[gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Justin Krejci]

I have a system with a 1.33Ghz Athlon-XP with a decently fast IDE hard drive
I have a system with a 1.80Ghz AMD64 with a decently fast IDE hard drive

When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command 
apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the AMD64 
system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about 10-30 seconds 
fore the command to start. What I mean by that is for example

1. # emerge -s tcpdump  (press enter)
2. Searching... spinner
3. output of search

the time it takes to get to #2 is 1 or less seconds on the AMD64 and 10-30 
seconds on the Athlon-XP.

As I said, this seems to be the case for any emerge command on the Athlon-XP 
system. I seem to recall it not being so slow in the past. Both are on 2.6 
kernels and both have pleanty of RAM. Gentoo was was installed on the 
Athlon-XP about 2 or 3 years ago but it is up to date.

Anyone have any ideas?

Athlon-XP emerge info: 

Portage 2.0.51.22-r3 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 
2.6.13-gentoo-r3 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.13-gentoo-r3 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1500+
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13
ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.2.3-r5, 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.12
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r6
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.20
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe -funroll-loops -ftracer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env\
 /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config\
 /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe -funroll-loops -ftracer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig buildpkg ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://128.213.5.34/gentoo/ 
http://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 3dnow X X509 acl adns alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts 
bonobo bzip2 cddb cdr chroot crypt cups curl dedicated directfb divx4linux 
dts dvb dvd dvdr dvdread edl eds emboss encode esd ethereal exif expat fam 
ffmpeg flac foomaticdb fortran freetds gd gdbm gif gimp glut gphoto2 gpm 
gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hpn idn imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 jabber java 
jpeg junit kde kdeenablefinal kdexdeltas lcms ldap libcaca libg++ libwww mad 
matroska mhash mikmod mmx mng motif mp3 mpeg mppe-mppc mssql mysql nas 
ncurses network nls nowin nvidia ogg oggvorbis openal opengl openntpd openssh 
oss pam pcre pdflib perl png python qt quicktime rdesktop readline real samba 
scanner sdl sftplogging slang snmp speex spell sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd 
tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev usb videos vorbis wmf xine 
xinerama xml xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS
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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:14:13 -0600, Justin Krejci wrote:

> When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command 
> apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the
> AMD64 system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about
> 10-30 seconds fore the command to start.

Is that just the first time you run a portage command? I see the same on
my AMD64, it can take up to 30 seconds to run emerge --info, but only
around a second to run it again.

It's clearly something to do with loading the various Python libraries,
classes or modules, but I haven't been able to pin down why it takes so
long.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

For Sale: Positronic Brain-Found near S.F.-Needs Work

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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

>On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:14:13 -0600, Justin Krejci wrote:
>
>  
>
>>When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command 
>>apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the
>>AMD64 system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about
>>10-30 seconds fore the command to start.
>>    
>>
>
>Is that just the first time you run a portage command? I see the same on
>my AMD64, it can take up to 30 seconds to run emerge --info, but only
>around a second to run it again.
>
>It's clearly something to do with loading the various Python libraries,
>classes or modules, but I haven't been able to pin down why it takes so
>long.
>
>
>  
>
Just so you won't feel alone, same here.  I mostly do this on #1 below 
in my sig.  Don't get me started on #4.  LOL  It's slow at everything.  :(

I think the new portage is supposed to be better.  That is what I have 
read anyway.  I dunno for sure.  To chicken to keyword it.  LOL

Dale
:-)

-- 
To err is human, I'm most certainly human.

I have four rigs:

1:  Home built; Abit NF7 ver 2.0 w/ AMD 2500+ CPU, 1GB of ram and right now two 80GB hard drives.  
2:  Home built; Iwill KK266-R w/ AMD 1GHz CPU, 256MBs of ram and a 4GB drive.
3:  Home built; Gigabyte GA-71XE4 w/ 800MHz CPU, 128MBs of ram and a 2.5GB drive.
4:  Compaq Proliant 6000 Server w/ Quad 200MHz CPUs, 128MBs of ram and a 4.3GB SCSI drive.

All run Gentoo, all run folding. #1 is my desktop, 2, 3, and 4 are set up as servers.  

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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:59:51 -0600, Dale wrote:

> I think the new portage is supposed to be better.  That is what I have 
> read anyway.  I dunno for sure.  To chicken to keyword it.  LOL

I run ~arch on everything, so this is still the case with portage 2.0.53.
My iBook, running the same version, doesn't have this issue.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

We all know what comes after 'X', said Tom, wisely.

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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

>On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:59:51 -0600, Dale wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I think the new portage is supposed to be better.  That is what I have 
>>read anyway.  I dunno for sure.  To chicken to keyword it.  LOL
>>    
>>
>
>I run ~arch on everything, so this is still the case with portage 2.0.53.
>My iBook, running the same version, doesn't have this issue.
>
>
>  
>
I stand corrected.  I thought I read that they had made some changes 
that made things faster.  Me confused which is normal.  At least I 
didn't have to put on my feathers to find out.  ;)

ibook as in a Apple computer?  Wonder why it is faster?  I seem to 
recall their drives are fast, usually SCSI but not sure anymore.  Any 
idea why that one is faster?

Dale
:-)

-- 
To err is human, I'm most certainly human.

I have four rigs:

1:  Home built; Abit NF7 ver 2.0 w/ AMD 2500+ CPU, 1GB of ram and right now two 80GB hard drives.  
2:  Home built; Iwill KK266-R w/ AMD 1GHz CPU, 256MBs of ram and a 4GB drive.
3:  Home built; Gigabyte GA-71XE4 w/ 800MHz CPU, 128MBs of ram and a 2.5GB drive.
4:  Compaq Proliant 6000 Server w/ Quad 200MHz CPUs, 128MBs of ram and a 4.3GB SCSI drive.

All run Gentoo, all run folding. #1 is my desktop, 2, 3, and 4 are set up as servers.  

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 07:24:32 -0600, Dale wrote:

> >I run ~arch on everything, so this is still the case with portage
> >2.0.53. My iBook, running the same version, doesn't have this issue.

> I stand corrected.  I thought I read that they had made some changes 
> that made things faster.  Me confused which is normal.  At least I 
> didn't have to put on my feathers to find out.  ;)

There have been changes to make the cache handling faster, but this is
the initial start up that is the problem.

> ibook as in a Apple computer?  Wonder why it is faster?  I seem to 
> recall their drives are fast, usually SCSI but not sure anymore.  Any 
> idea why that one is faster?

Nothing special about the hardware, a standard 4200rpm IDE laptop drive.
The SATA RAID in my amd64 box should cream it, and does for everything
else.

One day I'll find the time to experiment on the two setups, and my x86
box, to try and find the difference here.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Penis Envy is a total Phallusy.

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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Richard Fish]

On 12/14/05, Justin Krejci <jus@krytosvirus.com> wrote:
> When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command
> apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the AMD64
> system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about 10-30 seconds
> fore the command to start. What I mean by that is for example


You can try something like:

strace -tt -f -o /tmp/strace.out emerge -s tcpdump

Then look at /tmp/strace.out and see what kind of system call is being
made that is taking so long to complete.

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Justin Krejci]

On Thursday 15 December 2005 03:49 am, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:14:13 -0600, Justin Krejci wrote:
> > When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command
> > apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the
> > AMD64 system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about
> > 10-30 seconds fore the command to start.
>
> Is that just the first time you run a portage command? I see the same on
> my AMD64, it can take up to 30 seconds to run emerge --info, but only
> around a second to run it again.
>
> It's clearly something to do with loading the various Python libraries,
> classes or modules, but I haven't been able to pin down why it takes so
> long.

Yes, the second run and subsequent runs for a period of time all seem to be 
fairly quick, but I thought it odd that my AMD64 system is always quick.
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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Justin Krejci]

On Thursday 15 December 2005 09:45 am, Richard Fish wrote:
> On 12/14/05, Justin Krejci <jus@krytosvirus.com> wrote:
> > When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command
> > apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the
> > AMD64 system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about 10-30
> > seconds fore the command to start. What I mean by that is for example
>
> You can try something like:
>
> strace -tt -f -o /tmp/strace.out emerge -s tcpdump
>
> Then look at /tmp/strace.out and see what kind of system call is being
> made that is taking so long to complete.
>
> -Richard


Well I ran it once then ran it again to a different output file and the two 
files are the same length and doing a cursory glance thru the files they both 
seem fairly similar. When I have some time, ill check the files more closesly 
in particular the timestamps.

Thanks for the idea.
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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[cucu ionut cristian]

On Thu, 2005-12-15 at 00:14 -0600, Justin Krejci wrote:
> I have a system with a 1.33Ghz Athlon-XP with a decently fast IDE hard drive
> I have a system with a 1.80Ghz AMD64 with a decently fast IDE hard drive
> 
> When I run "emerge -s whatever" or "emerge sync" or any emerge command 
> apparently, it usually takes about 1 second to start the command on the AMD64 
> system whereas on the Athlon-XP system it usually takes about 10-30 seconds 
> fore the command to start. What I mean by that is for example
> 
> 1. # emerge -s tcpdump  (press enter)
> 2. Searching... spinner
> 3. output of search
same here on ~amd64 first time takes loooong second timpe it's like
instant

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Re: [gentoo-user] emerge starts slowly

[Daniel Drake]

Justin Krejci wrote:
> Yes, the second run and subsequent runs for a period of time all seem to be 
> fairly quick, but I thought it odd that my AMD64 system is always quick.

The initial slowdown is due to portage having to scan over the entire tree of 
installed packages, calculating virtuals. Chances are your AMD64 system has 
fewer packages installed (and is faster by system specification too).

Hopefully portage 2.1 will make improvements in this area.

Daniel
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