Re: [gentoo-user] SATA tuning ?

["Richard Fish" <bigfish@asmallpond.org>]

Sigh.  Apologies for corrupting the thread by creating a new message,
but I seem to have finally been bit by the "missing emails" issue, so
I don't have a message to reply to.  I found this in the archives:

>> You mentioned problems compiling.  The most likely case I can think of
>> is that you do not have enough memory, and are inducing the system to
>> swap.

>  Hmmm...1GByte Dualchannel-RAM should be enough for compiling Blender
>  (for example).

Maybe not.  With -O3 FEX, some programs can take 200-400MB *per
module* to compile.  It all depends on the complexity of the code, and
the problem would be particularly acute with C++ programs (which I
know blender is not C++, so this is just something to keep in mind).

>> Indeed when compiling most programs, you should see very little
>> if any disk activity.

>  My SATA disk (Seagate ST3200827AS) is heavily shakeing its head when
>  compiling...

Run top in another window while this is going on, and keep an eye on
your swap usage.  If you see any swap being used at all, that is a bad
thing.

>> This is particularly suspect if you have
>> something like MAKEOPTS=-j4.

> Yes, normally I use "make -j 4" for useing both cores.

Try with -j2.  -j3 is ideal for keeping a dual-core CPU busy, but will
still take a huge amount of RAM, so unless you add another GB of RAM,
I recommend no more than -j2.  And if you are about to compile a big
C++ package (like KDE or OOo), drop to -j1.

-Richard
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