8.04 super slow on dell 2550

[Jason Joines]

John Pugh wrote:
> According to this kernel bug
> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11120
> 
> it is due to a change implemented there. I did not look at the source in
> Ubuntu, but would anticipate that it is not changed since most adapter
> firmware can handle the load with the new setting.
> 
> I would concur with Sebastien to verify the adapter firmware is up to
> date as I would hope that Dell would fix it.
> 
> JP
> 
> On 04/30/2009 11:22 AM, Sebastien Estienne wrote:
>> Have you applied all the firmware upgrade to this server BIOS + raid controller?
>>
>> Sebastien Estienne
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 17:16, Jason Joines <joines at as.okstate.edu> wrote:
>>> Sebastien Estienne wrote:
>>>> try benchmarking with a jaunty live cd mounting you hardy partition so
>>>> you can test a newer kernel
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Sebastien E.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Le 27 avr. 09 à 20:15, Jason Joines <joines at as.okstate.edu> a écrit :
>>>>
>>>>>      I have a dell 2550 server that I want to get Ubuntu on.  I
>>>>> tried a
>>>>> few months ago with the initial 8.04 release and the install was so
>>>>> slow
>>>>> I gave up.  I had tried the mini.iso cd, desktop cd, server cd, and
>>>>> alternate cd with the same results.
>>>>>
>>>>>      Recently I decided to try again with the 8.04.2 media and just
>>>>> let
>>>>> it keep running.  Instead of assuming it had timed out I would go
>>>>> check
>>>>> on it once a day and after many days it was finally installed.  As an
>>>>> example of the slow install, when using the text install and at the
>>>>> point where the dialog said "Installing the base system" it took 66
>>>>> minutes to go from a 33% status to a 39% status.  Also, by watching
>>>>> logs
>>>>> it seemed that the package retrieval from the internet was really fast
>>>>> but it became super slow any time it was "unpacking".
>>>>>
>>>>>      The system has a broadcom1 Gbps nic, two pentium III 933 cpu's, 1
>>>>> GB of RAM, three 74 GB u160 scsi drives configured as raid 0 via the
>>>>> builtin dell raid controller which is using the aacraid module.  I've
>>>>> tried both ext3 and xfs as the filesystem.
>>>>>
>>>>>      This system was running windows server 2k3 and wasn't noticeably
>>>>> slow.  I also have an identical system that is running Ubuntu 7.10 and
>>>>> it seems to be over three times as fast via these simple tests:
>>>>>
>>>>>      7.10 System running 2.6.22 kernel
>>>>> dd if=/dev/zero of=gigfile00 bs=1k count=1048576
>>>>> 1048576+0 records in
>>>>> 1048576+0 records out
>>>>> 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 29.5587 seconds, 36.3 MB/s
>>>>>
>>>>> dd if=/dev/zero of=gigfile00 bs=1M count=1024
>>>>> 1024+0 records in
>>>>> 1024+0 records out
>>>>> 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 29.1349 seconds, 36.9 MB/s
>>>>>
>>>>>      8.04.2 System running 2.6.24 kernel
>>>>> dd if=/dev/zero of=gigfile00 bs=1M count=1024
>>>>> 1024+0 records in
>>>>> 1024+0 records out
>>>>> 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 98.4516 s, 10.9 MB/s
>>>>>
>>>>> dd if=/dev/zero of=gigfile00 bs=1k count=1048576
>>>>> 1048576+0 records in
>>>>> 1048576+0 records out
>>>>> 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 93.9246 s, 11.4 MB/s
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>      I found this bug report
>>>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/249964 about
>>>>> these
>>>>> smp systems having the aacraid driver hang under high load.  However,
>>>>> this box isn't under any load and I haven't had any of the log
>>>>> messages
>>>>> reported.  I decided to try the fix anyway so I recompiled the kernel
>>>>> after changing:
>>>>> #define AAC_MAX_32BIT_SGBCOUNT  ((unsigned short)256)
>>>>> to
>>>>> #define AAC_MAX_32BIT_SGBCOUNT  ((unsigned short)127)
>>>>> in aacraid.  It didn't help.
>>>>>
>>>>>      I also tried disabling smp via "maxcpus=1" in grub.  It did
>>>>> disable
>>>>> smp but it didn't help.
>>>>>
>>>>>      Any suggestions?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Jason Joines
>>>>> =================================
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> ubuntu-server mailing list
>>>>> ubuntu-server at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server
>>>>> More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
>>>     I booted from a 9.04 cd and ran dd from the installer shell.  The
>>> kerenel was 2.6.28.  I got the same results as far as speed is
>>> concerned.  However, I was eventually able to generate the errors and
>>> hang reported by others in the bug report:
>>>
>>> aacraid: Host adapter abort request (2,0,0,0)
>>> aacraid: Host adapt reset request. SCSI hang?
>>>
>>>     Is this a vanilla kernel bug or Ubuntu specific?  I need to get
>>> this box up and running so if another distribution doesn't have the bug
>>> I could change.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jason
>>> ===========
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ubuntu-server mailing list
>>> ubuntu-server at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server
>>> More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
> 

     The BIOS and firmware are all up to date.

     Assuming testing the fix in that bug report just involves changing
#define AAC_MAX_32BIT_SGBCOUNT ((unsigned short)256)
to
#define AAC_MAX_32BIT_SGBCOUNT ((unsigned short)127)
in aacraid.h and then recompiling the kernel, I tried it and it didn't help.


Jason
===========