Slowing Linux to a crawl

[Giles Orr]

2009/7/30 Tyler Aviss <tjaviss-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Giles Orr<gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> 2009/7/30 Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>:
>>> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 05:46:09PM -0400, Tyler Aviss wrote:
>>>> This might seem like a dump answer,but what about inserting sleep
>>>> commands into the script, etc?
>>>
>>> That doesn't actually give any idea how long the script code takes to run.
>>> The idea probably isn't to make it delay a lot, but to actually see how
>>> much time the script is actually using.  It can be hard to compare the
>>> efficiency of two pieces of script code if you machine is so fast that you
>>> can't tell.  On a slower machine you could tell which is more efficient.
>>
>> This is what I'm after.  I would prefer to do this on my current
>> desktop just for convenience, but nothing has come up that sounded
>> like it fits so far.  Weird that no one wants to slow their computer
>> down, I mean what's up with that?
>>
>> It occurs to me that I have a 1200MHz Celeron with an Asus motherboard
>> and what appeared to be a highly adjustable BIOS: I can probably get
>> it to run at 200MHz(?) and that might do the trick.
>>
> Can you get it down that low, or is that just the clock multiplier?

As it turns out, I can't slow it past 800MHz - but with the memory
running slow, it being a Celeron, and "time" working in the single
digit millisecond range, I'm getting repeatable, usable numbers.

For those who are interested, William Park's wonderful take on how to
sum the sizes of files in the local directory:

echo $(($(find -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type f -printf '%k+' ; echo 0)))KiB

is the winner, running faster than the other implementations we were
tossing about in another thread.

So I've found a decent solution to the main problem - slowing things
down - and I'm happy about that.  Thanks!

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
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