> > Package: procps > > Kernel 1.3.53 seems to have changed the way memory use is reported (I > think it reports a new value in /proc/meminfo, "cached:", referring to > cached VM pages) and also has an internal process "kernel bdflush" that > has a space in its name. The result is that "top" and "ps" can dump > core with floating exceptions (divide by 0, I think) or bus errors. > Patches for ps are floating around on the kernel mailing list. > > 1.3.53 is significantly faster than previous kernels because of page > cacheing. > For most of these problems, patches already can be found on sunsite. Nevertheless this isn't all we need to cover. psupdate cannot be run on ELF compiled kernels and really is deprecated when you have access to the System.map file. I have sent several patches to the procps maintainer several months ago and he promised to release a new version RSN. As this didn't happen, I have put together a procps suite including the patches from sunsite and some other fixes (e.g. the signal and cmd handling are broken in procps as well).
As I do not have current ncurses (needed for top and pstree) and the system should be tested before releasing it, I didn't make any binary package. The source package procps-test.tar.gz has been uploaded to ftp.debian.org. THIS IS NO PACKAGE MEANT FOR INSTALLING right now, please test it and tell me how yopu like it. The package relies on /boot/System.map existing. This is not currently done in /sbin/installkernel. Putting if [ $map ] then cp $map /boot/System.map-$ver ln -sf System.map-$ver /boot/System.map fi into installkernel and removing the psupdate stuff is all you have to do. There are two versions of top, one the original and a new one, resembling the kmem top. ps -s has two possible output formats, one the classical and the changed one as done in kmem-ps. If you are testing this, please tell me (beside any bugs) about which signal format for ps and which top you prefer. Helmut Geyer >From the CHANGES file of procps: Changes from 0.97-1.3.53 (more precisely from 0.97) -> current: By Helmut Geyer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) __LIBPROC__ snarfed the System.map handling routines from kmem ps 1.2.7 (update_db) removed unneeded parts from update_db.c and snap.c, as a lot got deprecated This is needed for ELF kernels that are not readable by psupdate / ps -U cleaned up the psdatabase routines. Removed psupdate completely. fixed the signal and cmd display bugs (in snap.c) __FUSER__ brushed up output format, don't display fuser process. __PS__ Added new signal format from kmem ps. (the old one still can be used when defining OLD_SIG_FMT while compiling). some minor fixes due to ELF programs behaving differently (e.g. the SIZE fields are no longer near equivalent, use ps -m for exact info). I still haven't found a way to do the lrs (shared Library) field when using ELF. The way it is done for a.outs is not portable to ELF at all. __TOP__ new top, more like the kmem one, configurable fields, ... run it and type h for more info. I like this better (who would've guessed), but it generates higher load, so YMMV. The old one is still available as oldtop. some fixes as to ps to make it do something useful when running ELF programs on a ELF kernels. Changes from 0.97-1.3.48 -> 0.97-1.3.53: By: Andrew Kieschnick ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) needed changes to /proc/meminfo handling Changes from 0.97-1.3.39 -> 0.97-1.3.48: By: ??? (from sunsite) This patch fixes a 'nice' related bug in procps-0.97-1.3.39, and also get the signal names from /usr/include/asm/signal.h since this is where they are in newer kernels. Changes to 0.97-1.3.39: By: Henry Shieh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) This patch file is for 256 ptys to let 'ps' show correct tty info that uses the new pty major number. Use the shell script "mknewpty" to create 256 ptys using the new major number. Changes from 0.97 --> 0.97-1.3.39: By: Karl Keyte ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) o Changed some symbols to get rid of reserved name conflicts o Changed Makefile to pick up kernel definitions for those modules which require it. Also changed default optimisation and binary stripping. o Changed process default priority default to be consistent with version 1.3.39 o Added a check to 'fuser.c' to stop it SEGVing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Helmut Geyer [EMAIL PROTECTED]