Re: [Fwd: Re: [Tracker] First time user on FreeBSD with some troubles]

["Aron Stansvik" <elvstone gmail com>]

On 4/26/06, Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk> wrote:
> Aron Stansvik wrote:
> > On 4/24/06, Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk> wrote:
> > > Aron Stansvik wrote:
> > >
> > > > If I start having problems again I'll bring out valgrind/gdb for a run over.
> > > I would still like to solve the problem if possible - I guess file
> > > handles must be the problem.
> >
> > I will do some more testing with huge directories then, right now I'm
> > a bit busy at work though, since I'll be going on a trip tomorrown
> > night (back Sunday again).
>
> I have checked the file handles and I no longer believe this to be the
> cause.

Okay.

> As you are on FreeBSD, I take it you are using FAM for file notification
> (all the linux users like myself are using inotify). One of the problems
> with FAM is that it does not scale and on linux trying to watch more
> than ~500 directories causes the app to hang (cause FAM is crap!).

Yea I haven't heard good things about FAM in the past either. I'm
using the Gamin FAM implementation, which in turn I think is using
kqueue on FreeBSD.

> In tracker, we limit FAM to watching 400 directories so this hang
> situation does not occur (additional directories are manually polled
> every 15 minutes once the 400 limit has been reached). However on
> FreeBSD, FAM might be even less scalable than on Linux and that might be
> why it hangs (your stdout shows it hanging after watching 175
> directories). If you could verify this it would help a lot as I dont
> have freeBSD (try watching less than 175 directories and watching say
> 200 and see when it hangs). If you could get me a reliable figure of how
> many directories FAM can watch without hanging then i can modify the
> directory watch limit in tracker.

I will do that. At the moment I'm pretty swamped though, it will have
to be after my trip this weekend.

> > > One of the things that has stopped me proposing it to KDE is that Im not
> > > a c++ programmer so I couldn't really integrate it without some help.
> >
> > Sorry to say it but that makes two of us :/ I mean I've programmed a
> > bit C++, but I would not call myself a C++ programmer. And furthermore
> > I'm pretty green on the KDE platform too.
> >
> > That said I will give a kioslave for Tracker an honest shot. These
> > kioslaves seems to be quite simple creatures after all. Are there any
> > other KDE users/developers on this list?
>
> Hmm if its just a kio slave then I should be able to do that (a nice QT
> app in c++ to display results would be another matter!)

Okay.. another matter indeed, not sure I'd pull that off without some
serious assistance. I might give it a try though.

> Perhaps Python/QT for the latter (although I think Mikkel is more a
> PyGTK programmer?)

And I'm a Ruby nuthead ;)

Regards,
Aron