Is there any way to make file transfers 'nicer'
I have a machine with NFS4 home directory and a
few other NFS4 directories. Everything works fine
until I use dolphin and copy a big file from one
NFS4 directory to another then the whole desktop
grinds to a standstill while the copy takes place.

I've tried the same thing in Gnome and while the
copy takes longer the desktop doesn't slow down
half as much.

Any help would be appreciated

Ta

Mal

have you tried the copying with Krusader? if so does it resolve the slowdown?

does the slowdown happen when copying large files between non-NFS4 directories?

version of KDE? version of openSuse

opensuse 12.1
kde 4.7.3
krusader is a bit better but it still kills the desktop with big copies
no non-nfs copies are fine

Ta

Mal

BTW I've tried 32 and 64 bit opensuse 12.1 client machines
and it doesn't seem to make any difference. 11.4 32 bit
opensuse client is marginally better but it's nothing to
write home about.

I've also tried a 64 bit opensuse 12.1 and
a 64 bit Novell Suse server which also doesn't
seem to make any difference

Are the files being copied in question a large or fairly small (with many of them)?

With little files the desktop stalling isn't really noticable
however when the files get big - I was trying files between
20 and 100 M and the desktop basically grinds to a standstill
while the copy happens. If you click around while the copy is
happening such as trying to start applications or opening tabs in
firefox nothing happens, when the copy finishes all the apps
and tabs popup all at once.

M

If you can, try monitoring system load and io utilisation using htop or iotop. They should be able to show you what is happening. It sounds like your system might be swapping for unknown reasons.

I have tried your suggestion and I am beginning to think it's network card related not KDE... The subject of this post was a Intel Core 2 machine. I dug out an old Intel D101 which on paper is probably less than half the speed of the Core 2 and that flies.

OK, it still causes the desktop to lurch a bit when copying 400M files but on smaller files the copy is so fast it's hardly noticeable.

The biggest io process in kdeint4 kio_fio_file

What does IO> mean ? as that is at 99.99%

Thanks

M

That means that the process is occupying 99.9% of current disk access on your computer.
Very interesting that a slower machine isn't affected. If you try for instance with ftp:// is it affected in a similar manner? Samba (smb://) might also be worth trying.

if you change the priority of the kdeint4 kio_fio_file process using ksysguard, as it will also adjust the io scheduler (not sure if the nice command does or not), does it fix the "grinds to a standstill".

Sort of solved. As in I don't think it's KDE fault
However further investigations have probably
raised more questions than answers ( see desktop
icons post coming soon )

Thank you everyone for your ideas

Ta

Mal