Re: [rhynes1@comcast.net: Re: system requirements for debian]
On Sunday 15 January 2006 18:10, Bob Hynes wrote:
>Kent West wrote:
>>(Bob; let me encourage you to keep conversations on the list rather
>> than private replies; this way, others who might be helpful can
>> help; and others who are looking for the same answers can find the
>> answers both on the list and later in the archives.)
>>
>>Bob Hynes wrote:
>>>Kent West wrote:
>>>>Bob Hynes reports a slow Debian setup.
>>>>
>>>>My first suspicion would be that DMA is not turned on. What's the
>>>>results of running "hdparm /dev/hda" (assuming your setup is
>>>>installed on /dev/hda)?
>>>
>>>Well, I ran that command on konsole, but got "no such file or
>>>directory. I did install it earlier, so I know it's there. When I
>>> run "hdparm" I get a bunch of switch options, so it's installed.
>>
>>The only explanation I might have is that when you got the "no such
>> file or directory", you did it as a non-root user, whereas you ran
>> it as root when you got the switch options. Or perhaps you
>> misspelled hdparm the first time. Or /sbin is not in your path. Or
>> you were in the /sbin directory the first time, in which case you
>> would have wanted to type "./hdparm /dev/hda".
>>
>>>Can't say I know the file structure or the KDE interface well enough
>>>right now to know where something gets install by default, or where
>>>hdparm got installed, but if the command responds with a list of
>>>switches, I'm assuming there is something I can do without running
>>> it with the /dev/hda path.
>>
>>"locate hdparm" (or "locate [whatever]") is a handy tool to use for
>>locating a file.
>>
>>"which hdparm" should find the first executable instance of hdparm.
>> (If you have more than one copy in different locations, the command
>> travels down your PATH setting until it finds an executable copy.
>> The file must be executable (permissions, path settings, etc) by the
>> same user that is running the "which" command, or you'll get
>> different results.)
>>
>>>(Interestingly enough, the file "hda" exists at that directory level
>>>as a "0 B" file...not sure how big the file is supposed to be.)
>>
>>Like so:
>>nesa[westk]:/home/westk/Desktop> ls -l /dev/hda
>>brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 0 Jul 30 2004 /dev/hda
>>
>>The "/dev/hda" file you've found is a "device file", reffering to a
>>"block" device; that's what the "b" means at the start of the line.
>> This type of device file refers to something like a hard drive or a
>> cdrom drive or something else that moves data in blocks. Items that
>> move data in single "characters" at a time, like a modem, would have
>> a "c" at the start of the line. "d" means directory; "-" means
>> normal file; "l" means link; etc.
>>
>>In *nix, "everything is a file". What this means in this context is
>> that when your system accesses your hard drive, it's really doing so
>> through this device file.
>>
>>But back to your issue. You can try "/sbin/hdparm /dev/hda" instead
>> of "hdparm /dev/hda"; this will specify the path to the hdparm
>> utility.
>>
>>The "mount" command should result in something like this:
>>
>>nesa[westk]:/home/westk/Desktop> mount
>>/dev/hda8 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
>>proc on /proc type proc (rw)
>>sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
>>devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
>>tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
>>/dev/hda9 on /usr type ext3 (rw)
>>/dev/hda6 on /var type ext3 (rw)
>>/dev/hda7 on /home type ext3 (rw)
>>/dev/hda1 on /tmp type ext3 (rw)
>>/dev/hda5 on /spare type ext3 (rw)
>>usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
>>
>>
>>This indicates that my system is installed to /dev/hda. If you had
>> your system spread over several drives (which you'd have a hard time
>> doing in Windows - wow, that's a lame OS in many ways), you might
>> see references to /dev/hdb or /dev/hdc, etc. In fact, your CDROM is
>> likely on /dev/hdc. If you have a SCSI system instead of an IDE
>> system (not likely for your average Dell or Gateway or locally-built
>> whitebox computer), you might see things like /dev/sda or /dev/sdb.
>> This might also be the case if you mounted a USB keyfob or camera,
>> etc, as they often are mounted as a "simulated" SCSI device.
>>
>>hda refers to the master drive on the first IDE port of your mother
>> board; hdb refers to the slave on the first IDE port.
>>hdc refers to the master on the second IDE port;
>>hdd refers to the slave on the second IDE port.
>>
>>A number after these designations refers to the partition. Most
>> newbies probably only have one big partition instead of multiple
>> partitions like I have above, so you might only see something like
>> "/dev/hda1 on /".
>>
>>If your system says something other than /dev/hda for most of your
>>mounts, then your "hdparm" command needs to refer to that (those?)
>>drive(s) instead of /dev/hda. And remember, hdparm works on drives
>>(hda), not partitions (hda1).
>
>Thanks for your help, this is what I got from that command:
>
>
>/dev/hdc:
> multcount = 0 (off)
> IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
> unmaskirq = 0 (off)
> using_dma = 1 (on)
> keepsettings = 0 (off)
> readonly = 0 (off)
> readahead = 256 (on)
> geometry = 26548/16/63, sectors = 26760384, start = 0
>
>So I'm running in default 16-bit, I take it. I tried using the -c
> switch to change it to 32-bit, but it just displays
>
>/dev/hdc:
> IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
>
>how do I "set" the parameter to 32, rather than just displaying the
>current setting of 16-bit? Sorry, I'm super Linux dumb.
The -c takes an argument to change it, otherwise its just a query
operation. 0 = 16 bit, 1, 2, & 3 set other variations of the 32 bit
transfer modes.
Man hdparm is your friend.
--
Cheers, Gene
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