Emacs / 1GB RAM

[Tomas By]

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

[Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com]]

> Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2021 05:14:28 +0100
> From: Tomas By <to...@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?

[Tomas By]

On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:52:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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

[Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com]]

> Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2021 15:04:06 +0100
> From: Tomas By <to...@basun.net>
>

> On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:52:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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?

[Tomas By]

On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:09:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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

[Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com]]

> Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:28:27 +0100
> From: Tomas By <to...@basun.net>
>

> On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:09:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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.

[Tomas By]

On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:09:32 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@delorie.com] wrote:
> So you have 120MB of memory, it should be enough.

On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 16:55:40 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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

[Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com]]

> Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 01:27:46 +0100
> From: Tomas By <to...@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.

[Tomas By]

On Fri, 05 Mar 2021 08:15:17 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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

[Eli Zaretskii (eliz@gnu.org) [via djgpp@delorie.com]]

> Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2021 12:21:45 +0100
> From: Tomas By <to...@basun.net>
>

> On Fri, 05 Mar 2021 08:15:17 +0100, Eli Zaretskii (el...@gnu.org) [via dj...@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.

[Centrum léčby závislosti na tabáku FN Na Bulovce Praha 8]

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.

[Tomas By]

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

/Tomas

[Tomas By]

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:

[Robert Riebisch]

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

[Tomas By]

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

[Tomas By]

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?

[Tomas By]

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?

[Robert Riebisch]

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

[Tomas By]

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

[Tomas By]

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.

[Robert Riebisch]

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

[Tomas By]

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