Subject: Re: Chatty X
To: Jim Rees <rees@umich.edu>
From: Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com <michaelv@HeadCandy.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 03/31/1996 18:27:42
>I've noticed that when the X server is running, there is constant disk
>activity, so the disk on my notebook never gets a chance to spin down.  This
>reduces battery life considerably.  Does anyone know why this is and whether
>it's possible to fix it?  If not, I'll investigate...  is ktrace the right
>tool?

I don't see this.  I do see occasional disk activity from periodic
syncs and cron activity.  How much memory do you have?  Maybe you're
constantly paging lightly.

It's probably not realistic to expect a typical unix to leave the disk
idle for extended periods of time.  I'm sure it can be improved upon
by stripping down the crontab and the number and types of daemons that
run, but unix is inherently more disk-intensive than something like
DOS or Windows.

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  Michael L. VanLoon                                 michaelv@HeadCandy.com
       --<  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x  >--
     NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4,
                           DEC PMAX (MIPS), DEC Alpha, PC532
     NetBSD ports in progress: VAX, Atari 68k, others...
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