Some more tests with 2.4.12-ac3-vmpatch-freeswap-preempt:
I started the following command:
$> tree -d /
The first time, this went really quick, the second time though,
the system would freeze every now and then, output to the konsole
(kde) stopped for a moment; I could hear /dev/hda spinning like
crazy (and making some grinding sounds; very desperate; old disk?).
I let this finish, everything OK.
Now I started this command from my $HOME (3,7G; 81947 files):
$> find . | xargs slocate | sort | uniq -c | head -1
Useless I know, but it can make your system scream ;)
This is some info on the system:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ dmesg | egrep "clock |Mem"
Memory: 577440k/589824k available \
(1177k kernel code, 12000k reserved, \
347k data, 236k init, 0k highmem)
..... CPU clock speed is 852.0020 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 100.2353 MHz.
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ df
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 387M 79M 288M 22% /
/dev/hda5 387M 35M 332M 10% /tmp
/dev/hda6 387M 122M 245M 33% /var
/dev/hda8 2.7G 1.4G 1.1G 55% /usr
/dev/hdc1 19G 10G 7.7G 57% /home
/dev/hdd6 3.2G 1.2G 1.9G 39% /mnt/lfs
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ cat /proc/swaps
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/hda7 partition 104380 104380 -1
/dev/hdd5 partition 1465592 473372 -2
--[snip]--
First, it's a bit jumpy:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 561 2 0 0 14
-/+ buffers/cache: 545 18
Swap: 1533 492 1040
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 140 423 0 0 14
-/+ buffers/cache: 126 438
Swap: 1533 85 1448
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 561 2 0 0 11
-/+ buffers/cache: 549 14
Swap: 1533 500 1032
--[snip]--
There's some nice *idle* time that top reports:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ top
9:48pm up 1 day, 5:27, 3 users, load average: 4.20, 4.24, 3.46
103 processes: 96 sleeping, 7 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 36.8% user, 39.8% system, 23.4% nice, 847133.3% idle
Mem: 577676K av, 574612K used, 3064K free, 0K shrd, 576K buff
Swap: 1569972K av, 1158692K used, 411280K free 12476K
cached
PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT LIB %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
23732 elko 20 0 1354M 308M 532 R 307M 40.3 54.6 1:43 slocate
991 elko 20 15 15080 13M 672 R N 0 25.9 2.4 771:52 setiathome
992 elko 18 16 15208 13M 772 R N 0 13.1 2.4 771:39 setiathome
5 root 20 0 0 0 0 RW 0 9.8 0.0 0:33 kswapd
899 elko 11 0 2752 2000 1412 S 0 6.8 0.3 117:54 gkrellm
23756 elko 15 0 1468 1468 1224 R 0 1.5 0.2 0:00 top
800 root 9 0 48584 4132 3100 R 0 1.1 0.7 16:43 X
--[snip]--
And again:
--[snip]--
10:09pm up 1 day, 5:48, 3 users, load average: 4.04, 3.33, 3.11
103 processes: 99 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 47.1% user, 17.6% system, 35.4% nice, 850488.3% idle
--[snip]--
I stopped the test here:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 561 2 0 0 13
-/+ buffers/cache: 547 16
Swap: 1533 1177 355
--[snip]--
1 eyeblink later:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 74 489 0 0 12
-/+ buffers/cache: 61 503
Swap: 1533 83 1449
--[snip]--
So it seems that a lot of swap is perfectly released
the instant it isn't needed anymore (not everything,
since I started with (almost) no swap used in the first
place).
What I can report further, is that keyboard/mouse response
(^C in konsole) would sometimes not react, but 3 to 5 seconds
later, the action would be taken (^C, move mouse):
I'm running the same test now, and I'm seeing the same results,
system freezes (while I'm typing this), and a few seonds later,
response is back, and swap drops down to ~zero, keystrokes are
cached correctly though, just had another freeze, kept typing..
.. .. and here are my characters :^) and swap is freed again:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 462 101 0 0 12
-/+ buffers/cache: 450 113
Swap: 1533 85 1447
--[snip]--
This is nice to see happening when things slow down:
--[snip]--
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 561 2 0 0 12
-/+ buffers/cache: 547 16
[elko@ElkOS elko]$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 564 82 481 0 0 13
-/+ buffers/cache: 68 495
Swap: 1533 81 1451
--[snip]--
My current conclusion: this combination of kernel and patches
is the most responsive I've ever used, normally, when I run
these command's, my systems would freeze to the point I had
to give them the VNP.
I'll kick it some more though ;/
-- ElkOS: 10:39pm up 1 day, 6:18, 3 users, load average: 2.27, 2.67, 3.14 bofhX: Mailer-daemon is busy burning your message in hell. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/