Bug 90149

Summary: Slow application launch in Red Hat
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Mitsu Hadeishi <mitsu>
Component: kernelAssignee: Arjan van de Ven <arjanv>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Brian Brock <bbrock>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 9   
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2006-02-21 18:52:52 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Mitsu Hadeishi 2003-05-03 14:41:27 UTC
Description of problem: 
 
This probably is NOT a kernel problem but I have no idea where the problem is so it is 
going here for now. 
 
I have noticed (and I have read articles in which others have commented on this) that 
Red Hat 9 takes a very long time to launch applications.  For example, launching 
OpenOffice for the first time can take a minute or more on a relatively new Pentium 4 
laptop. I have also noticed similarly slow performance while copying large numbers of 
files.  Doing hdparm indicates that I am getting a decent 15-16 MB/sec, so DMA is 
working fine. 
 
The reason I post this as a problem is that under Mandrake 9.1 on the same machine, 
performance is a lot faster.  About 25 seconds to launch OpenOffice (writer). 
 
Mandrake is using a slightly newer kernel but I doubt this is the problem.  Any thoughts?  
Why is this?  In many ways I would prefer to use Red Hat 9 since it seems to be a bit 
more stable than Mandrake 9.1, but the slow performance is a killer. 
 
 
 
 
 
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Comment 1 Mitsu Hadeishi 2003-05-06 13:01:02 UTC
I was discussing this problem with a friend of mine familiar with kernel development and 
he thought that it might actually be kernel related.  Newer kernels have added 
optimizations allowing for better real-time response, which have to do with allocating 
more time to certain types of foreground I/O operations.  Basically, I think what might be 
at issue here is foreground application priority (including giving timeslices to launching 
applications). 
 

Comment 2 Mitsu Hadeishi 2003-05-07 06:25:10 UTC
AHA!  I discovered the answer to this problem!!

After nosing around the Net for a while I discovered it: the problem is
magicdev.  Remove the magicdev package, and suddenly Open Office goes from 100
seconds to launch to 15 seconds.  Clocked.

Yes, that's 100 seconds down to 15 seconds.  And I have read other people
reporting the same thing.  There is something seriously wrong with magicdev at
least on some systems (mine is an Inspiron 8200).  Magicdev should definitely be
reexamined.

This bug should be reassigned to someone who knows about magicdev.

Comment 3 Mitsu Hadeishi 2003-05-07 14:41:58 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 73661 ***

Comment 4 Red Hat Bugzilla 2006-02-21 18:52:52 UTC
Changed to 'CLOSED' state since 'RESOLVED' has been deprecated.