CentOS - Jul 2007 - SHOULD I NEED TO RECOMPILE THE KERNEL ?

Hi,

I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid. It is quite slow. It
has only 128 MB RAM. So I upgraded it to 512 MB RAM. Now, It is running with
512 MB RAM. But, It is still slow. No progress has been achived. Some users
say it is slower than before. Actually, I also have noticed it is NOW SLOWER
than before. WHY IS THAT?

SHOULD I NEED TO RECOMPILE THE KERNEL as I installed a new 512 MB RAM ?

help needed?


-- 
Thank you
Indunil Jayasooriya
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Indunil Jayasooriya wrote:
> I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid. It is quite 
> slow.
Given that this is the CentOS mailing list, the appropriate suggestion 
is that you install CentOS 5. Red Hat Linux 9.0 is ancient history by now.

Indunil Jayasooriya wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid. It is quite 
> slow. It has only 128 MB RAM. So I upgraded it to 512 MB RAM. Now, It is 
> running with 512 MB RAM. But, It is still slow. No progress has been 
> achived. Some users say it is slower than before. Actually, I also have 
> noticed it is NOW SLOWER than before. WHY IS THAT?
> 
> SHOULD I NEED TO RECOMPILE THE KERNEL as I installed a new 512 MB RAM ?
> 
> help needed?
This is a Centos List. Not a RH9 List. In any case, you want to look for 
cpu hoggers and/or heavy I/O activity. In the latter case, you will have 
to guess who the culprit is or get atsar with an appropriate kernel patch.

In any case, Rh9 is unmaintained and I suggest you upgrade to a more 
recent Linux distro.

On 7/25/07, Indunil Jayasooriya <indunil75 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid. It is quite slow.
It
> has only 128 MB RAM. So I upgraded it to 512 MB RAM. Now, It is running
with
> 512 MB RAM. But, It is still slow. No progress has been achived. Some users
> say it is slower than before. Actually, I also have noticed it is NOW
SLOWER
> than before. WHY IS THAT?
You _do_ realize that this list is for a different distribution of
Linux? As fustrated as you might be, we will be even more fustrated if
you ask us to provide answers to your questions without giving us all
the relevant data for us to make our analysis.
We do not know why you are still using RH9, even I stopped using it a
year ago. If your machine's cpu is one of the slow ones, increasing
ram is only going to make it go maginally faster. What is the output
of free and top both before and after the ram increase? You need to
find out where the bottleneck is and tell us.
>
> SHOULD I NEED TO RECOMPILE THE KERNEL as I installed a new 512 MB RAM ?
How should we know? I am tempted to say no as I think that machines
that can handle 128MB should also be able to handle 512MB ram.
>
> help needed?
I can see that. With subject lines like that, I usually turn on the
sarcasm key on my keyboard. Lets try and be less dramatic in future.

ne...
-- 
Registered Linux User # 125653 (http://counter.li.org)
Certified: 75% bastard, 42% of which is tard.
http://www.thespark.com/bastardtest
Now accepting personal mail for GMail invites.

On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 13:36 +0530, Indunil Jayasooriya
wrote:
> I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid. It is quite
> slow. It has only 128 MB RAM. So I upgraded it to 512 MB RAM. Now, It
> is running with 512 MB RAM. But, It is still slow. No progress has
> been achived. Some users say it is slower than before. Actually, I
> also have noticed it is NOW SLOWER than before. WHY IS THAT? 
Because the machine doesn't have enough cache memory to cover all 512
MB.
> SHOULD I NEED TO RECOMPILE THE KERNEL as I installed a new 512 MB RAM ? 
No, you should get a more modern machine with more cache memory (as well
as update the OS). Wonders are being worked with P3s, P4s, and Semprons
these days.

-- 
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams <ivazqueznet at gmail.com>
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Hi, 
	
	I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid.  
	 
	 
	
	how is squid configured? it can be configured to eat up quite a
bit of RAM. if you tweak that to fit into your 512MB of RAM you may be
able to get your machine running faster. have a look at what 'top' is
saying, maybe iostat as well. someone else mentioned 'atop', it looks
pretty slick if you can, give that a shot. by running 'top' you will
also be able to see how much RAM Linux is seeing. make sure that it
actually is 512MB.
	 
	 It is quite slow. It has only 128 MB RAM. So I upgraded it to
512 MB RAM. Now, It is running with 512 MB RAM. But, It is still slow.
No progress has been achived. Some users say it is slower than before.
Actually, I also have noticed it is NOW SLOWER than before. WHY IS THAT?

	 
	if squid is configured to eat up a large amount of RAM, then it
may be possible that it needs contiguous memory blocks, so it may be
possible that it is eating all of your physical memory, and all of the
rest of your apps are using virtual memory (read: swap space). I have
seen something similar on an Oracle box. again, reading the output of
'top' will help you.
	 

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On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 06:25 -0400, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-07-25 at 13:36 +0530, Indunil Jayasooriya wrote:
> > I am still runnig Redhat 9 box with sendmail and squid. It is quite
> > slow. It has only 128 MB RAM. So I upgraded it to 512 MB RAM. Now, It
> > is running with 512 MB RAM. But, It is still slow. No progress has
> > been achived. Some users say it is slower than before. Actually, I
> > also have noticed it is NOW SLOWER than before. WHY IS THAT? 
> 
> Because the machine doesn't have enough cache memory to cover all 512
> MB.
BINGO! For example, one of my old machines is a PC-CHIPS M-571(?). It is
known to run fastest with max ram of 256MB or less, due to the cache
size(s?).
> 
> > SHOULD I NEED TO RECOMPILE THE KERNEL as I installed a new 512 MB RAM
?
> 
> No, you should get a more modern machine with more cache memory (as well
> as update the OS). Wonders are being worked with P3s, P4s, and Semprons
> these days.
> <snip sig stuff>
Like the others have said, wrong list, more detail is needed and I add
Google is your friend. If your mobo is like mine, there is information
about it on the web.

--
Bill