Re: Time to fix things up? (Was USB/XFS/64bit/SuSE/Thinkpad problem)

On Mon, 2007-04-23 at 19:30 +0200, Frank Fiene wrote:
> Hi everybody.
> 
> Maybe after using SuSE since version 4... it is time to change to 
> (K)Ubuntu.
> 
> Has someone read about my performance problems with 
> USB/XFS/64bit/SuSE-10.2?
> 
> Hmm, what can i say? Kubuntu is faster loaded from CD as SuSE started 
> from HD accessing my S-ATA-Disk.
> 
> Maybe ;-) it is a DMA problem, because SuSE says:
> 
> +++snip+++
> ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xFFFFC20000032500 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 66
> ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xFFFFC20000032580 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 66
> ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xFFFFC20000032600 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 66
> ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xFFFFC20000032680 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 66
> 
> +++snip+++
> 
> But Kubuntu says:
> 
> +++snip+++
> [   59.529889] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000044500 ctl 
> 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 16
> [   59.529969] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000044580 ctl 
> 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 16
> [   59.530050] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000044600 ctl 
> 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 16
> [   59.530128] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000044680 ctl 
> 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 16
> +++snip+++
> 
> What means bmdma and ctl? Why is it 0x0 on SuSE? Why another IRQ?
> 
I don't know much about the disk internals, but there where (S)ATA
problems concerning ACPI recently. Not sure whether you hit them
(dmesg | grep -i acpi  -> some warnings/errors?).

Could still be something totally else.
You might want to test the latest kernel of the day (around 2.6.21-rc7).
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/kernel/kotd/

If the problem still exists there, you can help fixing this mainline,
AFAIK the appropriate list is:
[email protected]

If not (or if you don't think you are not familiar enough with linux to
provide these guys with detailed info) you should open a bug:
https://bugzilla.novell.com, attach full
dmesg and hwinfo output and assign it to [email protected].

   Thomas

PS: I agree that it's annoying having an (already working?) machine
breaking away like this, but:

a) Nagging doesn't help, neither for ubuntu, red hat or other 
   distributions. It may for M$ as this the only thing you can do there
   anyways...
b) To make sure your previously, nicely running machine works really
   well with OpenSuse 1x.y, please try an Alpha or Beta version.
   We are moving on with the mainline kernel, so trying an early
   Alpha and a "middle Beta" (at least kernel) to be sure nothing in
   the mainline kernel messed your machine up is a good idea.
   Fixing this afterwards is nearly impossible as the risk that you
   break another machine is just too high and testing a wide range
   of machines before bringing out an update is not possible at
   this point anymore.
   Be sure bugs like that are addressed, you get
   all the help for free, you just need to make use of ...


Now is a bit late, best you go for the latest 10.3...

     Thomas