[OS X TeX] (OT) Tiger and not Tigrrrr :-)?

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jul 27, 2005, at 2:28 AM, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> ...
> Regarding the freeze problem only (I think I have bothered more  
> than enough people on this list already with rants about Tiger's  
> instabilities): I can think of three possible causes, other than bugs:
>
> - Spotlight updating its databases in the background.
>

Howdy,

I see mdimport (one run under my user name and occasionally one run  
with no user (root?)) running about once every 10s taking about 15%  
of CPU (on my 550MHz Powerbook) for a short period of time - it's  
running "niced" so I believe will hold off if necessary. There is  
also mds which runs irregularly and I don't know what it does - no  
man page for it. I assume that if I had a faster processor the CPU  
usage of the periodic mdimport run would go down considerably or at  
least the time period would decrease quite a bit so there would be  
less interference with other processes running (although that  
shouldn't happen, ever!). I do wonder if this is the culprit when pdf  
files were being messed up when I re-compiled too rapidly since the  
process is tied into the low level disk reads and writes.

> - Some network activity failing silently in the background (through  
> all versions of OS X, I have experienced freezes or slowdowns with  
> some network tasks in the Finder, especially with FTP -- for  
> example when you click on an FTP link in Safari or Mail, and the  
> Finder cannot connect to the FTP server).
>

The network time out seems to be very long and this problem seems to  
be in every version of OS X I remember. I make sure to turn off  
automatic checks for updates by applications; it would be handy but I  
remember wondering what happened to my system when Expander couldn't  
get in touch with it's site and would hang for a long period of time.

> - Antivirus software like ClamXav scanning directories in the  
> background (see below).
>

I don't like things like that happening automatically.

> But yes, I am also experiencing once a day, say, freezing  
> applications with no definite causes. Usually terminate the process  
> with Cmd-Alt-Esc. Happens more often on my 400 MHz/384 MB RAM/30 GB  
> HD PowerMac than on my 1 GHz/1 GB RAM/60 GB HD PowerBook, which  
> makes me think it must be connected with either of slow processor/ 
> low memory/small disk space.
>
>
>> My advice is to definitely delete all traces of Virex using the un- 
>> installers mentioned above if you EVER had Virex on your system.  
>> Now I call OS X 10.4 Tiger rather than Tigerrrr or Tigrrrr.
>>
>
> With Virex incompatible with Tiger, and now than ClamXav <http:// 
> www.clamxav.com/> has reached version 1 and is more compatible with  
> Tiger (it doesn't fuss with the NetInfo clamav user pre-installed  
> by Tiger), I am using ClamXav for antivirus scanning. It can scan  
> folders/drives on demand, and includes a Sentry function for  
> scanning specified directories automatically. I have set the Sentry  
> to scan the Desktop (my download directory) and the various Inboxes  
> and Junk mailboxes of my Mail accounts.
>

Did you actually run the Virex un-installer? It has helped  
tremendously on my system and I still don't know why it should have  
done anything.

> That said, as with any virus scanner I have tried so far, this  
> Sentry function ends up invariably at some point with unexpected  
> slowdowns nay crashes, and I will probably, as always, disactivate  
> automatic scanning and only leave scanning on demand (for email  
> attachments, typically, before forwarding messages to Windows users).
>
> Bruno Voisin
>
>

I have been using ClamXav ever since it came out. The only  
disadvantage is that there are no searches inside .sit files. That is  
getting moot now since .zip has become ``standard'' under Tiger so  
everything I compress goes into .zip now.

The latest version of ClamXav will open with a Drag & Drop but  
doesn't seem to actually search the dropped file(s). That is the way  
I like to do things---nothing in the background. Hopefully Drag &  
Drop will be improved in the future.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>