[gentoo-amd64] Weird and unpredictable problem: emerge grinds system to a halt

[Petter Haggholm]

The subject is fairly descriptive. Often -- but not always -- an emerge 
will render my system unusable. At a PORTAGE_NICENESS of 3, and fairly 
standard MAKEOPTS of "-j2" (on a single-core system), I'm ... well, 
rather surprised, confused, and very frustrated. I also can't be very 
specific, because I have no real idea of what's causing this, and the 
symptoms are very general: The system becomes unresponsive, the mouse 
will move but with enough of a lag that physically moving it may not 
cause a cursor movement for the next 30 seconds or so, clicking a 
taskbar window may not have an effect at all; sometimes I can't even ssh 
into the system from my other computer (to kill the emerge) because it's 
slow enough that the ssh daemon times out my login attempt. This never 
used to happen, I'm not aware of using any weird settings, I recently 
rebuilt my entire system with conservative CFLAGS (-march=athlon64 -O2 
-pipe -fomit-frame-pointer), and I have an x86 (pentium-m) system with 
very, very similar settings that exhibits no such problems.

Any hints, thoughts, or suggestions would be very much welcomed. System 
info follows.

-- 
Petter Häggholm

----------------------------------------------------------------------

dreadfort ~ # emerge --info
Portage 2.1.2_pre1-r3 (default-linux/amd64/2006.1, gcc-4.1.1, 
glibc-2.4-r3, 2.6.17-gentoo-r7 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.17-gentoo-r7 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.5
Last Sync: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:30:09 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [disabled]
app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present]
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.30
dev-lang/python:     2.4.3-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r6
dev-util/confcache:  [Not Present]
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.60
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.13-r3
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.17-r1
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/eselect/compiler 
/etc/gconf /etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo 
/etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks fixpackages metadata-transfer 
parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.cites.uiuc.edu/pub/gentoo 
http://prometheus.cs.wmich.edu/gentoo 
http://gentoo.chem.wisc.edu/gentoo/ 
http://mirror.espri.arizona.edu/gentoo/ 
http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo/ http://distfiles.gentoo.org"
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
LINGUAS="en"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times 
--compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats 
--timeout=180 --exclude='/distfiles' --exclude='/local' 
--exclude='/packages'"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage 
/usr/portage/local/layman/liferea_overlay 
/usr/portage/local/layman/petter-haggholm"
SYNC="rsync://castleblack/gentoo-portage"
USE="amd64 7zip X a52 aac acpi aim alsa amr apache2 artworkextra avahi 
bash-completion beagle berkdb bitmap-fonts branding bzip2 cairo 
cdinstall cdrom cli crypt cscope cups cursors daap dba dbus divx 
dlloader doc dri dts dvd dvi editor eds elibc_glibc encode fam ffmpeg 
firefox flac foomaticdb fortran gcc64 gcj gdbm gdm gif gimp gimpprint 
glibc-omitfp glitz gmail gmailtimestamps gmedia gnome gnome-print 
gnuplot gnutls gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gstreamer010 gtalk gtk gtk2 gtkhtml 
hal howl-compat icons icq id3 imlib initng_plugins_also 
initng_plugins_bash_launcher initng_plugins_chdir initng_plugins_chroot 
initng_plugins_conflict initng_plugins_cpout initng_plugins_critical 
initng_plugins_cron initng_plugins_daemon initng_plugins_dev 
initng_plugins_dllaunch initng_plugins_envparser initng_plugins_find 
initng_plugins_fstat initng_plugins_history initng_plugins_idleprobe 
initng_plugins_initctl initng_plugins_interactive initng_plugins_iparser 
initng_plugins_last initng_plugins_limit initng_plugins_logfile 
initng_plugins_netprobe initng_plugins_ngc4 initng_plugins_pause 
initng_plugins_pidfile initng_plugins_reload initng_plugins_renice 
initng_plugins_rlparser initng_plugins_simple_launcher 
initng_plugins_stcmd initng_plugins_stdout initng_plugins_suid 
initng_plugins_syncron initng_plugins_syslog initng_plugins_unneeded 
input_devices_evdev input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse ipod 
iproute2 ipv6 isdnlog jabber jpeg kdeenablefinal kernel_linux libg++ 
libnotify linguas_en lm_sensors logitech-mouse logrotate mad math 
mdnsresponder-compat mikmod modplug mono mozcalendar mozdevelop 
moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mozsvg mp3 mp4 mp4live mpeg msn musepack 
music musicbrainz nautilus ncurses network nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin 
nvidia offensive ogg oggvorbis openal opengl pam pcre pdf perl png ppds 
pppd python qt-static quicktime readline realmedia reflection reiserfs 
rhythmbox rtc sdl session sid spl ssl stencil-buffer stream svg t1lib 
tcpd tetex textures themes theora threads thunderbird tiff truetype 
truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb userland_GNU userlocales vcd 
video_cards_nvidia video_cards_vesa videos vim vim-with-x vorbis wma 
wma123 wmf wmp xchat xchatdccserver xcomposite xorg xpm xv xvid xvmc 
yahoo zlib"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

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