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mogosjoh
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 5:21 pm    Post subject: Gentoo Linux... 6 Months Later Reply with quote

Well, I've been running gentoo full time now for over six months, and I've been overall very happy with it, but I do have some complaints. I am assuing that some (hopefully all) of these things are happening because of my own oversights, but who knows. Maybe I just need to wait for the 2.6 kernel to come out. Anyway, here goes:

-multitasking. everybody touts it. it works well, but, for instance, when I am extracting shn files as a regular user (not root) and I try to do other things, everything is slow. My mouse jumps around screen, my typing is erratic at best, and the system is generally laggy

-cd-burning. (most of the time) good, sometimes really bad. For instance, last night I coasterized 10 CDs. That's more coasters than I've made in the last year. I even tried switching brands, thinking that maybe I got a bad batch of fujis (although all of the rest of that stack worked fine). To no avail. I've burned roughly 200 CD's under linux in the last 3 months, mainly audio, and most of them have been on my 32x lite-on, which is a great little drive. Recently, though, the data-side comes out "textured" looking, and unable to play in spots on my CD-Player. Needless to say, this is unacceptable. The only thing that I have changed recently is my hdparm settings (now at hdparm -X 69 -c 3 -d 1 -u 1 -m 16, used to be hdparm -d 1), and this seems to have sped up my drives in tests (hdparm -Tt), but it wasn't until after this that I started having burner issues, so I think that they might be related (although everything worked fine under the new settings for a few days). I also recently put a swiftech cooler on my CPU with a big 'ol pabs fan (which has to connect directly to 12V), so I'm getting a little concerned about power consumption. As it stands, I'm running an Athlon 1.333, 512 DDR, 2x 80 GB Seagate Barracuda IV, GeForce 2MX 400, above mentioned fan, misc. case fans, a 32x Lite-On burner, an 8x DVD drive, and my asus a7v266, all on a 230 Watt power supply. Could this be causing any of my problems?

-oddities. Yes, this one is kind of a catch all, and I'm sure that nobody will have any solutions for me. Just general bugginess. The beauty of open source. Phoenix crashes on some flash web pages because the flash plugin doesn't work right for them. That's not cool. Sylpheed locks up for 30 or more seconds when updating IMAP or deleting messages.

-speed gripes. The kernel is fast. Most programs are fast. Some things are slow and tedious. For instance, CD-Burning. Most people that I know that run windows with slower burners can burn CDs faster than me. Why? Because they can directly write them. They don't have to wait around for an image to be created, or wait for windows to copy the wav files before it can burn them, or anything else. It works. It's windows, so it doesn't work well, but it does work. Macs, well, don't even get me started. If I had the money, I'd be asking questions about most of these things, but I'd be asking them about my powerbook, instead of my desktop machine.

like I said, most of these are just gripes, and if you actually got through all of them, congratulations. I'm looking for any help I can get here.

-John

"Darn telecom majors and their windows XP"
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choward
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 5:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Gentoo Linux... 6 Months Later Reply with quote

mogosjoh wrote:
As it stands, I'm running an Athlon 1.333, 512 DDR, 2x 80 GB Seagate Barracuda IV, GeForce 2MX 400, above mentioned fan, misc. case fans, a 32x Lite-On burner, an 8x DVD drive, and my asus a7v266, all on a 230 Watt power supply. Could this be causing any of my problems?

_YES!_
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darktux
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 5:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
-oddities. Yes, this one is kind of a catch all, and I'm sure that nobody will have any solutions for me. Just general bugginess. The beauty of open source. Phoenix crashes on some flash web pages because the flash plugin doesn't work right for them. That's not cool. Sylpheed locks up for 30 or more seconds when updating IMAP or deleting messages.


About the flash problem, that's a very usual issue around here. Phoenix uses Mozilla's engine (Geko), so tell me this one thing.. Is Mozilla compiled with gtk2?
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burzmali
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you need more power. get >= 350w PSU

what cd-burner software are you using? i use cvs of k3b and it is awesome, not one coaster yet. you can get the ebuild from the kde-cvs package at http://cvs.gentoo.org/~danarmak/

what kernel are you using? have you tried any of the others to see if they solve your multi-tasking issues?

good luck
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mogosjoh
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm using gentoo 2.4.19 r10. What other kernel should I try??
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mogosjoh
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've got k3b on here. It's ok, but I can't find a way to get it to default to DAO instead of CDRecord with the 2 second gaps (I cannot stand them). I've been fooling with arson lately, that seeems like a pretty good program.

-John
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mynameisjonas
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

regarding the phoenix flash problem - what version of the flash plugin are you using? (find out by typing about:plugins in the address bar)

I had the very same problem untill i upgraded it to version 6 beta..
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mynameisjonas wrote:
regarding the phoenix flash problem - what version of the flash plugin are you using? (find out by typing about:plugins in the address bar)

I had the very same problem untill i upgraded it to version 6 beta..
This is a known problem thats been around for quite some time. If I'm not mistaken, the Flash people had a comment about it on their website.
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 11:48 pm    Post subject: Re: Gentoo Linux... 6 Months Later Reply with quote

mogosjoh wrote:
As it stands, I'm running an Athlon 1.333, 512 DDR, 2x 80 GB Seagate Barracuda IV, GeForce 2MX 400, above mentioned fan, misc. case fans, a 32x Lite-On burner, an 8x DVD drive, and my asus a7v266, all on a 230 Watt power supply. Could this be causing any of my problems?


Just thought I'd let you know, that I'm running an AthlonXP 2000+, 512mb ram, 2x 80gb Seagate Barracuda IV's, 1x IBM 40gb hdd, GeForce2TI 64mb, 12x dvd drive, 32x cd burner, 3 fans, sblive, 2 network cards, ide controller card, and of course, the motherboard, all on a 300w power supply without any problems (as yet anyway). So I would think that your 230w should handle it... But I may be wrong :)
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Malakin
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 11:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you enable dma support in the kernel you shouldn't have to play around with hdparm, and you wouldn't have to worry about causing problems with your burners either.

I'm usually not one to worry about power supplies but with all that stuff in your system it's probably worth investing in something a little beefier. You usually run out of power on your 12volt power rail before anything else, a 230watt power supply like yours is probably 8 amps max on the 12volt rail. Your cpu is about 5 amps, hard drives are about 1 amp each, dvd 1 amp, cdrw 1 amp, fans and mobo add up to maybe 1 amp, so a rough estimate shows your 12 volt power usage will exceed your power supplies capacity with everything running at the same time. Hard drives/cd/dvd will usually have printed on them how much power they use.

I'd try vanilla sources if you're having stuttering problems. I have yet to see this happen on any of my systems even on older kernels as long as dma is enabled and the system isn't low on ram. I wonder if filesystems can have anything significant to do with this, I've been using Reiser for a long time.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 12:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, lol My specs - Dual athlon mp 1700+, 1GB DDR Ram, 2 hardcore cpu cooling fans and 12 (!) case fans (makes more noise than a small airplane engine, but it runs cool:), 4 Maxtor 80 GB ATA 133 drives, 1 CDR-W.

Power supply : 600 Watt psu. I did have lots of problems with a standard 300w power supply, especially when burning cd's.


Last edited by c_kuzmanic on Mon Dec 16, 2002 3:06 am; edited 1 time in total
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mogosjoh
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

so, if I'm understanding correctly, I should just not mess with hdparm at all (DMA is enabled in the kernel for me), and let the kernel decide what it needs to do at boot? will it still use ata100 instead of 66?

and then I should also buy a new power supply, right?

how hard will it be for me to switch to vanilla sources? just emerge them, then compile my kernel based on them and copy over bzimage and then recompile nvidia?
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mogosjoh wrote:
how hard will it be for me to switch to vanilla sources? just emerge them, then compile my kernel based on them and copy over bzimage and then recompile nvidia?

It should be that easy. Just like changing kernel versions.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mogosjoh wrote:

how hard will it be for me to switch to vanilla sources? just emerge them, then compile my kernel based on them and copy over bzimage and then recompile nvidia?


You'd also need to re-emerge alsa.
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Malakin
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I should just not mess with hdparm at all (DMA is enabled in the kernel for me), and let the kernel decide what it needs to do at boot? will it still use ata100 instead of 66?

It will choose the highest dma speed that the hard drive and controller can handle but I usually double check everything with a "hdparm -i /dev/hda" after booting off of a new kernel just to make sure, it's always worked for me.

Quote:
and then I should also buy a new power supply, right?
You might want to try everything else first, and if they don't help then get a new power supply, depends on how much the money is worth to you I guess...
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 1:17 am    Post subject: power supply is a big problem. Reply with quote

230 watts, lets add some stuff up

As it stands, I'm running an Athlon 1.333, 512 DDR, 2x 80 GB Seagate Barracuda IV, GeForce 2MX 400, above mentioned fan, misc. case fans, a 32x Lite-On burner, an 8x DVD drive, and my asus a7v266, all on a 230 Watt power supply. Could this be causing any of my problems?

Athlon T-Bird? 1.33 60Watts
512DDR 20Watts
80GB SEAGATE B IV 55Wattsx2
GeForce2mx 400 35Watts
fans and misc 5Watts
Motherboard 20Watts
CD-R 20Watts

you need up to ~250watts while burning a CD if your accessing both hard drives, under normal conditions prob 180-210, and a 230Watt powersupply cannot handle a full load like that all the time. if you had 300 you would be a lot better off.

and whomever said that just cause their athlonxp system with similar specs ran fine at 300 means that 230 should be fine, geta clue, athlonXPs use the same amount of Wattage or less that a t-bird, and a 2000+ is only a 60-75Watt cpu.

this is a power problem and a tweaking problem, take your hdparm back to normal and get a bigger power supply.
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c_kuzmanic
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2002 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nasty, ugly things can happen when a system is put under load using an inaedequate power supply.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 3:30 am    Post subject: 300w e-ATX? Reply with quote

c_kuzmanic wrote:
Ok, lol My specs - Dual athlon mp 1700+, 1GB DDR Ram, 2 hardcore cpu cooling fans and 12 (!) case fans (makes more noise than a small airplane engine, but it runs cool:), 4 Maxtor 80 GB ATA 133 drives, 1 CDR-W.

Power supply : 600 Watt psu. I did have lots of problems with a standard 300w power supply, especially when burning cd's.


What motherboard are you using?
I've built 2 dual athlon systems (760mp & mpx) and both required an E-ATX power supply... I haven't seen an E-ATX at 300w.

Just wondering.

Adam P. (oh maybe if they didn't have scsi or the dual-3coms they can just use ATX?)
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 5:33 am    Post subject: Re: Gentoo Linux... 6 Months Later Reply with quote

mogosjoh wrote:
As it stands, I'm running an Athlon 1.333, 512 DDR, 2x 80 GB Seagate Barracuda IV, GeForce 2MX 400, above mentioned fan, misc. case fans, a 32x Lite-On burner, an 8x DVD drive, and my asus a7v266, all on a 230 Watt power supply. Could this be causing any of my problems?


fix that power supply issue first. amd recomend no less than 300w power supply. 230w is not nearly enough. lack of power can cause weird things to happen.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 9:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Come on, we're not in 1999 anymore. A 500W PSU will do just fine.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 12:08 pm    Post subject: OR Reply with quote

if your poor, go get an AT supple, 250Watts or so, and run all your drives off of it. you can rig up the switch to the ATX power supply so that the AT turns on with the ATX and then you have enough power. I do this on my P4 2.4@3.22(18x179) cause my peltier sucks so much power, plus that same system has a 6 IDE disk (6x80GB WD SE8MB)RAID0(3 HardwareRAID0 sets with software RAID0 over the 3 sets) and a 40Gb WD 7200RPM. I have a Wildcat3d in it also, this sucks a lot of power let me tell you.

all this requires a pair of Enermax431Watt PS and a 350 Antec for the peltier and case fans. its might be a bit overkill but i dont have any stability issues

BTW this is my A/V box, thats why the hardware is so ridiculous.

enermax makes a good PS sharing device for about $40, it takes up to 4 power supplies for input and outputs to a standard ATX + server plug + P4 plug.
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 12:23 pm    Post subject: Re: OR Reply with quote

syadnom wrote:


BTW this is my A/V box, thats why the hardware is so ridiculous.


What do you use to encode videos on that machine (transcode,etc) ?
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

burzmali wrote:
you need more power. get >= 350w PSU

what cd-burner software are you using? i use cvs of k3b and it is awesome, not one coaster yet. you can get the ebuild from the kde-cvs package at http://cvs.gentoo.org/~danarmak/

what kernel are you using? have you tried any of the others to see if they solve your multi-tasking issues?

good luck


How did u compile k3b?
My compilation failes during AVI emerge !!!
Code:

/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.2.1/../../../../i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: cannot find -lartsc
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [libaviplay.la] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/avifile-0.7.15.20020816-r1/work/avifile0.7-0.7.15/lib'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/avifile-0.7.15.20020816-r1/work/avifile0.7-0.7.15/lib'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

!!! ERROR: media-video/avifile-0.7.15.20020816-r1 failed.
!!! Function src_compile, Line 75, Exitcode 2
!!! (no error message)

any clue?
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c_kuzmanic
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2002 2:34 pm    Post subject: Re: 300w e-ATX? Reply with quote

darius wrote:
c_kuzmanic wrote:
Ok, lol My specs - Dual athlon mp 1700+, 1GB DDR Ram, 2 hardcore cpu cooling fans and 12 (!) case fans (makes more noise than a small airplane engine, but it runs cool:), 4 Maxtor 80 GB ATA 133 drives, 1 CDR-W.

Power supply : 600 Watt psu. I did have lots of problems with a standard 300w power supply, especially when burning cd's.


What motherboard are you using?
I've built 2 dual athlon systems (760mp & mpx) and both required an E-ATX power supply... I haven't seen an E-ATX at 300w.

Just wondering.

Adam P. (oh maybe if they didn't have scsi or the dual-3coms they can just use ATX?)


I use an MSI-K7D-Master. Good board, no probs ever. I used the original Sparkle 300w power supply unit that came with my case, until of course:) - that power supply died miserably:) So then I got a 600w power supply - no probs since.
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mogosjoh
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 20, 2002 8:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use an ASUS A7V266

also, does anybody have any idea why the dev kernel would not like mounting root for me? It says unable to mount root. I did the standard compile/install commands as any other kernel. Was there something different that I was supposed to do??

-John
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