Why has my compile job been running for hours with low CPU utilization?
If you’re trying to compile something big, particularly out of /usr/pkgsrc, and you notice that the job is taking an excruciatingly long time and is low on CPU utilization but high on memory use, you’ve run into one of the big gotchas of the platform: swap over NFS is really, really slow. What’s happening here is that your compile job has drastically exceeded the 32MB of memory your system has, and it’s doing a large amount of swapping across the network. This is a painfully slow process no matter how quick your network is; your best bet is to try killing any unnecessary processes running on your Dreamcast to free up memory. Don’t be surprised, though, if your job has run for over 5 hours with no signs of stopping… and don’t bother to kill it, either, since it’s still OK, and you’ll have just wasted all that compile time. According to a post by Simon Burge on the tech-kern list, it is possible to do something about this by tweaking virtual memory settings.
If you’re trying to compile something big, particularly out of /usr/pkgsrc, and you notice that the job is taking an excruciatingly long time and is low on CPU utilization but high on memory use, you’ve run into one of the big gotchas of the platform: swap over NFS is really, really slow. What’s happening here is that your compile job has drastically exceeded the 32MB of memory your system has, and it’s doing a large amount of swapping across the network. This is a painfully slow process no matter how quick your network is; your best bet is to try killing any unnecessary processes running on your Dreamcast to free up memory. Don’t be surprised, though, if your job has run for over 5 hours with no signs of stopping… and don’t bother to kill it, either, since it’s still OK, and you’ll have just wasted all that compile time. According to a post by Simon Burge on the tech-kern list, it is possible to do something about this by tweaking virtual memory settings. While it is in your best in
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- Why has my compile job been running for hours with low CPU utilization?
