"Aaron" == Aaron Ucko <UCKO@VAX1.ROCKHURST.EDU> writes:
>> That's one of the reasons why linux's interactive behaviour is really
>> pretty good even under load. If I've got a large simulation plus a
>> compile going on in the background, response time in interactive
>> sessions is still instantaneous.
> Depends on hardware. I've got a 486DX2/66 with 8M RAM swapping to IDE;
> if I compile the kernel and run Netscape at the same time, disk activity
> goes up markedly, both processes run at a snail's pace, and interactive
> performance isn't too hot either. OTOH, doing significantly better in
> this case would take a miracle.
Of course. We were talking about the scheduling algorithm. Memory
size versus working set size is another important factor for
performance, but it's a completely separate one. Performance is
always like this --- it's hard to analyse because there are so many
contributing factors. Knowing _that_ something is slow is far removed
from knowing _why_ it is slow. :)
Are you running the 2.0 kernel, btw? Later kernels do swap much
better than 1.2 (and I mean *much* better) under heavy load, but with
that kind of workload in 8MB you are never going to see really good
performance.
Cheers,
Stephen.
-- Stephen Tweedie <sct@dcs.ed.ac.uk> Department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University, Scotland.