[GLLUG] X using too much CPU

Matt Graham danceswithcrows at usa.net
Thu Jul 14 13:37:09 EDT 2005


On Thursday 14 July 2005 12:33, after a long battle with technology, 
Andy Lee wrote:
>> "Andy Lee" <ALEE at courts.mi.gov> 07/14/05 11:37AM:
>>> SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, on an HP DL380 3.2 GHz Xeon, 2GB 
>>> RAM. top reports that the 'X' process is constantly using 96%-98% 
>>> CPU. This is a fairly stripped down install. Anyone seen this 
>>> before? 
> On Thursday 14 July 2005 12:04, Andy Lee wrote:
>> Don't know why I didn't try it before posting, but restarting X
>> fixed it.
> No, the system wasn't slow at all. The Oracle logs were reporting
> high CPU utilization warnings, but still seemed to respond normally.

I've heard people complain about X using a lot of CPU on SuSE systems of 
recent vintage in col.misc and col.hardware.  It's possible--heck, 
*likely*--that their patches to X created a bug.  AFAICT, SuSE are 
actually more cavalier about using the very latest not quite tested 
packages than vanilla Gentoo without "ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~ ", which is a 
little disturbing to me.  (SuSE documentation used to be pretty good, 
and it's apparently started to suck, which also worries me.)

Machines that are being used as servers really shouldn't run X servers 
anyway--too many variables and too much code, much of which is more 
beta than it should be.  They can run X clients, but keep the X servers 
on the workstations for maximum sanity.

> Are there better tools for monitoring system status?

Depends on what you want to monitor.  top by default sorts processes by 
current CPU% used, *not* total CPU time used.  There are more system 
log monitors on freshmeat.net than you can shake a small mammal at, 
too.

>I think a better approach would be to monitor the amount of time a 
>typical transation takes to do. 

I think to get a reasonable spread of times, you'd need a fairly hefty 
chunk of data transferred.  Maybe.  Network load might be a factor in 
this as well.

-- 
   Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the 
   truth.   --Benjamin Disraeli
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see


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