Hi Ben Ben Hutchings ben-at-decadent.org.uk |DebianBug| wrote:
On Fri, 2009-06-26 at 14:15 +1200, Brendon Green wrote:I could rebuild the 2.6.26 host and guest kernels for the system in question (I archive the .config files using a local version number which, unfortunately, bears little or no relation to the kernel version number). However, I have also made recent changes to the hardware (PCI PATA card to boost disk from ATA/33 to ATA/133).If you don't think the hardware changes will skew the results, I can temporarily downgrade the kernels, apply the patch (to 2.6.26, regrettably I no longer have Debian's 2.6.28 sources available), and try to reproduce the problem.Please apply this patch to 2.6.26. We want to fix the bug in lenny (2.6.26) and we don't care about .28 any more. I don't think this is hardware-dependent, so don't bother changing your hardware back. Ben.
Today, I started playing around with unpatched .26 kernels as host and guest on my server. Regrettably, I am yet to reproduce the bug, although the system *feels* a lot slower with .26 as host _and_ guest. I may yet try booting with the IDE in PIO mode, to artificially degrade CPU and disk performance, and see what happens.
On a different note, I applied your patch to my desktop machine (still running 2.6.26, despite being a mix of testing/unstable/experimental) a few weeks ago, in an attempt to improve OpenOffice.org performance.
Since doing that, I have been noticing X freezing (mouse moves, but no hot-tracking, and unable to switch tasks or VT's) when OOo, or another application, is busy. Usually, when OOo is busy, I will switch to another task (or IceWeasel ;-) and continue working.
I'll give more feedback if and when I manage to tickle the bug on my server. Cheers, Brendon Green