[HLUG] Clogged cache?

[grhmc at lavabit.com]

>> On 23/04/2008, grhmc at lavabit.com <grhmc at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>> > On 22/04/2008, Graham Cole <GrhmC at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>>  >> Hi everyone
>>>  >>  I'm trying to understand my ailing desktop which can't cope with a
>>>  >>  normal workload these days. It slows down when the browser is used
>>> for
>>>  >> a
>>>  >>  while and eventually it gets so slow that I have to press the
>>> reset
>>>  >>  button and start again. Printing a photo also slows things to a
>>> stop.
>>>  >>  I suspect a fault with the RAM because once recently I got an
>>> error
>>>  >>  message: E:Cache open()failed, please report. I think it was cured
>>> with
>>>  >>  dpkg --configure -a
>>>  >>  Is this situation familiar to anyone?
>>>  >>  I'm using Ubuntu 7.10
>>>  >
>>>  > Hi Graham,
>>>  >
>>>  > I wouldn't think it is a RAM fault as that usually kills your
>>> computer
>>>  > pretty quickly.  To start simply, is your disk full?  I would find
>>> out
>>>  > by opening a terminal window and typing:
>>>  >
>>>  > $ df -h
>>>  >
>>>  > If any of the columns have a percentage greater than 95% then that's
>>>  > probably the issue.
>>>  >
>>>  > Thanks
>>>  > Mark
>>>  >>
>>>
>>>
>>> I found no high percentage. I used the system monitor and saw there was
>>> no
>>>  activity in the swap file: always 0%. Recently I did have to remake
>>> the
>>>  swap file and that was satisfactory at the time. The system got
>>>  progressively worse in the last couple of days and is now practically
>>>  useless. I'm using a laptop now but I'd like to rescue the desktop!
>>>  The RAM use shown in the system monitor goes up fairly steadily to
>>>  something like 70% and then the system becomes slow and unusable.
>>> Should
>>>  the RAM use go up and down rather than go up steadily?
>>
>> Yep, welcome to Linux.  Like any good operating system Linux tries to
>> use all your remaining RAM for caching and buffering to avoid
>> accessing slow external drives (like hard disks).  A healthy Linux
>> system is always using as much RAM as possible!
>>
>> However your problem seems to indicate that an application is using up
>> a lot of memory.  If you could run the following command 'ps auxwf' in
>> the terminal once the computer gets slow and send it here I should be
>> able to see if that is the problem.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Mark
>>
>
> Thanks Mark....I started up again without Evolution and my browser has not
> caused a problem. It seems likely that Evolution is the culprit.
> Evolution broke for me in a previous Ubuntu incarnation and I swapped to
> Sylpheed. Since lavabit switched on webmail I'll make use of that and
> leave Evolution unused. If that cures my problem I'll probably get a fresh
> set of applications when I upgrade to Ubuntu 8.4
> So I'll wait and see. Thanks again for the help
>
> Graham
>
>
It's NOT an Evolution failure. Some time ago I was half way through some
updates and the system slowed to a stop. I tried to get a completion on
this several times when I had freshly started up and things were going
well. It always failed to complete the updates. Could there be a muddle in
my system because of failed attempts to update things?
I'm not in a panic because I'm okay with a new 2nd-hand laptop and anyway
I'm going to be out of the circuit for 4 or 5 days now.
Graham