Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 06:48:42 -0600 From: Nikolas Britton <freebsd@nbritton.org> To: freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Old Computers, -Os, Stripping, and 4-STABLE Message-ID: <41C032AA.4000606@nbritton.org>
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Hello,
I have an old laptop (P100 / 40MB RAM / 40GB hdd) that I'm trying to
squeeze every last drop of performance out of and I like some advice on
things I can do. Currently It's running 4.10-STABLE with a kernel that
has been striped clean of all the useless crud, also I add in sound
support and VESA/SC_PIXEL_MODE as this computer is a text based
workstation (X is not installed). There's really only a few things
currently that I use it for: use it to ssh into my private network at
home, use it as a calculator (calc), use it as a Pizza / Egg Timer
(custom perl script), and use it for network diagnostics... but what I'd
like to do is use it as a mobile jukebox for playing all my mp3s when
I'm on the road (possibly even convert it into a onboard car mp3 player)
or away from home. the problem is that's its so slow that when I play
music on it (mp3blaster) and try to do anything else on it (even just
logging in on another virtual console) the sound starts skipping,
looking at top shows about .8 - 1 for the load. Id still like to use it
as a general workstation so nothing too radical....
1. I'd like to know if it's (relatively) safe to use -Os for CFLAGS and
COPTFLAGS?
2. I'd like to know what background stuff/daemons/etc that can be safely
striped out, sendmail?, etc?
3. Is there anyway to optimize the system for decoding / playing mp3s?
4. Give mp3 playback a high priority and more cpu time in the system so
it doesn't skip as much, auto reniceing?
5. Optimize sound device resources, buffersize, dma, targetirqrate, etc
for mp3 playback?
6. Any other tips to improve performance?
7. Is there anything else I can safely strip out of my kernel (or add)
that will improve performance?
here is a copy of my kernel config file:
machine i386
cpu I586_CPU
ident STUMBLEINE_01
maxusers 0
options PNPBIOS
options INET #InterNETworking
options FFS #Berkeley Fast Filesystem
options FFS_ROOT #FFS usable as root device [keep this!]
options SOFTUPDATES #Enable FFS soft updates support
options UFS_DIRHASH #Improve performance on big directories
options MFS #Memory Filesystem
#options MD_ROOT #MD is a potential root device
#options NFS #Network Filesystem
#options NFS_ROOT #NFS usable as root device, NFS required
#options MSDOSFS #MSDOS Filesystem
#options CD9660 #ISO 9660 Filesystem
#options CD9660_ROOT #CD-ROM usable as root, CD9660 required
options PROCFS #Process filesystem
options COMPAT_43 #Compatible with BSD 4.3 [KEEP THIS!]
options UCONSOLE #Allow users to grab the console
options USERCONFIG #boot -c editor
options VISUAL_USERCONFIG #visual boot -c editor
options KTRACE #ktrace(1) support
options SYSVSHM #SYSV-style shared memory
options SYSVMSG #SYSV-style message queues
options SYSVSEM #SYSV-style semaphores
options P1003_1B #Posix P1003_1B real-time extensions
options _KPOSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING
options ICMP_BANDLIM #Rate limit bad replies
options KBD_INSTALL_CDEV # install a CDEV entry in /dev
# output. Adds ~215k to driver.
device isa
device pci
# Floppy drives
device fdc0 at isa? port IO_FD1 irq 6 drq 2
device fd0 at fdc0 drive 0
device fd1 at fdc0 drive 1
# ATA and ATAPI devices
device ata0 at isa? port IO_WD1 irq 14
device ata1 at isa? port IO_WD2 irq 15
device ata
device atadisk # ATA disk drives
device atapicd # ATAPI CDROM drives
options ATA_STATIC_ID #Static device numbering
# SCSI peripherals
device scbus # SCSI bus (required)
device da # Direct Access (disks)
# atkbdc0 controls both the keyboard and the PS/2 mouse
device atkbdc0 at isa? port IO_KBD
device atkbd0 at atkbdc? irq 1 flags 0x1
device psm0 at atkbdc? irq 12
# Video options
device vga0 at isa?
options VESA
options SC_PIXEL_MODE
# splash screen/screen saver
pseudo-device splash
# syscons is the default console driver, resembling an SCO console
device sc0 at isa? flags 0x100
# Floating point support - do not disable.
device npx0 at nexus? port IO_NPX irq 13
# Power management support (see LINT for more options)
device apm0 at nexus? disable flags 0x20 # Advanced Power
Management
# PCCARD (PCMCIA) support
device card
device pcic0 at isa? irq 0 port 0x3e0 iomem 0xd0000
device pcic1 at isa? irq 0 port 0x3e2 iomem 0xd4000 disable
# Serial (COM) ports
device sio0 at isa? port IO_COM1 flags 0x10 irq 4
device sio1 at isa? port IO_COM2 irq 3
device sio2 at isa? disable port IO_COM3 irq 5
device sio3 at isa? disable port IO_COM4 irq 9
# Parallel port
device ppc0 at isa? irq 7
device ppbus # Parallel port bus (required)
device lpt # Printer
device plip # TCP/IP over parallel
device ppi # Parallel port interface device
# ISA/PCMCIA Ethernet NICs.
device miibus # MII bus support
device ed0 at isa? disable port 0x280 irq 10 iomem 0xd8000
device ep
device fe0 at isa? disable port 0x300
device xe
# PRISM I IEEE 802.11b wireless NIC.
device awi
# WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 wireless NICs. Note: the WaveLAN/IEEE really
# exists only as a PCMCIA device, so there is no ISA attachment needed
# and resources will always be dynamically assigned by the pccard code.
device wi
# Aironet 4500/4800 802.11 wireless NICs. Note: the declaration below will
# work for PCMCIA and PCI cards, as well as ISA cards set to ISA PnP
# mode (the factory default). If you set the switches on your ISA
# card for a manually chosen I/O address and IRQ, you must specify
# those parameters here.
device an
# The probe order of these is presently determined by i386/isa/isa_compat.c.
#device ie0 at isa? disable port 0x300 irq 10 iomem 0xd0000
#device le0 at isa? disable port 0x300 irq 5 iomem 0xd0000
#device lnc0 at isa? disable port 0x280 irq 10 drq 0
#device cs0 at isa? disable port 0x300
device sn0 at isa? disable port 0x300 irq 10
# Pseudo devices - the number indicates how many units to allocate.
pseudo-device loop # Network loopback
pseudo-device ether # Ethernet support
#pseudo-device sl 1 # Kernel SLIP
pseudo-device ppp 1 # Kernel PPP
pseudo-device tun # Packet tunnel.
pseudo-device pty # Pseudo-ttys (telnet etc)
pseudo-device md # Memory "disks"
# The `bpf' pseudo-device enables the Berkeley Packet Filter.
# Be aware of the administrative consequences of enabling this!
pseudo-device bpf #Berkeley packet filter
device pcm # Generic Sound Support
device sbc0 at isa? port 0x220 irq 10 drq 1
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