Latest revision as of 20:26, 23 June 2009

The XO is a low resource environment. There isn't much room to spare for extra memory or compute cycles. This page will be used to identify applications, services, packaging, and kernel tunables that can be modified to improve XO system performance.

Activities include:

Identifying/testing various service configuration settings
Making recommendations for Live CD spin kickstart changes to reflect findings
Kernel tunables?
Recommended SD installation options?
Recommended boot-time options?
Improved desktop performance?

Image Creation

Overlay size
- Currently 320 MB
Swap size
- Currently 256 MB
Home size
- Currently on NAND
  - This takes > 20 seconds to mount
Should we be resizing the filesystem image with resize2fs to make more space for things like /home?
- This would give us the ability to move /home off NAND, have a bigger overlay, or more swap.
- Patch sent to Jeremy to do this <http://bressers.fedorapeople.org/livecd.patch>
Potentially add the ability to utilize extra USB keys to extend swap/overlay/home?

XO Memory

We have 256 megabytes
What can we turn off to give running applications more memory?

Service Run-level Changes

What services can we disable

auditd
bluetooth
cpuspeed
cups
iptables
ip6tables
irqbalance
kerneloops
netfs
nfslock
portreserve
rpcbind
rpcgssd
rpcidmapd
sendmail
microcode_ctl

Which services slow boot time
Which services use extra resources

Services are disabled in /etc/init.d/livesys. Turning off all the services listed above seems to save about 5 seconds during bootup.

GNOME Desktop Session Changes

What can we do to GNOME to reduce its footprint

Disable:
AT SPI Registry Manager -- gnome-at-session.desktop
Bluetooth Manager -- bluetooth-applet.desktop
GNOME Login Sound -- libcanberra-login-sound.desktop
GNOME Splash Screen -- gnome-session-splash.desktop
kerneloops applet -- kerneloops-applet.desktop
Network Authentication -- krb5-auth-dialog.desktop
Print Queue Applet -- redhat-print-applet.desktop
SELinux Troubleshooter -- sealertauto.desktop
User Sharing -- gnome-user-share.desktop

This can most easily be accomplished by adding the line "Hidden=true" to the end of the .desktop file for each of these services during startup. The desktop files are located in /etc/xdg/autostart and /usr/share/gnome/autostart

Kernel tunables

I haven't actually tried this yet, but should look at /proc/sys/vm/swappiness which defaults to 60. Setting to 0 might be best to do as little pre-emptive swapping as possible.
I/O Scheduler. Is CFQ unnecessary? noop might be best for an SD card.

Application tunables

What applications do we need to pay particular attention to

Firefox

File cache
Memory footprint

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-This page is intended to gather performance related feedback for running Fedora 10 Live images on the XO.
+The XO is a '''low''' resource environment.  There isn't much room to spare for extra memory or compute cycles.  This page will be used to identify applications, services, packaging, and kernel tunables that can be modified to improve XO system performance.
+Activities include:
+* Identifying/testing various service configuration settings
+* Making recommendations for Live CD spin kickstart changes to reflect findings
+* Kernel tunables?
+* Recommended SD installation options?
+* Recommended boot-time options?
+* Improved desktop performance?
+= Image Creation =
+* Overlay size
+** Currently 320 MB
+* Swap size
+** Currently 256 MB
+* Home size
+** Currently on NAND
+*** This takes > 20 seconds to mount
+* Should we be resizing the filesystem image with resize2fs to make more space for things like /home?
+** This would give us the ability to move /home off NAND, have a bigger overlay, or more swap.
+** Patch sent to Jeremy to do this <http://bressers.fedorapeople.org/livecd.patch>
+* Potentially add the ability to utilize extra USB keys to extend swap/overlay/home?
+= XO Memory =
+* We have 256 megabytes
+* What can we turn off to give running applications more memory?
 = Service Run-level Changes =
+* What services can we disable<br>
+'''auditd'''<br>
+'''bluetooth'''<br>
+'''cpuspeed'''<br>
+'''cups'''<br>
+'''iptables'''<br>
+'''ip6tables'''<br>
+'''irqbalance'''<br>
+'''kerneloops'''<br>
+'''netfs'''<br>
+'''nfslock'''<br>
+'''portreserve'''<br>
+'''rpcbind'''<br>
+'''rpcgssd'''<br>
+'''rpcidmapd'''<br>
+'''sendmail'''<br>
+'''microcode_ctl'''<br>
+* Which services slow boot time
+* Which services use extra resources
-What system daemons are started that aren't needed?  For example, bluetooth ... there is no bluetooth hardware on the XO.
+Services are disabled in /etc/init.d/livesys. Turning off all the services listed above seems to save about 5 seconds during bootup.
 = GNOME Desktop Session Changes =
+* What can we do to GNOME to reduce its footprint
-= Kernel tunables? =
+Disable:<br>
+'''AT SPI Registry Manager''' -- gnome-at-session.desktop<br>
+'''Bluetooth Manager''' -- bluetooth-applet.desktop<br>
+'''GNOME Login Sound''' -- libcanberra-login-sound.desktop<br>
+'''GNOME Splash Screen''' -- gnome-session-splash.desktop<br>
+'''kerneloops applet''' -- kerneloops-applet.desktop<br>
+'''Network Authentication''' -- krb5-auth-dialog.desktop<br>
+'''Print Queue Applet''' -- redhat-print-applet.desktop<br>
+'''SELinux Troubleshooter''' -- sealertauto.desktop<br>
+'''User Sharing''' -- gnome-user-share.desktop<br>
-= Packaging Changes =
+* This can most easily be accomplished by adding the line "Hidden=true" to the end of the .desktop file for each of these services during startup.  The desktop files are located in /etc/xdg/autostart and /usr/share/gnome/autostart
-= Image Generation =
+= Kernel tunables =
+* I haven't actually tried this yet, but should look at /proc/sys/vm/swappiness which defaults to 60.  Setting to 0 might be best to do as little pre-emptive swapping as possible.
+* I/O Scheduler.  Is CFQ unnecessary?  noop might be best for an SD card.
-== Overlay Storage ==
+= Application tunables =
+* What applications do we need to pay particular attention to
-Using the ''--overlay-size-mb'' parameter to the ''livecd-iso-to-disk'' script is recommended for 2 reasons.
-# Any changes to your live image are saved to the SD card (instead of memory).  These changes will remain upon reboot.
-# It improves performance because there ends up being less memory pressure.
-A potential drawback might be that more writes are happening to your SD media, which may lower the life expectancy of the SD media.
+== Firefox ==
+* File cache
+* Memory footprint
-== Swap space? ==
+[[Category:XO]]

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