[Newbies] CPU usage for VM

[Pablo Di Noto]

Hi everybody,

I am starting with Squeak, and see some strange CPU usage pattern while 
using Squeak VM 3.9-8 compiled on Debian Linux unstable. When using the 
3.9rc1-7061 image, sometimes I have around 25% processor usage when 
doing nothing. Some simple thinks like Exploring an object causes 8 to 
10 seconds of 100% CPU usage.

For instance, having on display a System Browser, a Workspace, a 
Hierarchy Browser and the Objects palette, with no visible running 
tasks/processes:

Here is a view of top:

top - 10:00:20 up 10:05,  6 users,  load average: 0.65, 0.62, 0.66
Tasks:  65 total,   2 running,  63 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 24.8%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni, 75.2%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si, 
0.0%st
Mem:    190116k total,   148316k used,    41800k free,     2760k buffers
Swap:   503992k total,    12268k used,   491724k free,    67656k cached

   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND 

  4364 pdinoto   15   0  437m  22m 1812 R 23.8 12.0   1:20.95 squeak 

     1 root      15   0  1944   88   64 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.79 init 

     2 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 
ksoftirqd/0
     3 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.17 events/0 

     4 root      17  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 khelper 


and 3 lines of output of vmstat:
procs -----------memory---------- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
  r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache  bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa
  1  0  12268  41996   2760  67656   0     0  363  339 24  1 75  0
  0  0  12268  41996   2760  67656   0     0  264  296 23  0 77  0
  1  0  12268  41996   2768  67656   0    12  333  330 24  0 76  0

System is a P3 700mhz laptop, with 192mb RAM. While it is not much, I 
see no swapping when this occurs.

I am still a little bit confused who would be the best to report this, 
so if there is a better place please point me in the right direction.

I am already starting to get addicted to Smalltalk... scary! :)

Thanks,
///Pablo