I'm running sid w/ 2.4.17 on an Athlon XP 1700 w/ 512MB RAM. When I try to copy a large number of files across an nfs share (~1000 files & ~7GB) bdflush and kupdated start consuming massive amounts of CPU cycles, to the point where the entire system is extremely sluggish and unresponsive. (the mouse will remain frozen for ~10 seconds at a time)
Top shows that kupdated and bdflush are in contention for CPU usage. It also shows that there are no other processes that are consuming unusual amounts of CPU cycles or memory. This is not just related to copying across nfs -- it also happens sporadically at other times, but I can always trigger it via the above method. >From doing some googling, this appears to be a problem that others have experienced in earlier 2.4.x kernels (such as 2.4.3) but I couldn't find a solution to the problem. When I compiled the 2.4.17 kernel, I was a little more thorough with defining kernel options than I usually am, so it's quite possible that I toggled (or didn't toggle) something that I should/shouldn't have. However, I went back through my config and didn't see any glaring omissions. Any suggestions? --kurt
