Re: 2.5.65: *huge* interactivity problems

["George Glover" <zed@baldwinmail.org>]

I also have a similar problem, when running setiathome with priority 1.

All _running_ applications remain interactive, anything requring disk
access, in particular starting a new program, causes things to block.

I've so far only been in X when this happens, mouse still moves, remote
applications update their windows fine, no lost keystrokes, it's when I
run something locally requiring disk IO.

Renicing setiathome to -19 causes the problem to vanish.

Dragging an xterm around seems to help it recover from a hang too.

> - How much memory does the machine have?

256

> - UP/SMP/preempt?

preempt

>
> - What do vmstat and top say?

3  1   2216  21008  27464  69920    0    0     0     0 1024   241 100  0  0 0
3  1   2216  20176  27464  69920    0    0     0     0 1024   249 100  0  0 0
3  1   2216  20176  27464  69920    0    0     0     0 1024   252  99  1  0 0
3  1   2216  21060  27464  69920    0    0     0     0 1025   236 100  0  0 0

> - Did it happen in 2.5.64?  2.5.63?  2.4.20?

2.5.64

> - Does it get better if you renice stuff?

Yes

> - What steps should others take to reproduce it?

Running setiathome with priority one seems to do it for me.

George