From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Sep 28 13:28:52 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A9C0B16A4B3 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 13:28:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from remt30.cluster1.charter.net (remt30.cluster1.charter.net [209.225.8.40]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B51E144001 for ; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 13:28:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from chowse@charter.net) Received: from [66.168.145.25] (HELO moe) by remt30.cluster1.charter.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.0.6) with ESMTP id 6314555; Sun, 28 Sep 2003 16:28:46 -0400 From: "Charles Howse" To: "'Kent Stewart'" , Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 15:28:37 -0500 Message-ID: <000f01c385ff$19a53d00$04fea8c0@moe> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 In-Reply-To: <200309281309.16986.kstewart@owt.com> Subject: RE: Comparing buildworld times on twin machines X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 20:28:52 -0000 > On Sunday 28 September 2003 12:37 pm, Charles Howse wrote: > > Hi, > > I have 2 machines on my home network with (almost) identical > > hardware. They both have Celeron 300, same motherboards, same BIOS, > > same options set in BIOS, etc. > > Same make.conf, same kernel config. > > I kill SETI@home before starting on each machine. > > The only difference is that curly has 128 MB ram where=20 > larry has only > > 64. > > > > They *do not*, however have identical hard drives, even though each > > machine has 2 drives, with /usr/obj on the second drive of each > > machine. > > > > When I buildworld, I use the following command, and write the output > > to '$blog'. > > > > [portion of script omitted, entire script is attached as update1.sh] > > > > \time -aho $$blog make buildworld > > > > [snip] > > > > Larry can buildworld in 1 hr 57 mins. > > It takes curly 3 hrs 16 mins, even though curly has twice the ram. > > > > If I watch the compile, with one eye on the disk activity light, it > > seems to me that the process is largely CPU intensive, therefore I > > would expect that the buildworld times should be roughly equal. > > > > 1) How can I determine what might be causing curly to take so long > > compared to larry? > > > > 2) Since curly runs httpd, and vsftpd, is it acceptable to run the > > entire build/install process in single-user mode in order to prevent > > other processes from eating CPU cycles? > > > > >=20 > On my systems, which all run setiathome, I only see a few percent=20 > variation in buildworld time with seti running. I start=20 > setiathome with=20 > a -nice 19 so that it doesn't interfere. Me, too. > You might be able to see some of the processes running using top. You=20 > could always stop apache. True, I could do that, but what is your opinion on running the entire build/install process from single-user mode? (my original question) > I kind of wonder if you have cache turned on in the cpu. That much=20 > difference is pretty hard to come up with unless your 2 daemons are=20 > interfering. You might see that running top. Watch the swap to see if=20 > anything is happening. Oh, geeeez, technical stuff! ;-) I'm a real dumbass in the BIOS. I just select "Load High Performance Settings" on each machine, and then change the boot order to my liking. I did notice that 'internal cache' is set to 'write-back'. Am I on the right track? =20 *Exactly* how do I watch the swap...in top?