[akonadiserver] executable: "/usr/libexec/mysqld"
[akonadiserver] arguments:
("--defaults-file=/home/john/.local/share/akonadi//mysql.conf",
"--datadir=/home/john/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/",
"--socket=/home/john/.local/share/akonadi/db_misc/mysql.socket")
[akonadiserver] stdout: ""
[akonadiserver] stderr: ""
[akonadiserver] exit code: 1
[akonadiserver] process error: "Unknown error"
[akonadiserver] "[
Anyone here got any clue what's going on and why it's not working?
Kmail starts up and then hangs while a message pops up stating
"starting Akonadiserver" but Akonadiserver never starts up.
HELP!!!
14 years, 3 months
