Subject: More about slowing down the machine
From: "David A. Cobb" <[email-masked]>
To: Cygwin Library General Discussion <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:21:12 -0400

Win98se (4.10.2222) en_US; Cygwin1.dll 1.3.4s (2001-10-11 [I think]).

I was attempting another build last p.m. and, to get a handle on the 
slowdown reported in 
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00988.html
I ran Windows Taskinfo while it was processing.

./configure went fine [along with everything it called]

As soon as MAKE started, the time anomalies began.  Watching the 
statistics with the running procedure stack:
rxvt->WINOA386->bash->VM:->bash.2->make.1->sh.1->make.2->sh.2->gcc
it appears that a lot of time is spent in *make.2*.  Since that process 
[I think] should simply be waiting for *sh.2* to complete, this looks 
like a spin-lock to me.

To repeat, when the anomaly is happening Windows is unable to track the 
mouse and the Windows clock is being updated at about 1/4 speed.  The 
build started at 18:30 - and the clock was right - and ended at 21:00 
with the clock reading 19:05.  Somehow the message queue(s) aren't being 
checked and "pre-emptive scheduling" isn't very much so.

I would like to help track this down instead of bitching all the time. 
How should I instrument this, since it's all wrapped up like an onion? 
If make builds OOTB, I suppose I could compile it with profiling.  Would 
that help?  Strace would probably show something useful - the problem 
would be to find who to trace and monkey about with the makefiles so it 
happens: bleaghh.

Any wise suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
-- 
David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate, All around 
nice guy.
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