Re: [gentoo-user] problems with performance when booted using systemd

J. Roeleveld <joost@××××××××.org> wrote:

> On Friday, June 06, 2014 01:59:18 AM covici@××××××××××.com wrote:
> > Hi.  I am having some strange performance problems when booted under
> > systemd.  These problems happened a little bit under openrc, but are
> > much more pronounced with systemd.
>
> I don't think it's necessarily systemd itself, just a setting that systemd
> does differently then openrc. See below for more.
>
> > I am using just virtual consoles, no gui whatsoever at the moment.  I
> > also use tmux with 4 windows in one of the vcs.  My system is an i7
> > processor, quod core and 16g of ram and 2g of swap space which appears
> > not to be used.  I am using uvesafb for the console, so I get 64x160
> > screens.
>
> Sounds similar to my laptop, except I run KDE and got 16g of swap (for
> hibernate)
>
> > The first problem is that if I don't press any keystrokes for several
> > minutes and then want to move to another vc, it takes about 3 or 4
> > seconds after the alt-left arrow or alt-right arrow command to take
> > effect.  Even within the same vt, if I don't do anything for several
> > minutes, it takes several seconds till the keystroke echoes and
> > something happens.  Once I have done this, things act normally, but its
> > kind of annoying.
>
> Sounds like a powersave setting. I used to get the same on my old laptop with
> spinning rust. SSDs tend to "spin-up" a lot quicker.
>
> > Also, my load average seems to always be >1.  I have
> > looked at top and things seem to be OK, except that my cpu usage is like
> > this:
> > Tasks: 934 total,   2 running, 931 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
> > %Cpu(s): 12.5 us,  1.2 sy,  0.0 ni, 86.0 id,  0.2 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,
> > 0.0 st
> > KiB Mem:  16450248 total,  9678656 used,  6771592 free,  1084088 buffers
> > KiB Swap:  2097148 total,        4 used,  2097144 free.  1147688 cached
> > Mem
> >
> >   PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+
> >   COMMAND
> >  9969 root      20   0     708     16      0 R 100.0  0.0   1549:10 v86d
> >   579 root      30  10       0      0      0 S   9.1  0.0  16:09.93
> >   speakup
> > 11789 root      20   0   22524   2388   1116 R   0.7  0.0   0:00.03 top
> >     7 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0   0:10.41
> >   kworker/u:0H
> >
> > and onward ...
> > This is an awful lot of tasks, I have never seen so many!
>
> That is a lot, I am currently running KDE, firefox and a citrix remote desktop
> thing. (oh, and skype and kopete and a few other items)
> KDE is installed with semantic-desktop, but the nepomuk stuff is disabled in
> system-settings.
> I have 200 tasks (yes, nice round figure)
>
> > Anyone have any ideas?  Thanks much.
>
> For the amount of tasks, check that you are not starting too many unneeded
> services. For the load-average of 1, shouldn't be too much of an issue, had
> similar in the past with a lot of stuff running and slow disks.
>
> For the freezing, I would suggest checking all the powersave options,
> especially the ones for the harddrives.
> Is there anything in the logs when this happens? Eg. check the logs right
> after the system becomes responsible again, maybe there is a hint there what
> is causing this.

Well, not a peep out of the logs -- I did journaldctl -rb right after
one of those pauses and not an entry -- in fact it  looked like mail was
being received, etc right along.


-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@××××××××××.com