Re: Kernel 2.6.0-test2 vs 2.2.12 -- Some observations

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

On Iau, 2003-08-07 at 18:23, J.C. Wren wrote:
> 	For reasons unknown, whereas 2.2.12 picked up the values for how much memory 
> we have stuffed into a fake BIOS block, 2.6.0-test2 does not (nor did 
> 2.5.69).  I have to set a mem=7744k into the boot params.  Anything more, and 
> I get kernel paging faults at startup.  I'm unclear why this is, but since it 
> can be worked around at the moment, I can let it lay.

2.5.x/2.6 (and 2.4) use E820 memory sizing before E801 and earlier
systems. Make sure your E820 tables are right I guess.

> 	I have not run hdparm on the drives, but e2fsck coming up on a dirty 
> partition is amazingly slow on 2.6.0-test2.  On a 32MB CF card with 25% usage 
> (about 300 files), it takes less than 10 seconds under 2.2.12.  On 
> 2.6.0-test2, I'm seeing on the order of 40+ seconds.  Long enough, in fact, 
> that the watchdog that makes sure the system has booted into the application 
> is timing out and punting the system.

You bluecat probably sets umask by default if its designed to keep
latency low. So hdparm -u1 /dev/hda first.