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I have a fairly recent install of opensuse 13.1 with all the updates and recently began experiencing some unusual issues when booting up the box.
1. One time the box displayed the flashing cursor after the bios splash screen and before loading grub and stayed idle.
2. The box booted to the kde desktop ok. When opening the desktop launcher menu, the launcher menu icons normally associated with items like office, utilities, system, etc. were missing and clicking on a menu item did not load the associated program. The computer locked up.
3. After loading to the kde desktop, a message box said that my bookmarks could not be saved to the xml file, possibly due to a full hard disk. My hard disk is nowhere near full in either root or home partitions. My bookmarks are intact.
4. A power off then power up resolved all the above issues, but I am concerned why the issued are happening.
The box is a hp pavilion a1130n with 1tb hard disk and 2gb ram and amd processor.
Were all the defective attempts warm boots, that is, reloads? That, I think, leaves some code in place, maybe copies of the BIOS or whatever UEFI loads, which would be replaced by a cold boot. So, maybe just one miscopy of code in the first boot. Ztcorocat is right, openSUSE 13.1 is obsolete: Leap 4.2 is, in any case, much better.
Whether 42.x is better than 13.1 is a matter of opinion. Certainly having support is better than not, but a lot of people used to 13.1's KDE4 have not been pleased with the behavior of its Plasma 5 replacement, and not just in openSUSE's implementation of it. For your older machine you might do well to give TDE or some other DE a looksee. KDE3 remains an option in 42.x as well, though it (like TDE), has to be added after initial installation, or kept via a zypper upgrade. I use KDE3 still on my main machine, but expect to be switching to TDE before 43 release. TDE runs nicely on all my test installations, among which are on a dozen or so 32-bit machines.
Whether 42.x is better than 13.1 is a matter of opinion. Certainly having support is better than not, but a lot of people used to 13.1's KDE4 have not been pleased with the behavior of its Plasma 5 replacement, and not just in openSUSE's implementation of it. For your older machine you might do well to give TDE or some other DE a looksee. KDE3 remains an option in 42.x as well, though it (like TDE), has to be added after initial installation, or kept via a zypper upgrade. I use KDE3 still on my main machine, but expect to be switching to TDE before 43 release. TDE runs nicely on all my test installations, among which are on a dozen or so 32-bit machines.
I agree, finding out if the RAM is bad will save time.
Unfortunately, KDE is a RAM Hog so Anti-X might be a better choice for this machine that is older.
I've spoken to a few of our members here running Anti_x and they have had complete success with it on older machines.
openSUSE can be as light as needed for 64 bits and 2GB RAM. Just start with minimal X, then goto detailed package selection instead of selecting Gnome or KDE. From there, several lightweight X options are available, with IceWM as default. Detailed package selection provides fine grained power to add or remove. Last one I did (Tumbleweed less than a week ago) installed less than 300 packages, resulting in no networking, and no zypper. I had to download Wicked and other basics manually and then install with rpm to get zypper working. That bugaboo is supposed to have been fixed since then so that network and zypper are automatically included and must be deselected if for some reason they are really not wanted or needed. Once installation is done, KDE3 and TDE become additional options that work well in low spec systems.
I installed AntiX with TDE less than a year ago. It was nice except for one problem: it depends on /usr/local/. Since I depend on /usr/local/, a lot, on multiboot machines, there's serious potential for interference between its use and my use.
I replaced the hard drive less than a year ago, so I had that feeling of dread of another impending hard drive failure. Then I thought about the box being hacked, which I felt unlikely because I am behind a router and have all unused ports closed and only open them in the firewall when needed such as ssh and that is for a hour, tops adn that is on my local network. And I update the hosts file. Once the box is cold booted again, all is fine. Sometimes, not frequently, I have the issues like the kde start menu icons missing, the box is very sluggish and unresponsive. I can open another tty terminal ctrl-alt-f2 and can not log in to reboot. Power off on the box is all I can do to recover. I have been using 13.1 since it was released and for the most part it runs very well and I even run virtual box machines on it as well. I have another box that I built that is very identical in memory and processor and video and have had no issues like I have on the hp box. I forgot to mention that the hp box does have a stand alone nvidia pci express 6200 video card, and is not using integrated video. Is memtest the definitive answer for detecting faulty memory? I will test and post back my results.
The flaky behavior in conjunction with having needed a new HD last year is smelling like a deteriorating hardware problem. The pavilion a1130n appears to be a model that was manufactured before the end of the capacitor plague. Whether or not it passes Memtest, if you are of a mechanical mind, open it up and inspect for bulging or leaking caps, both on motherboard, on the 6200, and inside the power supply. The time to replace power supply, caps or machine may be impending. Check out badcaps.net if you're inclined to repair.
Is memtest the definitive answer for detecting faulty memory?
Yes:-
If it doesn't pass any of the runs it will let you know right away.
I generally run Memtest overnight but if really pressed for time run it for 3 to 5 hours.
If the RAM is bad it would most likely show up in the first 3 to 5 hours.
I ran memtest, but only let it finish the first full pass. Nothing came up. I did open the box and cleaned out some dust and checked for anything obvious. Will run the test again for a longer time and see what happens. Would the repair option on the install dvd be of any help?
If you check elapsed time running Memtest you'll find passes subsequent to the first take longer. That's because they stress RAM harder to catch RAM that is borderline crossing over the pass/fail line.
I installed a sata solid state drive 128gb using the same opensuse 13.1 64bit dvd and did all the updates and the box has been running very well. No boot issues. So I am suspecting either too large a hard drive or a flaky hard drive. The box also seems quicker with the solid state drive. I will check out the utility to diagnose the original drive.
I installed a sata solid state drive 128gb using the same opensuse 13.1 64bit dvd and did all the updates and the box has been running very well. No boot issues. So I am suspecting either too large a hard drive or a flaky hard drive. The box also seems quicker with the solid state drive. I will check out the utility to diagnose the original drive.
Glad to hear the good news.
Maybe if you have time think about upgrading your Open Suse to 42.2.
I've heard it's really nice.
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