• Emacs / 1GB RAM

    From Tomas By@21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 4 05:14:28 2021
    Hi all,

    Am trying to use the latest Emacs on a machine with 1 GB of RAM. It
    seems to work fine, but takes ten minutes or so to start.

    Is there any way to reduce this? Should I try earlier versions?

    /Tomas

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to djgpp@delorie.com] on Thu Mar 4 15:04:06 2021
    On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:52:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    Is it "emacs -Q" that takes so long to start?

    No just "emacs"

    I'm not sure it would help. How much DPMI memory do you have there?
    what does "go32-v2" with no argument report on that machine?

    memory 123394
    swap 129918

    /Tomas

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  • From [via djgpp@delorie.com]" @21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 4 15:52:32 2021
    Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2021 05:14:28 +0100
    From: Tomas By <tomas@basun.net>

    Am trying to use the latest Emacs on a machine with 1 GB of RAM. It
    seems to work fine, but takes ten minutes or so to start.

    Is it "emacs -Q" that takes so long to start?

    Is there any way to reduce this? Should I try earlier versions?

    I'm not sure it would help. How much DPMI memory do you have there?
    what does "go32-v2" with no argument report on that machine?

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  • From [via djgpp@delorie.com]" @21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 4 17:09:32 2021
    Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2021 15:04:06 +0100
    From: Tomas By <tomas@basun.net>

    On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:52:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    Is it "emacs -Q" that takes so long to start?

    No just "emacs"

    And "emacs -Q" takes less time?

    I'm not sure it would help. How much DPMI memory do you have there?
    what does "go32-v2" with no argument report on that machine?

    memory 123394
    swap 129918

    So you have 120MB of memory, it should be enough. What kind of OS is
    that? And if it's DOS (not Windows), what is the DPMI server?

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to djgpp@delorie.com] on Thu Mar 4 16:28:27 2021
    On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:09:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    And "emacs -Q" takes less time?

    Yes, about 5 min (but my init file is not long).

    So you have 120MB of memory, it should be enough. What kind of OS is
    that? And if it's DOS (not Windows), what is the DPMI server?

    FreeDOS. I don't know about DPMI but the memory manager is called
    JEMMEX.EXE (loaded from FDCONFIG.SYS).

    /Tomas

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  • From [via djgpp@delorie.com]" @21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 4 17:55:40 2021
    Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:28:27 +0100
    From: Tomas By <tomas@basun.net>

    On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:09:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    And "emacs -Q" takes less time?

    Yes, about 5 min (but my init file is not long).

    It's enough to have your init file load some optional packages. I
    think this long time is because the OS/DPMI server is extremely short
    on memory.

    So you have 120MB of memory, it should be enough. What kind of OS is
    that? And if it's DOS (not Windows), what is the DPMI server?

    FreeDOS. I don't know about DPMI but the memory manager is called
    JEMMEX.EXE (loaded from FDCONFIG.SYS).

    Then maybe it's a FreeDOS problem. I think people reported issues
    with it, so maybe someone else with real experience could chime in and
    help you. I myself never used FreeDOS, sorry.

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to djgpp@delorie.com] on Fri Mar 5 01:27:46 2021
    On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:09:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    So you have 120MB of memory, it should be enough.

    On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:55:40 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    I think this long time is because the OS/DPMI server is extremely
    short on memory.


    So how is this different from what "go32-v2" reports?

    Is there some way to see this lack of memory somewhere?

    ("mem" reports largest program size 625K, which seems normal.)

    /Tomas

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  • From [via djgpp@delorie.com]" @21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 5 09:15:17 2021
    Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 01:27:46 +0100
    From: Tomas By <tomas@basun.net>

    I think this long time is because the OS/DPMI server is extremely
    short on memory.

    So how is this different from what "go32-v2" reports?

    It isn't, or at least it shouldn't be. According to go32-v2, your
    memory is large enough. So my guess is just a guess, and it could be
    wrong.

    Is there some way to see this lack of memory somewhere?

    I'm not sure this will help, but it won't do any harm to try. So try
    typing these commands:

    M-: (memory-limit) RET
    M-: (memory-info) RET

    Please show the output of each one of these two commands. It is best
    to run the first of these two both in "emacs -Q" and in Emacs invoked
    without the -Q option.

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  • From [via djgpp@delorie.com]" @21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 5 14:11:59 2021
    Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 12:21:45 +0100
    From: Tomas By <tomas@basun.net>

    On Fri, 05 Mar 2021 08:15:17 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    Please show the output of each one of these two commands.

    | M-: (memory-limit) RET not -Q

    13756 (#o32674, #x35bc)


    | M-: (memory-limit) RET -Q

    14768 (#o34660, #x39b0)

    This means Emacs allocated between 13 and 14 MBytes of memory, a
    reasonable value.

    | M-: (memory-info) RET

    (122880 239168 131072 0)

    This is consistent with what go32-v2 says. So I no longer think I
    understand what is going on there, sorry.

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to djgpp@delorie.com] on Fri Mar 5 12:21:45 2021
    On Fri, 05 Mar 2021 08:15:17 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com] wrote:
    Please show the output of each one of these two commands.

    | M-: (memory-limit) RET not -Q

    13756 (#o32674, #x35bc)


    | M-: (memory-limit) RET -Q

    14768 (#o34660, #x39b0)


    | M-: (memory-info) RET

    (122880 239168 131072 0)


    /Tomas

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Centrum_l=C3=A9=C4=8Dby_z@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 16 10:14:50 2021
    Maybe is worth to try to use a different DPMI server. Try to use HDPMI32 -- it is under active development and does not try to swap the virtual memory to disk.

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 16 21:15:08 2021
    On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 18:14:50 +0100, =?UTF-8?Q?Centrum_l=C3=A9=C4=8Dby_z=C3=A1vislosti_na_tab=C3=A1ku_FN_Na_Bulovce_Pr?=@unknown.addr =?UTF-8?Q?aha_8?= wrote:
    Maybe is worth to try to use a different DPMI server. Try to use
    HDPMI32 -- it is under active development and does not try to swap
    the virtual memory to disk.


    Nope, even worse. Now it takes a good twenty minutes.

    /Tomas

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 16 21:14:36 2021
    On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 18:14:50 +0100, =?UTF-8?Q?Centrum_l=C3=A9=C4=8Dby_z=C3=A1vislosti_na_tab=C3=A1ku_FN_Na_Bulovce_Pr?=@unknown.addr =?UTF-8?Q?aha_8?= wrote:
    Maybe is worth to try to use a different DPMI server. Try to use
    HDPMI32 -- it is under active development and does not try to swap
    the virtual memory to disk.


    Nope, even worse. Now it takes a good twenty minutes.

    /Tomas

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  • From Robert Riebisch@21:1/5 to Tomas By on Thu May 13 21:56:44 2021
    Tomas By wrote:

    Am trying to use the latest Emacs on a machine with 1 GB of RAM. It
    seems to work fine, but takes ten minutes or so to start.

    Is there any way to reduce this? Should I try earlier versions?

    Couple of questions:
    1) Is this a physical machine?
    2) What CPU?
    3) What OS? (FreeDOS version?)
    4) Any kind of disk caching enabled?

    --
    Robert Riebisch

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to Robert Riebisch on Thu May 13 22:45:53 2021
    On Thu, 13 May 2021 21:56:44 +0200, Robert Riebisch wrote:
    1) Is this a physical machine?

    Yes...


    2) What CPU?

    `Intel Atom N270'


    3) What OS? (FreeDOS version?)

    1.3 I think.


    4) Any kind of disk caching enabled?

    I don't think so.


    /Tomas

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to Robert Riebisch on Thu May 13 23:06:30 2021
    On Thu, 13 May 2021 21:56:44 +0200, Robert Riebisch wrote:
    1) Is this a physical machine?

    Yes...


    2) What CPU?

    `Intel Atom N270'


    3) What OS? (FreeDOS version?)

    1.3 I think.


    4) Any kind of disk caching enabled?

    I don't think so.


    /Tomas

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  • From Robert Riebisch@21:1/5 to Tomas By on Sat May 15 18:14:44 2021
    Tomas By wrote:

    2) What CPU?

    `Intel Atom N270'

    Not the fastest, but should be fast enough for a DOS program.

    3) What OS? (FreeDOS version?)

    1.3 I think.

    How did you install FreeDOS?
    A typical installation from the official media shows a "Welcome to the
    FreeDOS 1.2 operating system".

    4) Any kind of disk caching enabled?

    I don't think so.

    Please install <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/uhdd.html>
    and try again.

    --
    Robert Riebisch

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 18 18:08:42 2021
    On Sat, 15 May 2021 18:14:44 +0200, Robert Riebisch [...] wrote:
    `Intel Atom N270'
    Not the fastest, but should be fast enough for a DOS program.

    Hmm, yes, only around a thousand times faster than a 8086?

    Barely acceptable? Might do in a pinch?


    Please install [uhdd] and try again.

    Yes, that helped. Now it takes a minute or two.

    So Freedos has nothing like that? There does not seem to be any SMARTDRIVE.*

    Thanks for that.

    /Tomas

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 18 18:07:35 2021
    On Sat, 15 May 2021 18:14:44 +0200, Robert Riebisch [...] wrote:
    `Intel Atom N270'
    Not the fastest, but should be fast enough for a DOS program.

    Hmm, yes, only around a thousand times faster than a 8086?

    Barely acceptable? Might do in a pinch?


    Please install [uhdd] and try again.

    Yes, that helped. Now it takes a minute or two.

    So Freedos has nothing like that? There does not seem to be any SMARTDRIVE.*

    Thanks for that.

    /Tomas

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  • From Robert Riebisch@21:1/5 to Tomas By on Thu May 20 20:15:48 2021
    Tomas By wrote:

    `Intel Atom N270'
    Not the fastest, but should be fast enough for a DOS program.

    Hmm, yes, only around a thousand times faster than a 8086?

    Maybe, but I remember the N270 being very slow with Windows (7?).

    Please install [uhdd] and try again.

    Yes, that helped. Now it takes a minute or two.

    Nice speedup, but would be still to slow for me for just starting a
    "text editor". (Yes, I know, Emacs is more an operating or eco system.)

    So Freedos has nothing like that? There does not seem to be any SMARTDRIVE.*

    UHDD *is* "part" of FreeDOS.

    You could also try our old <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/lbacache.html>.

    --
    Robert Riebisch

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  • From Tomas By@21:1/5 to All on Thu May 20 20:45:17 2021
    On Thu, 20 May 2021 20:15:48 +0200, Robert Riebisch [...] wrote:
    Tomas By wrote:
    Hmm, yes, only around a thousand times faster than a 8086?
    Maybe, but I remember the N270 being very slow with Windows (7?).

    I'm dual-booting Win 7 on that machine, and it is not noticably slower
    for normal stuff. I am not using it for anything intensive.


    Nice speedup, but would be still to slow for me for just starting a
    "text editor". (Yes, I know, Emacs is more an operating or eco system.)

    Yes, but the Emacs in Freedos lacks stuff (cannot remember what it
    was, but something fairly fundamental). Luckily there are many other
    options. But it's nice to have the real thing available.


    UHDD *is* "part" of FreeDOS.

    Eh, ok.

    /Tomas

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