[CentOS] Question about aspell, alpine and a Xen guest

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 09:11:05AM -0500, Scot P. Floess wrote:
> 
> Answers inline below...
> 
> > On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 08:39:06AM -0500, Scot P. Floess wrote:
> >> I have some weird behavior I can't explain...  I've noticed this behavior
> >> since CentOS 5.2 (version I started running) through 5.4...
> >>
> >> I am running a Xen host/VM.  On my guest VM, I use Alpine as my email
> >> client and Aspell as the spell-check...  For whatever reason, when Aspell
> >> is kicked off - there appears to be what I'd call a prolonged pause before
> >> Aspell does its job.  Should I run Alpine on bare metal (even on the host
> >> OS) - there is no pause whatsoever.
> >>
> >> The pause is so bad, I've stopped using Alpine in the VM and just running
> >> on the host OS itself.
> >>
> >> Its really not a big deal, but I can't figure out what or why there is a
> >> difference.  Initially I thought it might be an issue with the amount of
> >> RAM I give the guest OS - I've tried from 256 MB to 768 MB - the pause is
> >> the same :(
> >>
> >> Any help or anything I can look at to figure this out - is greatly
> >> appreciated!
> >>
> >
> > What kind of pause is that? How long?
> 
> So, I can see aspell kicking off...and nothing...for a good 30 - 60 
> seconds anyway...
> 

Does aspell work from the cmdline? 

> >
> > Do you have DNS properly configured in the guest? Does network function
> > at full speed from the guest?
> 
> Yep, DNS works fine...if I run bare metal - no issues.  Oddly enough 
> Fedora 9 xen guest runs it fine too..
> 

So is it aspell version dependant?

> >
> > Any errors in the logs on the guest? how about dom0?
> 
> Nope, nothing in the logs on the guest nor dom0...
> 

Weird..

-- Pasi