6882 – 2.6.17 slow down gnome files operations and almost freezes any other operation while gnome is operating with files

Bug 6882 - 2.6.17 slow down gnome files operations and almost freezes any other operation while gnome is operating with files

Summary: 2.6.17 slow down gnome files operations and almost freezes any other operatio...

Status:	REJECTED INVALID

Alias:	None

Product:	File System
Classification:	Unclassified
Component:	XFS (show other bugs)
Hardware:	i386 Linux

Importance:	P2 high
Assignee:	XFS Guru

URL:
Keywords:

Depends on:
Blocks:

Reported:	2006-07-21 13:21 UTC by Giacomo Graziosi
Modified:	2006-07-26 11:24 UTC (History)
CC List:	1 user (show)

See Also:
Kernel Version:	2.6.17
Tree:	Mainline
Regression:	---

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Description Giacomo Graziosi 2006-07-21 13:21:27 UTC

This should be the exact patch causing the problem, found using git bisect:

3bbcc8e3976f8bba2fd607c8850d7dfe7e332fda is first bad commit
commit 3bbcc8e3976f8bba2fd607c8850d7dfe7e332fda
Author: Nathan Scott <nathans@sgi.com>
Date:   Fri Mar 31 13:04:56 2006 +1000

    [XFS] Reenable write barriers by default.

    SGI-PV: 912426
    SGI-Modid: xfs-linux-melb:xfs-kern:25634a

    Signed-off-by: Nathan Scott <nathans@sgi.com>

:040000 040000 4550a1463f833d994daea473ac219d13d440e392
e20c6ed8ddae5bb1c909961d7dcb12facffbc0bd M      fs

Distribution: Gentoo
Hardware Environment: Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz, 768MB DDR ram, hd:
shannara ~ # hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=ST9408114A, FwRev=3.02, SerialNo=3LE1FQ3D
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=17475/15/63, CurSects=16513875, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78140160
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2:  ATA/ATAPI-1 ATA/ATAPI-2
ATA/ATAPI-3 ATA/ATAPI-4 ATA/ATAPI-5 ATA/ATAPI-6

Software Environment: Gnome/Nautilus 2.14.1 on Gentoo ~x86 (testing).
Problem Description: 2.6.17 makes file operations in Gnome very slow (something
like 10x to 20x slower than normal, I don't know exactly) and almost blocks
every other operation when doing something with files (opening xchat when
copying a file takes 20-30 seconds).

Steps to reproduce:
Upgrade to kernel 2.6.17 on a XFS partition with Gnome 2.14.1.

Comment 1 Nathan Scott 2006-07-23 18:36:11 UTC

Thanks for investigating and doing the git bisect.  Unfortunately,
it seems you're seeing the effect of using barriers on your drive
(is gnome issuing sychronous writes?  seems really bad for you..)

http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/faq.html#wcache

You may be able to alleviate this issue via the noatime mount option.
If you wish to disable write barriers, the FAQ explains all that.

cheers.

Comment 2 Giacomo Graziosi 2006-07-26 11:24:23 UTC

I filed a bug on Gnome's bugzilla.
Thank you.

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