CentOS - Nov 2009 - Question about aspell, alpine and a Xen guest

I have some weird behavior I can't explain...  I've noticed this
behavior
since CentOS 5.2 (version I started running) through 5.4...

I am running a Xen host/VM.  On my guest VM, I use Alpine as my email 
client and Aspell as the spell-check...  For whatever reason, when Aspell 
is kicked off - there appears to be what I'd call a prolonged pause before 
Aspell does its job.  Should I run Alpine on bare metal (even on the host 
OS) - there is no pause whatsoever.

The pause is so bad, I've stopped using Alpine in the VM and just running 
on the host OS itself.

Its really not a big deal, but I can't figure out what or why there is a 
difference.  Initially I thought it might be an issue with the amount of 
RAM I give the guest OS - I've tried from 256 MB to 768 MB - the pause is 
the same :(

Any help or anything I can look at to figure this out - is greatly 
appreciated!

Thanks ahead of time!


Scot P. Floess
27 Lake Royale
Louisburg, NC  27549

252-478-8087 (Home)
919-890-8117 (Work)

Chief Architect JPlate   http://sourceforge.net/projects/jplate
Chief Architect JavaPIM  http://sourceforge.net/projects/javapim

Architect Keros          http://sourceforge.net/projects/keros

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 08:39:06AM -0500, Scot P. Floess
wrote:
> I have some weird behavior I can't explain...  I've noticed this
behavior
> since CentOS 5.2 (version I started running) through 5.4...
> 
> I am running a Xen host/VM.  On my guest VM, I use Alpine as my email 
> client and Aspell as the spell-check...  For whatever reason, when Aspell 
> is kicked off - there appears to be what I'd call a prolonged pause
before
> Aspell does its job.  Should I run Alpine on bare metal (even on the host 
> OS) - there is no pause whatsoever.
> 
> The pause is so bad, I've stopped using Alpine in the VM and just
running
> on the host OS itself.
> 
> Its really not a big deal, but I can't figure out what or why there is
a
> difference.  Initially I thought it might be an issue with the amount of 
> RAM I give the guest OS - I've tried from 256 MB to 768 MB - the pause
is
> the same :(
> 
> Any help or anything I can look at to figure this out - is greatly 
> appreciated!
>
What kind of pause is that? How long? 

Do you have DNS properly configured in the guest? Does network function
at full speed from the guest? 

Any errors in the logs on the guest? how about dom0?

-- Pasi