Linux freezing
 

I am running Mandrake LInux 9.2 on a 1.5 Pentium M with 1gb of ram.

I can boot linux up and everything fine and use everything but then it will randomely freeze on me. Sometimes during the boot up when linux is checking my hda for errors it will just stop in the middle of checking. Any suggestions.

any errors in th logs ?

sounds like you are using quite a new laptop on an old linux distro.

i think laptop supportwas greatly improved in the 2.6 kernels

Re: Linux freezing
 

Yep - you have a motherboard with cool power management features that the dorks who code Linux have not bothered to fix and test properly while making sure Linux can do other dumb stuff like have media player #1,248.

Therefore, you need to do the following (boot from rescue or if your machine doesn't lock)

vi /ect/lilo.conf

[find your choice for booting linux]
[find the line called "append"]
[in that line, add the following with spaces around each of them to separate from other apped commands]

nolapic noapic

if your boot is sticking on IDE2 because you have nothing plugged into the other IDE or SATA port, then add this as well:

hdg=none

You might find this in your append line:

apci=ht

try this:

apci=on

That fixes everything for me.

Now, save your changes to lilo.conf. Were you editing the right one? if you boot from a rescue disk and mount your filesystem under /mnt, then the lilo.conf in ram is /etc/lilo.conf, and the lilo.conf on your drive that you actually use to boot is /mnt/etc/lilo.conf (you wouldn't believe how I learned that the hard way!!!)

Now, to make your changes take to the MBR, you have to run lilo, so type

lilo -v

and lilo will apply the changes in the .conf file to the MBR.

Now reboot without the rescue disk in the drive and you should no longer have lockups.

One other thing, unless you get the kernel with the option enabled, Mandrake will not see all of your ram. It will top out at 884MB. You need the 4GB version to see it all.

hey its not linux's fault..... mandrake 9 is older than his hardware....
they couldn possibly test and debig hardware nnot available yet.

always use the latest linux versions, especialy with very new hardware.

His case is not a good example, but Mandrake 10, which I use, with the hardware below in my sig, also will not install without freezing up. There is no excuse for distributing an operating system for a desktop this year which does not support four year old power management technologies available on every motherboard which cause thousands of people to experience locking.

MS Windows handles APIC, LAPIC, and APCI exactly right without tweaking on installation. MS Windows XP (years old) can see more than a GB of ram without needing any sort of patch. Linux has to be reinstalled or you have to recompile if you upgrade from 512M to 1G on Mandrake 10. MS Windows does not probe empty IDE sockets on boot looking for hardware that your BIOS does not report. While someone out there is writing Yet Another Media Player that will only handle 25% of the file types available, these three issues remain. I hope that Linux contributors stop developing new media players and start fixing this kind of thing.

I read a great article the other day on the biggest weakness of community-developed open source software. The author pointed out that the "team" had no leader, and could not be forced to prioritize issues. Instead, they just free-wheel through what they want, not what their target audience might *need*, and thus, we have 149 relatively unstable media players with clunky behavior, none of which are as solid as Winamp or Windows Media Player. And we are left with these three major, show-stopping bugs that would prevent a version of MS Windows from getting out the door continue to ship in every release, and 10% of installations go sour and require command line intervention. And many in the Linux Community do not consider these "bugs", but rather just "The Facts of Life."

I don't know about you, but I have never had to do command line intervention to load a copy of Windows on a PC. I've had to download drivers to make something work, and I've had to reboot, but after ten years, five major revisions, and a whole slew of PC's, never once did I drop to a command line to install the junk.

Every day someone posts on here that their system locks during installation, and we tell them noapic nolapic in lilo.conf, and they ask us what lilo is, and then we explain how to mount from rescue disks and access lilo.conf and edit the append line and run lilo to fix the problem, and then the problem is fixed.

It is almost 2005 - there is absolutely no valid excuse as to why Linux developers cannot implement these three motherboard technologies (APIC, LAPIC, APCI) reliably given that they cause installation woes to helpless newbies who haven't learned the system enough to fix it yet because they have not yet installed it. These technologies have been widely avaialble for a long time. Mandrake 9 should have handled them.

I enjoy tinkering just like a lot of Linux guys, but this particular issue I will not forgive. I spent a weekend getting my first installation in over this issue. This issue was the only reason I had to install a dual boot machine this time - so I could research the problem on the net. I installed XP on the same machine, and it did not require my assistance and I was done in an hour, APIC, LAPIC, APCI all working together and humming along quite nicely.

I do my work from Linux, for many reasons I prefer it over WIndoze, but we must not live as "Technologists in Denial" about how usable our stuff is. If it is not fully usable by a n00b, it is worthless to them, and Mandrake 9 or 10 gets no excuse making from me when power management routines cause hard locking in the operating system. This needs to be fixed.

I'm sorry, but isn't the principle of linux that if you do not like it, change it. You're more than welcome to write the programs neccessary to do what you ask and submit them to sf.

As I said, let's not be technologists in denial. If you didn't care if an end user could use it, my comments would not have seemed so provocative to you.

I never said I didn't care if an end user could/couldn't use it. I simply said, don't complain (which is exactly what you were doing) about something if you're not willing to contribute to change it :)

I think everyone should complain about anything they don't like or have difficulty with. Otherwise, how will anyone know it is an issue? I like complaints. They help my company improve how we do business. It is the people who use our services, do not like, and do not complain who are not helpful.

Heck, I also just enjoy reading editorials, so you know, I think I'll ignore your feedback. Thanks, though.

But the purpose of my post was not to "complain", it was to support the newbie who posted the question in the first place after it was implied he had committed "user error" by installing an old OS on new machinery - when in reality using a newer version of Mandrake would not have helped him at all.

Thanks a lot for the help Linux24. I added nolapic and noapic and changed apci=ht to acpi=on and linux hasn't froze up since.

kevinens, I'm glad you got your install working. Hopefully it will work for you.

Linux24, I do believe I love you. (If you're a dude, don't be offended, it's totally Platonic.)

I found this post searching for an answer to the question, "Why the crap did Mandrake 10.1 install flawlessly 2 days ago, and now it won't get past the license agreement without freezing solid?" It's gotta be a hard disk issue, because there have only been somewhere in the neighborhood of ZERO hardware changes in that time, but that doesn't console me when I've been reformatting and rebooting for 12 hours. Anyway, it seems that I'm not nearly alone in my frustration. As Linux24 pointed out, there are obvious shortcomings to the distro and, lo, even the developer community if such problems persist across at least 2 major versions. Of course Linux is great. So is Windows. I'm sure I could rally enough supporters (and detractors) of either statement to wage a sizeable war any day of the week. The point is, they're both right in their own way.

The problem is, Linux can be a bit unapproachable at times (like when it won't install). MS has a definite foot in the door when it comes to this, because their releases are heavily QC'd for hardware and software compatibility before they leave the factory. Sure, issues come up, but that's unavoidable. MS has a whole division created to handle these issues. Linux, unfortunately, does not. I hope that somebody who has contact with the inner-workings of Mandrake comes across these threads and brings up these concerns at the next company meeting / picnic. Maybe 10.1 Official will address this. Maybe 11.0 will. Maybe nothing will.

At the end of the day, the customer is always right. I'm a customer, and I am certainly glad I kept my Win2k installation intact when I decided to give Mandrake the ol' college try. Unless I can get Mandrake working well (which does require at least a successful install), I'm not being won over tonight, but I'm persistant and open-minded, just like LT was back in the day, so hopefully I'll find a solution. I know that a knowledge of Linux is one of those things that you really feel good about earning, so I'll keep at it.

In summary, I'm tired of fighting with Mandrake for today, so my comments might reflect that a bit, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't have high ambitions for tomorrow.


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