Jim Beard wrote:

>
> Installed the 85 updates from Cooker.
>
> On reboot, and multiple times thereafter,
> module-alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0:
> Device or resource busy
>
> And X is at times taking up over 50% of cpu. At
> one point, 74 %CPU according to top.
>
> Linux jb.home.invalid 2.6.24.3-desktop-0.1mnb #1 SMP Mon Mar 3
> 15:06:47 CET 2008 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor
> 5000+ GNU/Linux
>
> The build date for Amarok 1.4.8 using kde 3.5.9 is 4 March.
>
> Amarok seems to be working ok, but everything else is
> going by fits and starts, with half the above line typed
> before the first letter of it was displayed on the screen.
> I tried Dave's
> sysctl -w vm.swappiness=1
> sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
> but then response time really went to h*ll in a handbasket.
>
> Correction to above: X hit 94 %CPU.
>
> Methinks it is time to wait for the next round of
> updates and hope this little problem is fixed. Otherwise,
> it's back to 2008.0 for a while.
>
> Cheers!
>
> jim b.
>
> --
> UNIX is not user-unfriendly; it merely
> expects users to be computer-friendly.

I got the same error on PCM, but sound seems to work O.K. I haven't tried
Timidity yet under R.C.1. I use Amarok for podcasts only, and have noticed
no problems.

The linguist's opening survey (every screen in a different language) was
fixed in Beta 2, but returned in r.c.1. A good thing that languages were
my forte at school. In an earlier version, that was fixed in an update,
when it was no longer of use.

K3B has a permissions bug, but it is known about. There is a lengthy thread
on an Ubuntu forum, where it is marked Solved, but I can't find the fix
among the chit-chat. The OP there was told to use command-line burning,
and protested (understandably, in my view.) A new burner program for GNOME
has come out, and an updated Nero for Linux.

Lilypond has a bug with convert-ly, fixed in a bugfix upgrade on its site.
I use it at least once a week, so I have installed the last stable version.
This and the K3b problem should be resolved by the final release.

I haven't checked the CPU, but haven't noticed your problem with X. As I
type, the CPU is 98% idle. I have occasionally seen the slow typing you
mention. The "free" Nvidia driver works faultlessly for me, but I don't
run games. Basically, I need it only to make up for the extra slowing down
using Windows progs under Wine. Beyond that, speed is unimportant to me.
My favorite program in that category uses graphics a lot but is static (a
jigsaw program.) Duruing bootup there is an error message that fb0 doesn't
exist, but no noticeable consequences.

IMO, Beta 2 had fewer bugs, and none that troubled me, but it may depend on
which packages are installed. But if I reinstall Beta 2 and apply all the
updates, I will finish up back where I am.

(Your sig is fair enough, and I am similar, but the masses are of the
contrary opinion. To my wife, for example, a computer is a tool, and she
doesn't care what goes on under the hood. There are many like her.)

Doug L.
(I have come to call myself Doug L because there are two Dougs in another
newsgroup I read.)

Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> Jim Beard wrote:
>
>>
>> Installed the 85 updates from Cooker.
>>
>> On reboot, and multiple times thereafter,
>> module-alsa-sink.c: Error opening PCM device front:0:
>> Device or resource busy
>>
>> And X is at times taking up over 50% of cpu. At
>> one point, 74 %CPU according to top.
>>
>> Linux jb.home.invalid 2.6.24.3-desktop-0.1mnb #1 SMP Mon Mar 3
>> 15:06:47 CET 2008 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor
>> 5000+ GNU/Linux
>>
>> The build date for Amarok 1.4.8 using kde 3.5.9 is 4 March.
>>
>> Amarok seems to be working ok, but everything else is
>> going by fits and starts, with half the above line typed
>> before the first letter of it was displayed on the screen.
>> I tried Dave's
>> sysctl -w vm.swappiness=1
>> sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
>> but then response time really went to h*ll in a handbasket.
>>
>> Correction to above: X hit 94 %CPU.
>>
>> Methinks it is time to wait for the next round of
>> updates and hope this little problem is fixed. Otherwise,
>> it's back to 2008.0 for a while.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> jim b.
>>
>> --
>> UNIX is not user-unfriendly; it merely
>> expects users to be computer-friendly.
>
> I got the same error on PCM, but sound seems to work O.K. I haven't tried
> Timidity yet under R.C.1. I use Amarok for podcasts only, and have
> noticed no problems.
>
> The linguist's opening survey (every screen in a different language) was
> fixed in Beta 2, but returned in r.c.1. A good thing that languages were
> my forte at school. In an earlier version, that was fixed in an update,
> when it was no longer of use.
>
> K3B has a permissions bug, but it is known about. There is a lengthy
> thread on an Ubuntu forum, where it is marked Solved, but I can't find the
> fix
> among the chit-chat. The OP there was told to use command-line burning,
> and protested (understandably, in my view.) A new burner program for
> GNOME has come out, and an updated Nero for Linux.
>
> Lilypond has a bug with convert-ly, fixed in a bugfix upgrade on its site.
> I use it at least once a week, so I have installed the last stable
> version. This and the K3b problem should be resolved by the final release.
>
> I haven't checked the CPU, but haven't noticed your problem with X. As I
> type, the CPU is 98% idle. I have occasionally seen the slow typing you
> mention. The "free" Nvidia driver works faultlessly for me, but I don't
> run games. Basically, I need it only to make up for the extra slowing down
> using Windows progs under Wine. Beyond that, speed is unimportant to me.
> My favorite program in that category uses graphics a lot but is static (a
> jigsaw program.) Duruing bootup there is an error message that fb0
> doesn't exist, but no noticeable consequences.
>
> IMO, Beta 2 had fewer bugs, and none that troubled me, but it may depend
> on which packages are installed. But if I reinstall Beta 2 and apply all
> the updates, I will finish up back where I am.
>
> (Your sig is fair enough, and I am similar, but the masses are of the
> contrary opinion. To my wife, for example, a computer is a tool, and she
> doesn't care what goes on under the hood. There are many like her.)
>
> Doug L.
> (I have come to call myself Doug L because there are two Dougs in another
> newsgroup I read.)

N.B.: I am using i586. Darius reported problems with Beta 1 on his x86_64.

Doug.

On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:15:53 +1100, Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> I got the same error on PCM, but sound seems to work O.K. I haven't
> tried Timidity yet under R.C.1. I use Amarok for podcasts only, and
> have noticed no problems.

I had a problem during the past week with the sound system where it just
cut all the sound but left the line-in unaffected. You could play a video
or Amarok etc but the sound was like it was muted when it was not
(checked in kmixer). When rebooted the sound worked okay again. Have not
been able to reproduce the error, and since then there's been some more
cooker updates, especially Amarok just today.

On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:19:23 +1100, Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> N.B.: I am using i586. Darius reported problems with Beta 1 on his
> x86_64.

Am using the most up to date cooker, and the only thing at the moment
that is not fixed of what I mentioned before is the cpu usage when you
send a job to a printer when the printer is switched off. All other
things that I posted about in a different thread seem to be fixed (apart
from my gripes which aren't).

The Compiz-fusion problem of vanishing borders so far seems to be fixed,
but Compiz is no where near frugal in system resources like Beryl was (I
thought when they merged back the code they would continue with the best
code of Beryl, not stick with the processor guzzling code of compiz).

Looking at screenshots and video I made of my system. When I was using
Beryl it was using 2% resources per core, not even a blip of extra usage
if you rotated the desktop cube like mad. With Compiz it uses 10%+ per
core and shoots up to 50% usage per core on mad cube rotation. Compiz
appears to not be doing what Beryl did and offloading ALL the graphics
work to the graphics card.

I use the Nvidia driver from Nvidia, which obviously means re-installing
it ever single kernel update (and kernel source/devel), a bit of a pain,
but I've tried the auto update versions with plf driver, and spending a
week tracking down why X was not starting is no fun for a comparitive
Linux newbie. Once bitten...