System freezes/becomes unresponsive while copying large file

[omnio]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone else has this problem: while copying a large file (like a iso image) on the hard disk, no matter if it's on the same partition or between different partitions, the system freezes/becomes unresponsive, even the mouse cursor lags on desktop.

I don't have hardware problems, I installed both Mageia and Kubuntu (repeatedly, on different partitions) and this is happening only with Mageia.

For installation I used the Plasma 7.1 live dvd (64 bit).

I've been using Mageia 6 for a couple of years and I didn't have this problem. With Mageia 7 it's for the first time I'm seeing it.

Thanks!

[doktor5000]

Some additional details would be helpful, like what filesystem is used on the affected partitions? And how are the physical disks attached to your system, and what disks are used?

[omnio]

Thanks for the reply. This is an ASUS laptop with an i5 CPU and Hitachi hard disk. The partitions were formatted as ext4 in all my tests (with default options) both for Mageia 7 and Kubuntu. I also switched the options to "noatime" (in fstab) but the behavior is the same. I'm starting to think this is about the 5.x linux kernel and options in /proc/sys/vm/... but I have no experience with that. An interesting test would be to use the Kubuntu kernel in Mageia and see if the problem is still there but I need just a little more spare time than I have right now in order to do that...

[doktor5000]

I suggest you take a look at the virtual memory manager, and how the system is configuring its disk caching. There are circumstances where Mageia's default settings will cause a UI stall while writing to disk is underway. This comes about because Mageia defaults to a rather large in-memory disk cache, and if you have a slow write media (and your laptop drive might be a 5400 RPM drive, and doing a copy from one place on the drive to another is demanding) and you have too large a memory cache, then when that cache reaches a certain level all activity will stop as the kernel demands that entire cache be written out to disk.

This could easily be your problem.

Take a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11633&p=67801&hilit=overcommit

The topic was swap on the system but I did discuss memory management a bit and it will give you some things to look at.

[omnio]

Thanks for the advice. After some more testing, it looks like my hard disk does have some problems, those freezes now happen both with Mageia and Kubuntu. Besides, there is that familiar sound like "hrrrr-hh-rr-hrrrrr" I changed the virtual memory settings but it seems they can't help in this case, the hard disk is just tired. Now why did these freezes started to happen exactly when I decided to format the Mageia 6 partiton and switch to Mageia 7, I don't know. Or maybe there are some other aspects involved, related to the differences between Plasma and XFCE (in Mageia 6 I was using XFCE). What I discovered so far is that disabling all the previews in dolphin speeds up things a bit because dolphin doesn't need anymore to perform so many reads on files. Anyway, it looks like the time has come to buy a SSD for this laptop. Thanks for the advice on virtual memory, I'm saving this to my notes and will used it on the fresh install.

Best wishes,
Omnio

[filip]

After some more testing, it looks like my hard disk does have some problems, ...

You can try to check it with GSmartControl which is packaged in Mageia but might not be installed by default.

[lancer21]

Yeah, it sounds like hard drive issues, how old is your model? It might be time to change it before it dies on you, it happened to my computer 2 weeks ago and it definitely isn't fun...