copy and tar performance?

[James Wilkinson]

Kevin Kempter wrote:
> Whenever I copy large files (>2G) or create large tar archives I basically 
> loose control of my box (2.1Gz Laptop running FC5) until the copy or tar is 
> complete. I can still try and work but the mouse movements are delayed 
> several seconds, other programs take minutes to respond, etc.

Did you turn off DMA when installing Fedora (to make the disk check
work)? Did that make it into your grub configuration? Try
grep dma /etc/grub.conf
as root and see if it returns anything. While you're running as root,
try
hdparm -d /dev/hda
(or whatever your main hard disk is) and check that DMA is on.

What sort of disk subsystem do you have, anyway? Is it IDE, SATA, or
something else? What sort of motherboard do you have?

Hope this helps,

James.

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