Hello. Very weird issue. Have NO IDEA what is going on. Recently (a few days back) ran emerge sync, emerge world, and etc-update. Rebooted. Since then, the system has been running very slowly (lots of disk access). I have a system monitor running and usually it shows only maybe 10% of memory free, with a good 80% of memory (I have 1GB) devoted to cache. Now, the disk cache hardly ever gets above 125MB, and I've got about 800MB of memory completely unused, even after extensive compiling, etc. I have not upgraded the kernel or tweaked any system settings (unless etc-update or something else did). I have not touched /proc or /sys. There have been no hardware changes or anything like that. What kind of package or program would even dare touch the cache settings? And more importantly, how can I restore them back to a usable state? Thanks
emerge --info? dmesg output? kernel .config? We cannot guess, sorry.
hypernelson steve # emerge --info Portage 2.1.3.19 (default-linux/x86/2006.1, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.6.1-r0, 2.6.17.6 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.17.6 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz Timestamp of tree: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:00:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 3.2_p17 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.33-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4-r6 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.9-r2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.61-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r1 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.24 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.22-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -pipe -fpermissive" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/ ftp://ftp.ndlug.nd.edu/pub/gentoo/ http://mirror.phy.olemiss.edu/mirror/gentoo http://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/mirrors/gentoo ftp://213.186.33.37/gentoo-distfiles/ ftp://213.186.33.38/gentoo-distfiles/ ftp://gentoo.imj.fr/pub/gentoo/ ftp://194.117.143.69/sites/gentoo http://194.117.143.70/ http://194.117.143.71/" LINGUAS="en_US" 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 --filter=H_**/files/digest-*" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X a52 aac aalib acpi alsa bitmap-fonts bzip2 cli cracklib crypt cups dri dvd dvdread encode firefox fortran fpu frontendonly gif gpm gtk gtk2 iconv isdnlog jpeg jpg kde kdeenablefinal libcaca midi mmx mp3 mudflap mysql ncurses nls nptl nptlonly opengl openmp oss pam pcre perl png ppds pppd python readline real reflection session spell spl sse sse2 ssl tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode win32codecs x264 x86 xinerama xorg xv xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="kbd keyboard mouse synaptics" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en_US" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="radeon fglrx" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
Created attachment 137122 [details] Kernel config (2.6.17.6) Added emerge --info and kconfig. Hope this provides more information. This truly is a bizzare issue. Can't think of what has changed other than package/config versions. I've been on this kernel for a long, long time without and such issue.
2.6.17.6??? Please reopen if you have issues with a supported kernel, i.e. gentoo-sources-2.6.22-r9 or newer. Noone will ponder and fix bugs is obsolete kernels.
The cache on this kernel has been working fine for at least six months, and I haven't touched the kernel. I cannot go to a newer kernel due to a blocking power management bug, currently open in upstream: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9151 The kernel itself isn't likely the problem.
Well, we are not fixing 2.6.17 kernels, sorry. As said above, if you can reproduce this w/ a supported kernel, reopen the bug.
