Slow HD, swap fills up rapidly

From: Bill Baker (wbaker_at_postini.spamcon.org)
Date: 07/01/04 

Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 12:57:57 GMT

I am using Fedora Core 2, and ever since RH8 or so, I have been having
trouble with the system just going slower and slower. The hard drive is
seeking a lot and the swap is filling up rapidly. I usually keep
Evolution, Pan, Galeon, Gaim and KMail up all the time, and I use KDE for
my desktop environment. I also keep a second session of X running so my
wife can use her own e-mail.

I've tried hdparm to speed it up. I issued a "hdparm -X66 -d1 -u1 -m16
-c3". This seems to have sped it up a little, but I still get slow
reactions when starting applications, bringing applications forward and
switching virtual desktops. Here is an output of hdparm /dev/hda:

----------
/dev/hda:
 multcount = 16 (on)
 IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq = 1 (on)
 using_dma = 1 (on)
 keepsettings = 1 (on)
 readonly = 0 (off)
 readahead = 256 (on)
 geometry = 16383/255/63, sectors = 156301488, start = 0
----------

hdparm -i /dev/hda returns:

----------
/dev/hda:

 Model=WDC WD800BB-00DKA0, FwRev=77.07W77, SerialNo=WD-WCAHL4375431
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=74
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=4047/16/255, CurSects=16511760, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

 * signifies the current active mode
----------

Also, I have heard that Fedora/Red Hat is one of the slower distros out
there. Would switching to another distro help? If so, is SuSE any
better? Also, would switching from ext3 to reiserfs do any good? 

-- 
Lurlean Lie #18:
He's a closet Hindu that's infiltrated the Lutheran Church with all his Satanic
doctrines in order to pull it down.
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