Slow since the systemd transition -- systemd on top.

[Krakramille]

Dear all,

Here is a problem I have had for more than a year now, I am going crazy because my computer is hardly usable and I cannot find information that helps with *my* problem. I have found information about slow startups but not about my exact problem.

When Jessie was released, I upgraded my system with apt-get dist upgrade. Then it started to be insanely slow.
- I checked the RAM with free: my computer was not swapping.
- I checked the current processes with top. It looked ok, but then I changed the refreshing rate to 0.1s, and it appeared that very often (several times per second), systemd and kthreadd were on top of the list, and systemd was taking ~360% (my eyes are fast but not fast enough to get this information *all* the times systemd is on top).

So I thought my system was misconfigured because of the sysVinit -> systemd transition, and I re-installed my machine from scratch. And it is still as slow as before

Some more information:
- I have a similar computer at home (same CPU, same quantity of RAM, etc). My home computer runs smoothly a Jessie that was upgraded from Wheezy. Even when the RAM is full and everything is swapping all the time, my home computer is not as slow as my office computer.
- The main difference I can think of is that my office computer is using NFS, whereas my home computer is not.
- When I reboot my computer, it runs *almost* normally at the beginning, then it gest really slow again after a few hours or a couple of days.
- I have looked at the output of systemctl --all. Some services appear as "not found", some of them are "active / exited", but I have not found anything that looks weird such as a service trying to start and failing again and again (but I might be wrong).

I really don't know where to look now...

Thanks a lot for your help.

PS: sorry for my broken English

[bw123]

Barely usable for a year, wow you are very patient. I'm not sure why you think systemd is the problem, but I guess it could be related. The upgrade from wheezy>jessie involved a LOT more than just systemd.

The main difference I can think of is that my office computer is using NFS

How about temporarily disabling the nfs mounts and test?

I changed the refreshing rate to 0.1s, and it appeared that very often (several times per second), systemd and kthreadd were on top of the list, and systemd was taking ~360%

Yeah, I don't know about that, maybe someone else can help you understand top. I've never seen anything go over 100%

There are plenty of good links on the net about tuning nfs, and also about troubleshooting systemd, so don't wait another year to get it resolved!

good luck.

[Krakramille]

Barely usable for a year, wow you are very patient. I'm not sure why you think systemd is the problem, but I guess it could be related. The upgrade from wheezy>jessie involved a LOT more than just systemd.

The main difference I can think of is that my office computer is using NFS

How about temporarily disabling the nfs mounts and test?

Yeah, during this time I have been trying to understand what is wrong and rebooting every now and then... Some colleagues who came to see stuff on my computer told me "how can you work like that?" Sometimes I bring my laptop to work, like today

Wow, how could I forget to try disabling NFS. Thanks! I will try and see how it behaves.

I changed the refreshing rate to 0.1s, and it appeared that very often (several times per second), systemd and kthreadd were on top of the list, and systemd was taking ~360%

Yeah, I don't know about that, maybe someone else can help you understand top. I've never seen anything go over 100%

There are plenty of good links on the net about tuning nfs, and also about troubleshooting systemd, so don't wait another year to get it resolved!

good luck.

[/quote]

Multithreaded processes are displayed with a CPU load that corresponds to the total CPU usage of the process, ie the sum of all the threads, unless you pass the -t option (one line for each thread)

[Bulkley]

Is there a hardware problem? Have you checked temperatures? Memory check? I'd run a plain background and put up Conky to show temperatures, ram, filesystem, top cpu, top mem, processes, etc. Then you can watch as you work on other things.

Just musing; maybe I'm way off in left field.

[Krakramille]

Great suggestion, thanks! I will try this one too.

[Bulkley]

If you are interested, here's my conkyrc. It might be a place to start. Then you can customize as needed.

Code: Select all

 conky.config = {
    -- Use double buffering (eliminates flickering)
    double_buffer = true,
    	
    -- Run conky in the background
    background = true,

    -- Update interval in seconds
    update_interval = 1,

    -- Number of samples to take for CPU and network readings
    cpu_avg_samples = 2,
    net_avg_samples = 2,
    
    draw_graph_borders = true,
    
    -- Use Xft (anti-aliased font and stuff)
    use_xft = true,
    font = 'DejaVu Sans Mono:size=9',
    xftalpha = 0.8,  

    -- Prevent text from moving around while using a mono font
    use_spacer = 'left',
    
    -- Default color and border settings
    default_color = 'black',
    color2 = '#ddaa00',
    draw_shades = false,
    draw_outline = false,
    draw_borders = false,
 
    -- Makes conky window transparent
    own_window_type = override,
    own_window_class = 'Conky',
    own_window_transparent = true,    
    own_window_type = 'normal',
    
    -- Window size and position
    minimum_width = 200,
    minimum_height = 200,
    maximum_width = 300,
    alignment = 'top_right',
    gap_x = 5,
    gap_y = 60,
}

conky.text = [[
${color2}SYSTEM --
${color2}host${alignr}${color}${nodename} 
${color2}kernel${alignr}${color}${kernel}

${color2}SENSORS --
#${color2}MB Temp ${color}${alignr}${hwmon  temp 3}°C
${color2}cpu1: ${color}${alignr}${hwmon  temp 1}°C
${color2}cpu2: ${color}${alignr}${hwmon  temp 2}°C
 

${color2}RAM --
${color}${mem} / ${memmax}${alignr}${memperc} % 
${color white}$membar

${color2}FILESYSTEM --
 ${color}${fs_used /home} / ${fs_size /home}${alignr}${fs_used_perc /home} %
${color white}${fs_bar /home}

${color2}NET --
 Down:${color} ${downspeed wlan0} k/s ${offset 45}${color2}Up:${color} ${upspeed wlan0} k/s
${color2}${downspeedgraph wlan0 22,130 ff0000 0000ff}${offset 30} ${color #22ccff}${upspeedgraph wlan0 22,130 0000ff ff0000}

${color2}TOP CPU --
${color2}${top name 1}${alignr}${color}${top cpu 1} %
${color2}${top name 2}${alignr}${color}${top cpu 2} %
${color2}${top name 3}${alignr}${color}${top cpu 3} %
${color2}${top name 4}${alignr}${color}${top cpu 4} %

${color2}TOP MEM --
${color2}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${color}${top_mem mem 1} %
${color2}${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${color}${top_mem mem 2} %
${color2}${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${color}${top_mem mem 3} %
${color2}${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${color}${top_mem mem 4} %

${color2}PROCESSES -- ${color} $processes ${color2}${alignr}Running ${alignr}${color black} $running_processes
${color2}${alignc}           PID    CPU    MEM
${color2}${top name 1} ${color}${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color2}${top name 2} ${color}${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color2}${top name 3} ${color}${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}

${color2}Open Port(s) -- ${alignr}Connections $color ${alignr}ALL: ${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count}
${color2}Source ${alignr} Port$color
 ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rhost 0} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rservice 0}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rhost 1} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rservice 1}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rhost 2} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rservice 2}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rhost 3} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rservice 3}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rhost 4} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 61000 rservice 4}


${execpi 60 DJS=`date +%_d`; ccal | sed s/"$DJS"'\b'/'${color white}'"$DJS"'$color'/|sed 's/^/${alignc}/'}




${font Arial Rounded:size=18}${color black}${alignc}${time %l:%M %P}${font}
${font Arial Rounded:size=10}${alignc}${time %A}, ${time %B} ${time %e}
]]

[Krakramille]

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!

I have followed your advice and I have:
- installed Gnome's small applet in prder to keep an eye on the temperature, as suggested by Bulkley
- used a local account that stores everything on the local drive, as suggested by bw123

It has been a month now, and my computer works smoothly.

The temperature is around 37-38C, and goes up to 66-68C when the CPU is computing a bit more intensively. So apparently the temperatures are fine...

Of course Gnome Tracker is disabled, so I wonder what can make the NFS mount such a pain?

Thanks a lot for y our help!