[Gllug] Re: Alcatel SpeedTouch on Slackware 10

[Nix]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Henry Gilbert yowled:
> On 11/18/05, Doug Winter <doug at pigeonhold.com> wrote:
>> If you are using the nvidia drivers you need to make sure you are using
>> their client extensions too - sometimes the installer ballses up and you
>> end up using the SGI client.  You can check with glxinfo.
> 
> Again an area I should revise more. I will try to use glxinfo more
> often instead of seeing colourful clogs turning as a way of reference.

I used to use glxgears for exactly that purpose, but I found yourself
using glxinfo a *lot* due to a period when my X server had bugs causing
software-emulated OpenGL to crash the server. ;)

>> Recompiling the kernel doesn't in itself make your computer faster
>> really.  (I'm sure someone is going to come up with some science stuff
>> and dispute me here, with various tales of insane speedups from building
>> your own kernel), but IME it's just a huge amount of grief for little
>> gain - as long as your distro kernel is a good one and supports your
>> hardware.
> 
> I agree. But with 2.6.12+, changing settings like low-latency
> pre-emptiveness,

Turning this on slows your machine down and makes it smoother.

>                  and clock speed 1000Mhz does make a difference.

1000Hz is the default until 2.6.12; slowing it down speeds up the
machine and makes it slightly jerkier (normally imperceptibly
so). 1000MHz would be entirely unusable ;}}}

>                                                                  There
> are some hints (not to be taken as gospel) at this site:
> http://www.linux-militia.net

2.6 is much better than 2.4 under load, IME, because of the swap token
code, the block I/O scheduler, the per-device request queues (no more
does packet-writing to your slow DVD-RW halt all other writes), the O(1)
scheduler, and the ability to use NPTL.

But 2.6 versus 2.6, well, the largest changes are caused by picking
different I/O schedulers and/or TCP schedulers and/or fiddling in /proc,
depending on what your slothfulness is.

> Recompilling kernels is not that painful. You just change a few
> modules (or start from scratch) then hit make
> dep/clean/bzImage/modules/modules_install...

That's how it was done in 2.4. These days all you need is a
`make oldconfig && make', and then `make install modules_install' as root.

> a cup of coffee or tea ... Ok, maybe not coffee, maybe roast dinner or
> plant a tree ..

`Plant a tree' is only true if like me you're still using P233s or P75s :)

> I think I do it for educational reasons all the same.

Sounds like the reasons I used to do GCC bootstraps and glibc builds.
(These days I do it a lot 'cos I'm trying to fix bugs. Worryingly often
the bugs are my fault. :( )

> On low RAM systems, a stripped kernel could make a difference; and

Yes, indeed; this is what CONFIG_EMBEDDED is for. 2.6.15 should be
smaller yet for such systems.

> because swapping of memory does influence speed - on some occassions

Yes, but if you're so short of memory that 500K more or less eaten by
the kernel has a significant impact, I hope you're not doing much else
on that machine :)

> recompiling a thin kernel can help. Obviously I am dwelving into a
> dangerous territory too, inciting protests at any time.

Hardly :) as long as you keep an old kernel around...


... personally I keep two: /boot/vmlinuz.old, copied from the last
/boot/vmlinuz by `make install', and /boot/vmlinuz.stable, which I copy
by hand from /boot/vmlinuz whenever I'm satisfied that a kernel's
working *really* well. The .stable one then becomes my last-ditch
emergency fallback.

> It's the learning and meeting new people - that makes me enjoy this hobby.

Somehow I've missed the `meeting new people' part, probably because I
never actually seem to get to gllug meetings. I really must make the
next one.

> You get free dinners and they are all over you - very nice hehe.

Well, *that* has certainly never happened to me. How do you do that,
again? ;}

> Which is why I never fix Windows Operating System anymore, even if
> they beg ...

Alas my mother uses it, and charging her consultancy rates might
seem... ungrateful.

-- 
`Holy Google, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our job interview.'
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