/[bubblemon]/bubblemon/FAQ
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Contents of /bubblemon/FAQ

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Revision 1.24 - (show annotations) (download)
Fri Oct 3 09:39:20 2003 UTC (20 years, 7 months ago) by walles
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: HEAD
Changes since 1.23: +32 -4 lines
Document installing in /usr/local.

1 To Emacs: This is a -*-text-*- file.
2
3 If you have a question that isn't answered below, send it to the
4 mailing list (bubblemon-list@nongnu.org) and it'll be added.
5
6
7
8 1. How do I start the applet from the command line?
9
10 Change to the bubblemon directory and do the following:
11
12 $ ./configure
13 $ make
14 $ src/bubblemon-gnome1
15
16
17 2. Can you add this feature to the applet?
18
19 Perhaps. If you want to improve your odds, here are my suggestions
20 though:
21 * Your best bet is to do it yourself and send me a patch. If you run
22 into problems I'll gladly answer your questions. Also, the TODO file
23 may very well contain some information to help you get started.
24 * If you can't do it yourself (or get someone else to do it for you
25 :-), see if it is in the TODO file. If it is, I will probably
26 implement it sooner or later anyway.
27 * If you can't do it yourself and it's not in the TODO file, send a
28 mail to the mailing list (bubblemon-list@nongnu.org) and I'll add it.
29
30
31 3. I'm running a background process on my system that should be using
32 all of my CPU, but the Bubblemon shows very few or no bubbles at
33 all. Why is that?
34
35 Because the applet ignores nice (do 'man nice') processes. The
36 reasoning behind this is that I use the applet for keeping track of
37 how much processing power I have at my disposal. As 'nice' processes
38 will yield as soon as another process starts, I have all of my CPU
39 power at my disposal, even with a 'nice' background job running.
40 Therefore: 'nice' processes don't bubble.
41
42
43 4. The program doesn't do anything; it doesn't even crash!
44
45 Try running it from the command line, and see if you get an error
46 message. Do the follwing from the bubblemon directory:
47
48 $ ./configure
49 $ make
50 $ src/bubblemon-gnome1
51
52
53 5. The program crashes. What should I do?
54
55 Either fix it yourself and send a patch to the mailing list
56 (bubblemon-list@nongnu.org), or send a bug report to the list. The
57 bug report should contain the result of changing directory into the
58 bubblemon src directory and doing the following:
59
60 $ ./configure
61 $ make
62 $ cd src
63 $ gdb ./bubblemon-gnome1
64 (gdb) run
65 <SEGFAULT>
66 (gdb) info stack
67 (gdb) info locals
68
69 Note that the build stage is essential, because it puts debug metadata
70 in the binary.
71
72
73 6. The amount of memory used reported by the applet is different from
74 what [other program] says. How come?
75
76 Free memory measuring on Linux (at least) is somewhat complicated.
77 What my applet shows is what most people would think of as free
78 memory. Therefore, what my applet reports may not correspond to what
79 other programs say, but the numbers you get from my applet is what you
80 really want.
81
82 A more precise explanation follows. If it's wrong in some way, or if
83 you know somewhere else where this is documented in some
84 comprehensible way, I'd appreciate it if you send a mail to the
85 mailing list (bubblemon-list@nongnu.org).
86
87 Anyway, if we forget about swap for a while, here are the different
88 kinds of memory, and whether I treat them as "air" or "water":
89
90 * Free memory. Just what you'd expect. This adds to the "air".
91 * Used memory. Just what you'd expect. This adds to the "water".
92 * Shared memory. Memory shared between two or more processes. This
93 adds to the "water".
94 * Buffers and cache. Free memory that Linux uses for disk cache.
95 When someone allocates more memory, buffers and cache are nuked, so
96 this adds to the "air".
97
98 If we add swap space into the picture, what I show as the water level
99 is how much memory is "air" (as defined above) relative to the total
100 amount of electronic memory. What I show as color changes is how much
101 "air" memory above the amount of electronic memory is being used.
102 Thus, when Linux starts swapping stuff out even though there's
103 electronic memory left, people watching my meter won't be confused by
104 this (I know I was before I changed it :-).
105
106 If you want to know more than this, have a look at the
107 get_censored_memory_and_swap() function in bubblemon.c.
108
109
110 7. Performance sucks. What should I do?
111
112 To give you some frame of reference of what kind of performance to
113 expect; on my 400MHz PII system I have never seen the bubblemon go
114 over 1.5% CPU utilization (according to 'top').
115
116 See the file PROFILING for instructions on finding out where your
117 cycles go.
118
119
120 8. The configure script reports no problems, but I still get errors
121 (or warnings) when doing 'make'. What's up?
122
123 The build process is broken. It shouldn't be. Send a mail to the
124 mailing list (bubblemon-list@nongnu.org) with the output from both
125 'configure' and 'make', and also tell me what kind of Unix you are
126 using and I'll try to fix it. To capture the output from those
127 commands, do:
128
129 ./configure &> log-configure
130 make &> log-make
131
132 Then send a copy of both log files to (bubblemon-list@nongnu.org).
133
134
135 9. How do I translate everything into my favourite language?
136
137 Instructions for doing this is in the TRANSLATIONS file.
138
139
140 10. I'm running Mandrake Linux and the configure script fails. What's
141 up?
142
143 You haven't installed the `devel' RPMs from the second Mandrake CD.
144 Install them and then run configure again.
145
146
147 11. I'm running SuSE Linux and the configure script fails. What's up?
148
149 You haven't installed the GNOME development RPMs. Make sure you have
150 installed all RPMs that have names ending in 'd' (for 'development')
151 from the GNOME category. Then try running configure again.
152
153
154 12. I have built it using "./configure && make install", but my Panel
155 doesn't contain any menu entry for Bubblemon.
156
157 When you run configure without any parameters, it will install stuff
158 under /usr/local. The GNOME Panel may not be configured to search
159 /usr/local for panel applets. To fix this, you need to modify the
160 following files:
161
162 * /etc/oaf/oaf-config.xml: Inside the <searchpath> section, add the
163 following line:
164
165 <item>/usr/local/share/oaf</item>
166
167 * /etc/bonobo-activation/bonobo-activation-config.xml: Inside the
168 <searchpath> section, add the following line:
169
170 <item>/usr/local/lib/bonobo/servers</item>
171
172 * /etc/gconf/2/path: Before the line
173 "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults", insert the following
174 line:
175
176 xml:readonly:/usr/local/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults
177
178 * Change permissions of /usr/local/etc/gconf and everything under it
179 so that it is world readable:
180
181 chmod --recursive go+rx /usr/local/etc/gconf

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