[Eug-lug] This week's meeting - back to basics (and components)

[Allen Brown]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Linux Rocks! wrote:

> T. Joseph CARTER [knghtbrd at bluecherry.net] wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 05:37:04PM -0800, Linux Rocks! wrote:
> > > So, Meeting Tonite... 
> > > 
> > > Looks like Joseph will be demonstrating his oldworld skills on reletively new 
> > > computer gear (brand new last year technology).
> > 
> > Results of that:
> > 
> > Jamie's cardboard-covered pool table is an almost flat surface to work on,
> > but the lighting was inefficient for Joseph's eyes.  Great thanks is owed
> > to Mike O for his expertise--he was able to accomplish in a few minutes a
> > series of tasks which would have taken me at least an hour's frustration.
> > 
> > In the end, we got the box together with an evil OS, Ubuntu, space for
> > another Linux with shared /home, and a yet-unformatted space I intend to
> > put FreeBSD on.
> > 
> > 
> > I have some very positive things and some very negative things to say
> > about the ASUS Terminator barebones case, but have to be at an elementary
> > school in about 8 hours, so will not say them now.
> > 
> > My DVD reader was not working right.  We left Jamie dismantling it to try
> > and resurrect the drive by cleaning the crap out of it.  (It's old.)  I
> > hope to hear that he got it working next week, since it was a faithful
> > drive for many years.
> 
> heh.. I got I'll see if I can have  it working by next meeting :)
> 
> > 
> > Claimed a GF2 (sorry again Neil!) because X11 didn't like my SiS video and
> > I couldn't be bothered to make it work since I had the AGP slot.
> I have 2 computers with SIS video, they are kind of crappy video
> compared to todays 3d cards, but mine did work... 
> 
> > 
> > 
> > > I have Ubunto CD's (the live cd, and the 2 install cd for i386), I dont have 
> > > my knoppix or gentoo cd's (left them at a friends...). I have slack 10 
> > > install cd's (they both are bootable). 
> > 
> > I took one of these and am using it now.  I must admit that I was greatly
> > pleased to change the DPI setting in the Gnome registry to 130 DPI and
> > find that suddenly all of Ubuntu's live CD was readable by a Joseph at
> > high resolution.  Now there is just that the Gnome applications for this
> > machine's intended purpose are horrid next to the equivalent bits of KDE.
> > ;)
> 
> We did have a visit from Ed, he had a new packet of ubuntu cds :)
> 
> Larry Graciously dontated a router for the livingroom, so now we can
> have wired computers...
> 
> Larry and I picked up (gotta clean up the pizza ghosts from previous
> meetings!) the place a bit.
> 
> MrO made a magical aprearance... he was soo helpful, he helped Joseph
> build his new computer, and helped me build a new kernel. He also turned
> me on to swaret (a slackware package tool). I have to read up on it, it
> looks pretty handy.
> 
> During the meeting we did compile a new kernel, but because I have a
> stupid reiserfs, I had trouble using it, as 2.6 kernels can only seem to
> boot to ext partitions nativly. I built an initrd with the reiserfs, but
> it wouldnt boot. I built a new kernel with reiser in the kernel (after
> compiling reiserfs as a module, to make an initrd with... Anyway, I have
> reiserfs support in my initrd, and in my kernel, and now it boots.
> reiserfs can be a pain in the ass if its your boot partition.

I don't think that was a function of reiserfs.  The reason it boots
into ext2 seamlessly is because ext2 is always compiled into the
kernel, not a module.  Basically, if you want a file system readable
at boot it has to be compiled into the kernel.
--
Allen

> So, anyway, after the meeting I was able to get my raid array up. 
> 
> Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hda1            160074768 125387616  34687152  79% /
> /dev/md/0            392047076     32828 372099400   1% /mnt/raid
> 
> See! pretty cool huh. 
> So, I still have issue, it functions, but not great. 
> 
> doing hdparm -tT on my drives, I find this:
> Note:
> 
> /dev/hda:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   3124 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1561.46 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  170 MB in  3.03 seconds =  56.13 MB/sec
> 
> /dev/hde:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   3112 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1556.24 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  136 MB in  3.03 seconds =  44.95 MB/sec
> 
> 
> /dev/md0:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   3084 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1540.69 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  150 MB in  3.01 seconds =  49.91 MB/sec
> 
> My drives: Maxtor, 8M cache, ata133. hda is 160gb, hde and hdg are 200gb
> 
> The 200 gb disks are on a sil 680 pci ide raid contoler. 
> the 160 is on the onboard IXP150 ide controller.
> 
> from my basic testing with hdparm, my conclusion is that my secondary
> storage (hard disks...) is fastest with just a regular ide disk on the
> primary controller (about 57M/sec). I figured I would get closer to
> 100M/sec on the raid, but im actually getting less performance on it,
> than the regular ide.
> 
> The raid setup is raid0, stripped array (performace).
> 
> I may pull the dvd off the secondary contrller, and try the raid on that
> controller, but it will mean 2 drives on one cable/contrller... 
> 
> Still looking for my performace....
> 
> Jamie
> 
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