also sprach martin f krafft <madduck@madduck.net> [2010.03.16.1900 +0100]:
> I use ext4 with data=ordered, and while notmuch is writing the
> Xapian database, most I/O stalls on the machine:
> 
>   - Firefox does not get any mouse events
>   - Vim blocks writing the viminfo file
>   - All disk operations queue for multiple seconds.
> 
> So no, ext4 is not a solution. Is it just me, or should no
> filesystem of this world be able to hog a system this badly? I think
> the culprit is the IO-scheduler.

I just wanted to send a little update on this. Even though the Linux I/O
scheduler performs abysmally during the Xapian database updates,
I can report two improvements, at least to my situation:

  1. The 3.0 kernel seems to be better, but I did not quantify this
     in any way, and I might just as well be wrong.

  2. http://bugs.debian.org/635768 explains the (also I/O-related)
     lockups we've seen. Micah offered the tip that the actual fault
     lies with the awesome WM.

Cheers,

-- 
martin | http://madduck.net/ | http://two.sentenc.es/
 
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