gpu-manager hangs on boot when syslog is bloated

[Robie Basak]

Due to what I think is an unrelated bug, I've ended up with a 9.5G /var/log/syslog. Now when I boot my system, it hangs for around a minute before I get a graphical login screen. I had thought the system was failing to boot entirely for a while.

I spotted a grep of /var/log/syslog started by gpu-manager together with grep in D state in my process listing, so I think the cause is that gpu-manager greps my syslog and takes so long.

I don't think it's reasonable to hang the boot for so long, even with my bloated syslog. Nothing else is breaking due to this and I expect the bloated ones to rotate out.

Is there a better approach to whatever gpu-manager needs to do, such as to only grep the last X bytes of the syslog, perhaps? Or find some other way? grepping syslog seems fragile to me.

I also note that I can't remove ubuntu-drivers-common (dependency from software-properties-gtk, which I want). I'm not sure that I need it. It's OK for it to be there, but if it cannot be removed then that's more reason for it to be particularly well behaved.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: ubuntu-drivers-common 1:0.4.11
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-34.39-generic 4.2.8-ckt4
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-34-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Apr 3 11:20:18 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-03-20 (14 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Release amd64 (20151021)
SourcePackage: ubuntu-drivers-common
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Alberto Milone (albertomilone)]

I fixed this (by not relying on syslog at all) in Ubuntu 16.04. Performance should be much better.

[Robie Basak (racb)]

Thanks! I looked at the ubuntu-drivers-common and found related bug 1307069 for anyone following along.