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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Newbie: Cache disk before reads
From:       Nathan Toone <nathan () toonetown ! com>
Date:       2005-07-01 13:29:42
Message-ID: 200507010729.42352.nathan () toonetown ! com
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In order to speed up KDE, you can preload your information.  There is a web 
page at http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Performance+Tips#id139336 
about directory prescanning.

In this article, it talks about how you can prescan your KDE directories while 
KDM is waiting for you to enter in your password.  This is very useful if you 
use KDM, which I don't.

I also didn't want to slow down my computer in the name of speeding it up.  So 
my solution was to do the preloading while my computer is waiting to get its 
DHCP address.  Since this process (getting an IP address) is mainly network 
intensive (and doesn't use the disk much), I do the following:

Before getting my IP address, (in an init script) I start doing my preload 
with the following command:

    if [ -n "${preload}" ]; then
        find ${preload} >/dev/null 2>&1 &
        preloadpid=$!
    fi

The variable ${preload} is defined as follows:
preload="/home/ntoone/.kde /usr/kde/3.4/share/applications /usr/kde/3.4/share/applnk \
/usr/kde/3.4/share/mimelnk /usr/kde/3.4/share/services /usr/kde/3.4/share/servicetypes \
/usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/share/icons /usr/share/applications /usr/share/lnk \
/usr/share/mimelnk /usr/share/services /usr/share/config /usr/kde/"

Put your own home directory (instead of /home/ntoone) and your own KDE 
directory (instead of /usr/kde/3.4)  I found this is the optimal order - but 
you can play around with the order as well.

After I get my IP address, I do the following:

            if [ -n "${preload}" ]; then
                kill -9 $preloadpid >/dev/null 2>&1
            fi

because I don't want to keep preloading - you can kill it at any time and have 
the benefit of what you've done so far.

Like I said - this works for me - I like it because on my laptop, when I'm 
connected to a network, DHCP comes back quickly, so I don't get to entirely 
preload KDE.  However, when I'm not connected, DHCP takes a while (5 seconds 
or so) to timeout - and I get the entire thing preloaded - so KDE starts 
faster (making up for the lost time waiting for a network addres... :) )

I guess you can put these commands anywhere you would like - and you can mess 
around with the directories that you put in there as well.

Hope this helps.

-Nathan



On Friday 01 July 2005 04:11 am, Karim Ryde wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Since files are cached once read I wonder if they can be cached before.
> I do know which directories I will parse.
> 
> Thanx for any pointers...
> 
> /Karim
> 
> > > Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to
> > > unsubscribe <<


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