New Kernel patch to speed things up - a lot!

[viking60]

The blitz Kernel

Linus has accepted a 200 line patch that will speed up Internet surfing dramatically.

It's an improvement for things like smooth scrolling around, but what I found more interesting was how it seems to really make web pages load a lot faster. Maybe it shouldn't have been surprising, but I always associated that with network performance. But there's clearly enough of a CPU load when loading a new web page that if you have a load average of 50+ at the same time, you _will_ be starved for CPU in the loading process, and probably won't get all the http requests out quickly enough.

Linus describes it as a

huge improvement

It does its magic by utilizing the CPU power better, so multitasking will be faster too I guess.
Something to look forward to for sure!

[dedanna1029]

Oh man, he is a GOD.

[viking60]

I have just patched my Arch Kernel It is done with bash!
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/11/alternat ... patch.html
You have to use the /dev solution (The Ubuntu description) to make it work. I am tickled pink!!!!
The internet surfing and page loading is much faster!

It will work on most distros one way or the other, with the exception of Mandriva!
Mandriva Kernel doesnt have cgroup support.
See that on default :

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grep -i cgroup /boot/config-2.6.33.7-desktop-2mnb
# CONFIG_CGROUPS is not set

[dedanna1029]

Well, they're only on 2.6.33, going on 2.6.34 - they appear to me to be way behind on the kernel anyway. From Arch (not tried the patch yet):

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uname -r
2.6.35-ARCH

Mandriva's two full releases behind Arch, and they are also at this point behind Fedora.

[viking60]

I believe it was mara that said that Fedora is archaic compared to Arch. That is true.

[dedanna1029]

Oh it is. I'm always pleasingly disgusted with each new Fedora release at how wonderfully archaic it is. <sarcasm> I think they all ran a race to see who could be the most behind on release date, and Mandriva came in 1st at the time, Fedora 2nd - there was no hare in that race. Only tortoises. See the thing that REALLY gets me about Fedora, is they claim to be bleeding edge for one, and for another they start off so archaic they might as well provide KDE3 side by side with KDE4 so one can at least get Amarok1 out of all the players that don't work.

Edit: Of course, for F14 I do think they put a tad of effort into it:

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$ uname -a
Linux dedanna.rocks.net 2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686 #1 SMP Fri Oct 22 15:34:36 UTC 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

That's not updated yet for today, though. They still have the 2009 sucky implementation of pulseaudio too - can't get it to work for jack.

[viking60]

Fedora is bringing many news to the table every time. Fedora is driving things forward and they obviously don't mind to brake some eggs when making an Omelet.
That makes Fedora important. Maybe the most important one out there. Debian would be the hardest competitor in that department.
But you cannot use Fedora as a stable system. If something works they will break it, to test out something even more ingenious. Thats life on the bleeding edge I guess
An only an opinion. All people with a stable Fedora installation are invited to disagree -please do!
The patch will work anyway.

[viking60]

I have been using the patch for some time now (in Arch). And it is a huge improvement. Surfing and response times are über fast - this is one happy Berserk

[dedanna1029]

Meh. I don't get it or I would do it too. *sigh

I offer evidence that I don't get it:

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[root@dedanna ~]# mount -t cgroup cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu -o cpu
mount: mount point /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu does not exist
[root@dedanna ~]# mkdir -m 0777 /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/user
mkdir: cannot create directory `/sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/user': No such file or directory

It's the first thing to do from here.

[viking60]

You need to read the third post here again! The first thing is not what you should do - you must use the Ubuntu description.

[dedanna1029]

That's from the Ubuntu description page, what I did there... from that third post... sigh...

Update (November 24): because many people had trouble following the instructions below, there is now a script that automatically does everything for you. See: Script To Automatically Apply the "200 Lines Kernel Patch" Alternative In Ubuntu

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/11/alternat ... patch.html

I go to that page, and it says:

Important:
To use this script, you must remove the changes you have made by following the instructions in the Alternative To The "200 Lines Kernel Patch That Does Wonders" Which You Can Use Right Away post (that involves removing the code you've added to ~/.bashrc, /etc/rc.local and completely remove the /usr/local/sbin/cgroup_clean file)! If you do not do this, the script will not work! You have been warned.

So, back to that page, and I'm at:

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if [ "$PS1" ] ; then 
           mkdir -m 0700 /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/user/$$
           echo $$ > /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/user/$$/tasks
   fi

... in ~/.bashrc, and...

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mount -t cgroup cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu -o cpu
mkdir -m 0777 /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/user

... which fails.

What am I not getting?

[viking60]

You have the wrong entry in your .bashrc
It should be:

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if [ "$PS1" ] ; then 
   mkdir -p -m 0700 /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/$$ > /dev/null 2>&1
   echo $$ > /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/$$/tasks
   echo "1" > /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/$$/notify_on_release
fi

An what is that second code and where did you put it? That is not meant for the Terminal and it is nowhere in the Ubuntu description.
( I am assuming that you are using Archlinux here)