Re: Files Stored on NTFS

nickholum@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I have Suse 10.1 running KDE
AMD x64 2500+ (2.2 GHz) w/ 512 RAM

I also have about 40 gigs of mp3s on an NTFS partition... seperate hard
drive actually.

The issue I'm having is that amarok "skips" all the time. It seems like
everytime I call up another process, the music skips. Starting Firefox
can cause it to skip. Mostly it's larger tasks that cause the problem
though... like installing software starting an online update. Not only
is it a problem for amarok, but it seems like my entire system is over
tasked during larger tasks.

For instance, if I start "software management" in YaST, my entire
system will become basically useless until it's done reading the
package informantion... about 2 or 3 minutes! My mouse skips all over.
I can't switch between windows, no music plays, etc. CPU usage is at
100% the entire time.

So two questions:
1. Does playing music from an NTFS partition cause CPU overhead?
2. Is this just a limitof my hardware?


That's how most systems behave in general. You can say your Windows box hasn't done that, but do you know how many have? Do you know simple how unusable some Windows boxen become when you open Windows Update?

Yes, that's off-topic, but I think I owe you an explanation:

This will explain multiple causes, so please bear with me for the next hour.

When you load a program, your kernel loads another program to actually get the first one going. Why? It's the way shared libraries (DLL's on Windows) work. Except for statically-linked programs, which use no shared libraries, all programs will have code in them that, for example, calls a function in a shared library. Shared libraries are meant to be loaded anywhere in RAM, so you have to actually have another program load the first one and correct it's code to point to the proper function locations for the shared library in RAM. The program that does this fixing up is called "ld.so", and on Linux, it exists as /lib/ld-<number>.<number>.<number>.so (usually something like /lib/ld-2.3.6.so), with a symlink /lib/ld-linux.so.2 pointing to the proper file. How does the kernel know to load this file? Because executables are broken into sections, and there's a section in dynamically linked executables named ".ident", which contains just one thing: A pathname. Older ELF-format (ELF stands for Executable and Linker Format, which describeswhat is in an executable and where exactly in the file everything is, among other things) Linux executable use /lib/ld-linux.so.1, but these executables are very rare (In fact, it took me over 2 years to find one). At any rate, this pathname points to the executable to be used to fix up the program for running. This loader, however, works non-stop to preform it's task, and doesn't throttle it's work. Since larger programs like Firefox require more shared libraries, it takes longer to read these libraries from disk, and to fix them up. Also, disk-IO causes the processor to be "locked" in Linux. The severity of this depends on a number of factors, from your IDE/SCSI/SATA/USB controller, your drive itself, to how and how much it is used. For example, if the OS has to wait for the hard drive to move it's head, the OS (Linux) run a loop-function that checks to see if the drive is done yet, and if now, it loops around again and again checking indefinitely until it's done. Also, some programs (such as Firefox), can request more shared libraries to be loaded, after the program is already going. Examples of this is a browser plugin, or a XMMS plugin. The functions responsible for this are dlopen, dlclose, and dlsym.

Hope this helps.

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Files Stored on NTFS
    ... I can't switch between windows, no music plays, etc. CPU usage is at ... When you load a program, your kernel loads another program to actually ... shared libraries, all programs will have code in them that, for example, ... dynamically linked executables named ".ident", ...
    (alt.os.linux)
  • Re: Ubunto 8.10 and AVG 7.5.51
    ... If you're running a mail server, ClamAV would be best bet, although I ... Windows viruses to Windows users. ... file sharing and/or forwarding executables to people. ... I am going to be setting up a Linux server in my apartment for use as ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: semi-OT: disk encryption for Windows XP?
    ... A new issue is beginning to surface with Windows XP/2003: ... trusted source for executables. ... I am not a Linux fan, but at this point it should be clear to ... capable hardware would be better off using Linux and Star Office than with ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: Files Stored on NTFS
    ... I can't switch between windows, no music plays, etc. CPU usage is at ... shared libraries, all programs will have code in them that, for example, ... dynamically linked executables named ".ident", ... among other things) Linux executable use ...
    (alt.os.linux)
  • Re: using the executable itself for swapping
    ... As you might know, Windows does this ... P100 with 24 MB RAM starts up faster than it does on a Linux ... Neither system uses "executables for swapping". ... memory; that is, portions of the executable are pulled into memory one ...
    (comp.os.linux.development.system)