Cluttermagnet Posted November 3, 2007 Author Share Posted November 3, 2007 Just try it Clutter . . . . you have 7 tty's . . . F1, F2 up to F7 . . . . X runs on Alt+F7 . . . . you can use the other 6 for dirty terminal work . . . press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and start a command that takes a long time . . . then do Ctrl+Alt+F2 and you can log in again and do another job . . . or you can return to Alt+F7 to see your X desktop . . . . and then go back to Ctrl+Alt+F1 to see if the job is finished.See what I mean . . get the picture ???So . . . when tty7 is crashed you go to one of the other 6 tty's ( does not have to be F2 . . can be any of them ) . . . and log in to give the reboot command . . . simple and effective. BrunoAhhh! OK, that is making a lot of sense. I never thought before in terms of parallel processes, having multiple Terminals working. 'Next time' I find myself in a mess, I will try some of this new stuff I'm learning. See, like I told you at the very beginning: "...I have some affinity for the command line...I want to learn to work with command lines..." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Here's my question of the week: I have been noticing little 'mouse freezes' in Ubuntu where any mousing is 'locked out', perhaps deferred, until some other (background?) process completes. this seems to happen all the time, maybe every hour or so? It seems to last about 3-5 seconds. I assume this is normal? What's happening when the mouse gets locked out? I have seen this for a very long time now, it's not just a recent thing. It appears normal for this OS. This is with Dapper on a 1.6GHz P4 box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Just a quick note-I got home and fished the new cable in the ceiling 'good enough for now'. Then I threw an Ethernet card in my Ubuntu Feisty box. Without connecting the router, I let the modem find the computer and presto- I was on the net.Right... "Hundred Days" honeymoon over and gone... would you go back to dialup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 (edited) It seems to last about 3-5 seconds. I assume this is normal?Er... nope. The only "lag" I notice is when i "wake up" my wireless moose... there is an ever-so-slight delay. If I want the mouse to freeze I'll had to work for it... VBox, couple of browsers with 20 tabs each, music player, OOo all open simultaneously, add Gimp to the mix; 1 Gig of RAM gets filled up when you're putting your mind to it. Mind you, I'm not using Dapper, though... Edited November 10, 2007 by Urmas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 (edited) Hi, Urmas-Haven't seen many posts from you lately, so I'm glad to see you on today. Hmmm, well, that's a funny answer to 'mouse freezes', but a good question in its own right. I'll say at this point that I consider it fairly likely that I'll find myself back on dialup in another 9-10 months, when my 1 year trial is over. It all depends on how the cable company conducts itself when faced with my cancellation. I'm certainly not going to continue to subscribe for an added 24 dollars a month on top of the introductory rate I'm paying right now. So it will hinge on just how negotiable that rate actually is. I'm pretty sure I'll be back on dialup for at least a while.Hard to imagine, isn't it? But I do have friends who also subscribe to cable internet. I can always grab my boxes and lug them over there for updates.Broadband internet is an absolute ripoff in my area. Even with Verizon now busily stringing fiber all over, the minimum price is still around 55-60 dollars per month, i.e. no real competition, but actually collusion and price fixing. My price point for broadband is around 30-35 dollars per month. Actual rate is up around 60. I'm fully prepared to tough it out a while longer on dialup if necessary. But yes, I love broadband, and for 33 dollars per month, I'd hold onto it indefinitely. Er... nope. The only "lag" I notice is when i "wake up" my wireless moose... there is an ever-so-slight delay. If I want the mouse to freeze I'll had to work for it... VBox, couple of browsers with 20 tabs each, music player, OOo all open simultaneously, add Gimp to the mix; 1 Gig of RAM gets filled up when you're putting your mind to it. Mind you, I'm not using Dapper, though...I'm running 512M of RAM and usually have one or two instances of Firefox open, often with a whole bunch of tabs open. That's about it. Oh, and I do have about 7 instances of Eye of Gnome viewer open. Doesn't seem like all that much to me, but who knows? Edited November 10, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Hmmm, well, that's a funny answer to 'mouse freezes', but a good question in its own right.Nothing like good old cross-posting to keep things interesting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 512M is not a whole lot of resources, Clutter. I just booted up my Slack and I'm using 560M already, but I run 2Gig RAM, so no worries. My guess is that you're sucking up those 512M pretty fast in Ubuntu and the system is using your /swap. This will definitely slow down your mouse response. The CPU has to issue priorities to applications sucking on the resources. Your mouse is not getting priority treatment, so it has to wait while other apps are sucking up your RAM. I don't remember if Ubuntu (Gnome) has a system monitor app (Darn shame, huh? Ive become a KDE user nearly 100% of the time nowadays. ). I would check to see what your resource situation is when this occurs and see if you're accessing /swap.PS: FF will eat up some resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 I don't remember if Ubuntu (Gnome) has a system monitor app (Darn shame, huh?)Yup. Shame on you. Of course there is a (panel) monitor app. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Uh... yeah. That thingy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 I'm running 512M of RAM and usually have one or two instances of Firefox open, often with a whole bunch of tabs open. That's about it. Oh, and I do have about 7 instances of Eye of Gnome viewer open. Doesn't seem like all that much to me, but who knows? Hi Clutter . . . the Firefoxes and the Eyes will not have a problem with that 512MB, but as soon as a background process starts ( cron-job or the spamfilter when receiving mail ) that eats resources your mouse could indeed give the behavior you are describing.You can check if it is a cron job because it runs at fixed times each hour, day, week.You can check if it is your spamfilter by keeping your mail program closed for an hour ( day ? ) and see if that makes the mouse happy. Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 (edited) Thanks, Bruno-I'll look into implementing your suggestions. I think it will also help for me to start keeping a paper log that lists every time I encounter the freezes. I need to get a better feel for how often it happens and for how long. I also need to see if it is even happening at all on my other 2 P4 boxes which both run Feisty. They have 512M or 1G of RAM (in the Cluttermaster). The freezes have only been a slight anoyance, so far, but they are very, very obvious if I happen to be mousing at the time. It affects any attempts at cursor movement, both U/D and L/R of the ball (yes, it's an old ball mouse); also the scroll wheel is affected the same way. Oh, it's a PS2 mouse, I don't run any USB mice here. One hint: during the freeze, the atempted changes from the mouse seem to get 'stored', so when it unfreezes, you see an immediate U/D jump without any further mouse movement. FWIW during any freeze, my hand movements with the mouse have been roughly elliptical- some arbitrary U/D component of that is visibly what gets captured during the freeze.BTW I think I can rule out cron-job, at least I have never set up any myself on this box. Ditto for spam filter- the freezes do not seen to connect to that sort of process. It might connect, perhaps in some way, to ethernet, although I can't imagine how. The freezes seem to be happening due to some sort of background process, I would guess, but the machine is surely not all that busy at the time. Edited November 11, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 (edited) 512M is not a whole lot of resources, Clutter. I just booted up my Slack and I'm using 560M already, but I run 2Gig RAM, so no worries. My guess is that you're sucking up those 512M pretty fast in Ubuntu and the system is using your /swap. This will definitely slow down your mouse response. The CPU has to issue priorities to applications sucking on the resources. Your mouse is not getting priority treatment, so it has to wait while other apps are sucking up your RAM. I don't remember if Ubuntu (Gnome) has a system monitor app (Darn shame, huh? Ive become a KDE user nearly 100% of the time nowadays. ). I would check to see what your resource situation is when this occurs and see if you're accessing /swap.PS: FF will eat up some resources. Ahah!Yes, actually I have a resources monitor runing up on my top panel, I hardly ever look at it. Well, lo and behold, it displays a steady train of high CPU usage events, marching across the tiny screen like little soldiers. Hmmmmmmm... :hmm:And just now, when I posted this, pre-edit, I saw a big block of 100 percent CPU activity for like 5+ seconds...Hmmmm... Edited November 11, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 Well in that case I understand why the mouse is shy of moving . . . . ;)You will have to find out what is eating that CPU . . . . and the "top" command could help you with that. Just type "top" in a terminal and watch the CPU usage of the processes.A few elementary things you should know about "top": - pressing the Q-key on your keyboard will make you quit "top" - pressing the K-key of your keyboard will open a line where you can type the PID ( process-number ) you want to kill.Happy hunting ! Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 marching across the tiny screen...Double click on that thingy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 Love that technical talk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ross549 Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 hahahaha :DAdam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 That mouse is just looking for cheese, that's all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 12, 2007 Author Share Posted November 12, 2007 I'm still watching that Ubuntu box, and have not come up with any definite conclusions so far. The resource monitor tells me I usually have 76-82 percent RAM in use, out of 512M, also swap runs about 40-50 percent (1G swap). I see CPU usage solidly at 100 percent when loading web pages in Firefox, for about 3-5 seconds. I usually do not notice mouse freezes when this is happening. So far the reason for the freezes is unknown. I'll figure it out eventually.This is way different than my P4 box running Feisty with only Firefox running (a bunch of tabs open). There, CPU usage is nearly a flat line around 4-5 percent. In the problem Dapper box, CPU is bouncing around all the time. The graph scrolls across like a coarse tooth saw blade, lots of regular peaks like rows of soldiers marching past, about 1 every 2 seconds or so. Seems to be bouncing between ~20 and 80 percent, with occasional peaks to 100 percent. Weird.BTW I'm running Mint 3.1 in a live CD session at the moment. I just put an Ethernet card in another of my P4 boxes (1.8GHz 512M Ram). I presently have 3 computers with Linux on them. It won't be long now before that number increases to 5. I'm going to be installing a few more different distros, all multibooting with 98SE. Probably Mint and PClos. I want to get more familair with KDE in daily use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 12, 2007 Share Posted November 12, 2007 . . also swap runs about 40-50 percent (1G swap). Does it ?? . . That is bad news, it should not use any swap at all in *normal* circumstances . . . the 512 RAM should be able to deal with the apps you are using ( even the 2 instances of FF + the eyes + mail + other stuff )I would close programs and open one by one and see which one runs wild and starts using the swap. ( even if it is only little . . . . . swap is just an emergency backup system for your RAM and should only be used in emergency situations )In case you can not find anything special you might have to get to the point of a re-install of the distro on that box . . . . . . . . ( yep I know that is a pain ) . . . You might see what happens if you run Ubuntu live on that box . . is it still accessing swap ?? ( probably not . . . and running "Live" uses more RAM by default ) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted November 12, 2007 Share Posted November 12, 2007 I see CPU usage solidly at 100 percent when loading web pages in Firefox, for about 3-5 seconds.Let's try to see if FF is the culprit...What happens if you clear out the cache and the private data in FF ? Then close it,reopen it again and start browsing meantime watching how much it is using.What happens if you use another browser instead of FF ? BTW ... 6 replies to go and this topic will have had 1000 replies ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 13, 2007 Author Share Posted November 13, 2007 Thanks, striker-I've been suspecting a Firefox problem on that machine for some time now. It does several things weird. I'll look into this later this evening and report back to you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 13, 2007 Author Share Posted November 13, 2007 (edited) This is going to take longer than I had imagined, and I don't have too much time to play with it this week. Comparing two P4 computers, one with Feisty, one with Dapper and the CPU use problem and mouse freezes-The Dapper box has a CPU histogram that looks like a coarse tooth saw blade. Varies between ~5-60 percent activity, constantly. It does not have Firefox running.Memory use is ~27 percent of 0.5G (steady)Swap use is nil.Top shows ~80+ tasks, 1-6 running running, nothing that looks 'suspicious'.The Feisty box has a near flat line around 6 percent CPU, and it has one instance of Firefox open with a bunch of tabs.Memory use is ~50 percent of 0.5G (steady)Swap use is nil.Top shows a steady 104 tasks, 1-3 runningBoth OS's show a continuous incoming traffic over ethernet with small packets sent about every 20 seconds. I strongly assume that is something to do with Comcast Cable and is legitimate.Total listed tasks is steady on the Feisty box, varies a bit on the Dapper box. I see more user processes popping in and out in Top on the Dapper box.Nothing that jumps out at me as a reason yet, but the CPU use is an obvious giveaway in the Dapper box. That appears somewhat abnormal, I'd guess. Edited November 13, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 It then has to be something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 The Dapper box has a CPU histogram that looks like a coarse tooth saw blade. Varies between ~5-60 percent activity, constantly. It does not have Firefox running. Something is not right here . . . . ~0-5 would be normal in those kind of circumstances. Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 13, 2007 Author Share Posted November 13, 2007 (edited) Something is not right here . . . . ~0-5 would be normal in those kind of circumstances. BrunoI definitely agree. My 'normal' Feisty box runs a CPU flat line around 6 percent. Big difference. In the Dapper box, there are various user processes popping in and out, like gnome-cups-icon, gnome-terminal, gnome-system-mo, gnome-power-man, cupsd, hald-addon-stor, modem-applet, etc. I don't see as many of them on the other box.Edit: There, Clutter gets the honor (?) of making the 1000th 'Post' to this jazzy thread. That's 3 points on my 'Attaboy Badge'. :DBut that means that Bruno takes honors for making the 1000th 'Reply'. :thumbsup:Award that man the Penguin Trophy, definitely! Edited November 14, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 hald-addon-storage that looks like a candidate, if it keeps on polling . . . kill the process and see what happens . . . Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 13, 2007 Share Posted November 13, 2007 Clutter, read THIS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 14, 2007 Author Share Posted November 14, 2007 I don't know the correct syntax after entering the PID. Therefore the kill does not happen and I get an error message "...not permitted".Or should I have done sudo k ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 What are you trying to kill, Clutter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mlangdn Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 Correct syntax to kill a process:# kill pid#If that don't work:# kill -9 pid#That will definitely kill it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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