I've got a small problem with recent versions of KDE / Slack-current. It's more
noticeable on the lower powered machines, and seems to be caused by artsd
hogging 98% of the CPU for prolonged periods - but only when logged in as
root! (Or if you su root in a console window).

Basically (and not surprisingly!) the whole machine goes very slow and cranky,
and the cursor moves in giant leaps until artsd drops out, when normal service
is restored! But as soon as the machine tries to make a sound (warning beeps
etc) everything goes dog slow again.

"Top" shows artsd is hogging all the cpu time. This doesn't happen when logged
in as a normal user.

This has only started happening in the last couple of months, so something has
obviously changed recently! (Perhaps the changeover to Alsa?)

To get round this in the short term, I was going to use Xfce as my "root"
window manager, but despite having Xfce installed, it doesn't appear as an
option in the kdm login window! It does appear in the various Xsessions files,
so where does the drop down menu get its info from? and how do I restore Xfce
to the menu?

Anyone providing an answer to either (or both!) of these problems is entitled
to a beer on me, should we meet!

8-/

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 20:47:25 +0000, Peter Christy wrote:

> I've got a small problem with recent versions of KDE / Slack-current. It's
> more noticeable on the lower powered machines, and seems to be caused
> by artsd hogging 98% of the CPU for prolonged periods - but only when
> logged in as root! (Or if you su root in a console window).

I don't use artsd (or KDE for that matter), however that is probebly do to
it running with real-time priority when started with root privileges.

Same deal with XMMS for instance. There might be some box you can
check/uncheck to disable it.

....
> This has only started happening in the last couple of months, so something has
> obviously changed recently! (Perhaps the changeover to Alsa?)

Not very likely to be related to alsa. Read above. But why run any
desktop under the root account? AFAIK all administration tasks (on Slack)
are easily done from an xterm, anyways.

> To get round this in the short term, I was going to use Xfce as my "root"
> window manager, but despite having Xfce installed, it doesn't appear as an
> option in the kdm login window!

Try running "xwmconfig", for that to work there has to be a xinitrc.xfce
in: /etc/X11/xinit

> It does appear in the various Xsessions files,
> so where does the drop down menu get its info from?

Maybe "kdmrc" (or some such), try "locate" for that.

> and how do I restore Xfce to the menu?

In the KDE control-center?

--
-Menno.

Peter Christy wrote:

> I've got a small problem with recent versions of KDE / Slack-current. It's
> more noticeable on the lower powered machines, and seems to be caused by
> artsd hogging 98% of the CPU for prolonged periods - but only when logged
> in as root! (Or if you su root in a console window).

disable artsd in kde start up by going to "Sound & Multimedia" ; "Sound
System" and unchecking "start artsd" box. It takes so much CPU cycles on
even fast processors.
>
> Basically (and not surprisingly!) the whole machine goes very slow and
> cranky, and the cursor moves in giant leaps until artsd drops out, when
> normal service is restored! But as soon as the machine tries to make a
> sound (warning beeps etc) everything goes dog slow again.
>
> "Top" shows artsd is hogging all the cpu time. This doesn't happen when
> logged in as a normal user.
>
> This has only started happening in the last couple of months, so something
> has obviously changed recently! (Perhaps the changeover to Alsa?)

or artsd priority or nice value?
>
> To get round this in the short term, I was going to use Xfce as my "root"
> window manager, but despite having Xfce installed, it doesn't appear as an
> option in the kdm login window! It does appear in the various Xsessions
> files, so where does the drop down menu get its info from? and how do I
> restore Xfce to the menu?

kde control center : "System Adminstration" -> "Login Manager" -> Sessions
(If you are not using lates KDE, KDE-3.2.0)

> Anyone providing an answer to either (or both!) of these problems is
> entitled to a beer on me, should we meet!

Thanks, consider buying a six pack or more for your next local Linux user
group meeting.

> 8-/
>

Peter Christy wrote:

> I've got a small problem with recent versions of KDE / Slack-current. It's
> more noticeable on the lower powered machines, and seems to be caused by
> artsd hogging 98% of the CPU for prolonged periods - but only when logged
> in as root! (Or if you su root in a console window).
>
> Basically (and not surprisingly!) the whole machine goes very slow and
> cranky, and the cursor moves in giant leaps until artsd drops out, when
> normal service is restored! But as soon as the machine tries to make a
> sound (warning beeps etc) everything goes dog slow again.
>
> "Top" shows artsd is hogging all the cpu time. This doesn't happen when
> logged in as a normal user.
>
> This has only started happening in the last couple of months, so something
> has obviously changed recently! (Perhaps the changeover to Alsa?)
> [...]

I think I can help to make it hog the CPU in user mode, too

I've never used a gui or sound as root, but I've had plenty of that 98% cpu
loading by artsd in user mode. There is something wrong with either arts
or alsa, but I managed to find a way around it. If alsa is installed, you
have to make it fully use alsa. I 'think' when it does some kind of hybrid
alsa/oss mode, that's when the cpu overload happens. In order to make it
fully use alsa, you have to go into "settings/control center/sound &
multimedia/sound system/hardware" and select the audio device as "Advanced
Linux Sound Architecture" (instead of Auto-detect).

If you're getting different results as user than as root, then there are
probably some permission settings at fault. If so, the above step will
probably come up with a "no device" message or something like that. The
alsa device files are all in /dev/snd/* and they have a group of 'sys'. So
you either have to add your user to the sys group or chmod 666 all the
files in /dev/snd.

You may need to update the aliases in /etc/modules.conf because the distro
doesn't set these up. The easy way to do that is to run alsaconf.

The above things *should* be enough to prevent the cpu overload, but you may
still not have sound if you have a very recent KDE. Kmix now has a little
checkbox labeled 'advanced'. If you check it, you see a bunch of green
dots that are all selected upon startup. Some of those items, when
selected, prevent sound from happening or cause a jet-engine sound (on some
sound cards and not on others). I just deselect them all except 'mix'
because that one is more stubborn.

I hope this helps,
Neil

Neil Koozer wrote:

> I've never used a gui or sound as root, but I've had plenty of that 98% cpu
> loading by artsd in user mode. There is something wrong with either arts
> or alsa, but I managed to find a way around it. If alsa is installed, you
> have to make it fully use alsa. I 'think' when it does some kind of hybrid
> alsa/oss mode, that's when the cpu overload happens. In order to make it
> fully use alsa, you have to go into "settings/control center/sound &
> multimedia/sound system/hardware" and select the audio device as "Advanced
> Linux Sound Architecture" (instead of Auto-detect).

<snip>

That sounds very much like the problem! I've got to go into work today, so I'll
take the laptop and try out your suggestions in "down-time"!

Many Thanks!

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

AJ wrote:

> kde control center : "System Adminstration" -> "Login Manager" -> Sessions
> (If you are not using lates KDE, KDE-3.2.0)

Guess what? I'm using 3.2.... 8-/

> Thanks, consider buying a six pack or more for your next local Linux user
> group meeting.
>

Will do 8-)

Thanks for the suggestions!

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

Menno Duursma wrote:

> Not very likely to be related to alsa. Read above. But why run any
> desktop under the root account? AFAIK all administration tasks (on Slack)
> are easily done from an xterm, anyways.

It's more to do with configuring scripts. I've got a small library of scripts
which I use for various functions, and its easier to "cut & paste" the bits if
them I need into Slack's scripts using something like kwrite. I haven't found
an easy way of having two documents open simultaneously in a terminal!
(Someone will now, no doubt tell me how to do this...... ;-)

> Try running "xwmconfig", for that to work there has to be a xinitrc.xfce
> in: /etc/X11/xinit

There is, but that doesn't get it to appear in kdm's menu!

> Maybe "kdmrc" (or some such), try "locate" for that.

Already looked there!

> In the KDE control-center?

That's what I would have thought too. It looks like some things have moved
around in 3.2, and I haven't managed to find them all yet.

Thanks for the suggestions though! All good stuff!

Cheers,

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 20:47:25 +0000
Peter Christy <christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net> wrote:

> I've got a small problem with recent versions of KDE / Slack-current.

I also have some problems with playing music on slack-current. Since I
have upgraded my system to slack-current I cannot play music with xmms
or mpg321, here for example some errors from xmms:

cav@home:~$ xmms

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library
libmikmod.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
directory

so much after just starting xmms, now when I'm trying to play any file:


mcop warning: user defined signal handler found for SIG_PIPE,
overriding

Segmentation fault

You've probably found a bug in XMMS, please visit
http://bugs.xmms.org and fill out a bug report.

Xlib: unexpected async reply (sequence 0xb84)!

Segmentation fault

You've probably found a bug in XMMS, please visit
http://bugs.xmms.org and fill out a bug report.

cav@home:~$


that's all. I have tried installing the "standard" version of glibc but
it didn't help.

btw. playing movies/music with xine/mplayer works without any
problems...


Greets

--
Cav

Neil,

Your answer was spot on! Instant cure! I've applied it to the faster machines
as well, and they now boot KDE almost instantly!

Many thanks! Award yourself a peanut ;-)

Cheers,

--
Pete
christy@NOattglobalSPAM.net
(make the obvious amendments to reply!)

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Neil Koozer wrote:
> still not have sound if you have a very recent KDE. Kmix now has a little
> checkbox labeled 'advanced'. If you check it, you see a bunch of green
> dots that are all selected upon startup. Some of those items, when
> selected, prevent sound from happening or cause a jet-engine sound (on
> some
> sound cards and not on others). I just deselect them all except 'mix'
> because that one is more stubborn.
>
> I hope this helps,
> Neil
Thank you Neil - Been trying to figure out a way to eliminate that
"jet-engine" sound for a while now. Found it as "IEC958" in the advanced
settings.
- --
Slackware Tips & Tricks
http://members.cox.net/laitcg/slack.htm
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