Kernel 2.4.7-pre3 on alpha.
The initial phase of an RPM build is unpacking a tarball and applying
patches, which is a bunch of writes followed by a update of read/write
updates. A lot of write activity, basically. RPM build is running at
normal priority as a normal user.
In another xterm, su'd in a shell that is renice'd to -14, I run "sync"
during all this write activity. It hangs for 17 seconds before I get
impatient, stop counting, and suspend the RPM build process. sync
continues to block, not returning to the command prompt. I run dmesg
(generated read activity?), and sync finally returns.
The RPM build process continues unpacking/writing files without
appearing to slow in window 1 while sync blocks in window 2.
I have not seen this behavior before, but I do not recall trying 'sync'
specifically during heavy write activity before. This behavior is
reproducible.
-- Jeff Garzik | A recent study has shown that too much soup Building 1024 | can cause malaise in laboratory mice. MandrakeSoft | - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jul 07 2001 - 21:00:20 EST