Slow performance on Hoary/Gutsy

[sktsee]

On Sun, 04 May 2008 21:45:03 +0200, Torbjörn Österdahl wrote:

> There is a swap partition but the used flag is 0. I do not know if this
> is normal.

Yes, it just means that your system has enough free memory and doesn't 
need to swap out to disk. 

> 
> Running hdparm -Tt resulted in a strange result when running it on
> /dev/sda4, which is my '/' partition. This partition is about 30 Gig,
> but hdparm still complains that it is to small. 'fdisk' lists it as a
> 'Extended' partition. I am not sure if this extended partition is
> necessary(?).

That's normal. An extended partition isn't like a regular partition, but 
rather is a "container" for logical partitions. I have an extended 
partition on my drive and hdparm gave the same error message when running 
timing tests on it. 
> 
> swapon -s
> Filename   Type Size Used Priority
> /dev/sda5  partition 1951856 0 -1
> 
> sudo fdisk -l
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track,
> 14593 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk
> identifier: 0x1ed81ed7
> 
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1        3649    29310561   83  Linux /dev/sda4 
>           3650       14593    87907680    5  Extended /dev/sda5         
>   3650        3892     1951866   82  Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda6            3893       14593    85955751   83  Linux
> 
> 
> torost at media:~$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda1
> 
> /dev/sda1:
>  Timing cached reads:   724 MB in  2.00 seconds = 361.74 MB/sec Timing
>  buffered disk reads:  112 MB in  3.02 seconds =  37.09 MB/sec
> torost at media:~$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda4
> 
> /dev/sda4:
> read(2097152) returned 1024 bytes
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  read() hit EOF - device too small
> torost at media:~$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda6
> 
> /dev/sda6:
>  Timing cached reads:   678 MB in  2.00 seconds = 339.04 MB/sec Timing
>  buffered disk reads:  118 MB in  3.02 seconds =  39.04 MB/sec
> torost at media:~$
> 
>  sudo gpart /dev/sda
> 
> Begin scan...
> Possible partition(Linux ext2), size(28623mb), offset(0mb) Possible
> extended partition at offset(28623mb)
>    Possible partition(Linux swap), size(1906mb), offset(28623mb)
>    Possible partition(Linux ext2), size(83941mb), offset(30529mb)
> End scan.
> 
> Checking partitions...
> Partition(Linux ext2 filesystem): primary
>    Partition(Linux swap or Solaris/x86): logical Partition(Linux ext2
>    filesystem): logical
> Ok.
> 
> Guessed primary partition table:
> Primary partition(1)
>    type: 131(0x83)(Linux ext2 filesystem) size: 28623mb #s(58621120)
>    s(63-58621182) chs:  (0/1/1)-(1023/254/63)d (0/1/1)-(3648/254/61)r
> 
> Primary partition(2)
>    type: 015(0x0F)(Extended DOS, LBA)
>    size: 85847mb #s(175815360) s(58621185-234436544) chs: 
>    (1023/254/63)-(1023/254/63)d (3649/0/1)-(14592/254/63)r
> 
> Primary partition(3)
>    type: 000(0x00)(unused)
>    size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
>    chs:  (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
> 
> Primary partition(4)
>    type: 000(0x00)(unused)
>    size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
>    chs:  (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
> 

The timing tests on your system beat mine, and my machine runs fine so 
I'd say that disk performance probably isn't the source of sluggishness 
on your system. You may still want try doing comparison timing tests with 
the LiveCD's of Gutsy and Hardy. If there's no appreciable difference 
between OS versions, then it becomes more likely then slowness is caused 
by something else. 

-- 
sktsee