Hi all,

I installed Fedora 9 on a Pentium 4, 3GHz, 1,5 GB of RAM. It think it is sufficient. The installation went swell. No problem at all. The problems started after first boot, which held many hours. I have ended up in the following situation:

a) Services start up fine
b) It takes forever to boot at runlevel 5. Services take a few seconds to load and real delay starts when the login window tries to appear. Finally it does (after a couple of hours) and after logging in even opening a terminal is very slow
c) It takes forever to boot at runlevel 3. Finally it does. Then I can startx but the situation is as above
d) I can boot at runlevel 2 normally. Then I can startx normally. Working inside kde is without problems. Everything is normal (as far as I can see)

If I remember correctly the difference between runlevel 2 and 3 is the networking. Also runlevel 5 is the same as runlevel 3 with X. Thus, I was led to the conclusion that there is something wrong with networking. So I booted at runlevel 5. After a few hours, when kde had started, the network was operational. I even updated a few things with yum. Which ruled out my theory of problem with networking.

I checked dmesg and /var/log/messages and didn't see anything suspicious. Also top didn't show anything that could draw my attention.

Any ideas where to look? I would really appreciate any help.

thanx
/axelmang

PS just to note that a few days ago from the same media (dvd) I installed Fedora 9 on my laptop and I didn't have any problem at all.

Check that the network loopback device is set up:
ifconfig lo

If not, you need to ensure that it is started regardless of other network settings especially if you want to run a GUI. A lot of messages are sent via 127.0.0.1 so without 'lo' your system can really crawl.

At the moment I am at work, so I'll check it first thing when I go home.
Just one question though. Is it possible to be down? since the network has been working? Also I am 99% sure that when the initial services start, I have seen it as [OK]. In any case, I'll check and post the results asap

thanx
/axelmang

lo seems to work. It reports:

The situation is horrible. As I said there is no problem booting at runlevel 2. From there I enter as root and then start the runlevel 5. Everything is swell (apart from the mouse which stops responding and I unplug it and plug it to a new usb port) I am updating the system from yum as we speak (from laptop). The thing is that if I let grub boot normally it takes for ever. The situation as mentioned in my first post remains as is. Services load ok in whatever level, but kde takes forever.
I am a bit lost here. Any help?

thanx
/axel

It's time to look at the system logs. When a user logs into X, any errors would be in $HOME/.xsession-errors - there are also X-specific logs, for example /var/log/Xorg.0.log - but the name may be different between distros - and kdm.log. After checking logs for reported problems, the last thing to do is take time to read through the various scripts and configs and step through the entire X/kdm startup process - the problem could be with a broken script. I remember one config file from years ago which had "$(blah)" rather than "$blah" (distro maintainer made a mistake in the helper scripts) and X wouldn't start at all.

the thing is that .xsession-errors have to do with runlevel 5 and X. My problem (I think) is even before that when I boot to runlevel 3. It is impossible to boot into runlevel 3. If I change grub's boot parameters and boot into level 3 then although services start up fine at the expected amount of time I am directed into a login console. There although I write my username and hit enter, it disappears and it takes forever to relaunch the login console. After a couple of hours, when I can finally login I can startx but everything is very slow.

But... yesterday accidentally I discovered that from runlevel 2 I can start runlevel 5 (as root). Everything goes swell if you disregard the fact that the mouse stops responding and I have to unplug it and plug it in to a new usb.

Furthermore, I don't quite get how would a but script get into my system, since I installed Fedora 9 from the same dvd at my laptop a few days ago and it works since then with no problem

Appreciating all your help.
/axelmang

I don't know how any scripts would go bad. Maybe some essential services are *not* being started in level 3 or 5. You'll have to check the symlinks to the init.d scripts; the order (priority) is important as well - for example, there is no point in attempting to start the apache server when the network has not been configured yet. Links with a lower number have higher priority and are guaranteed to be executed before a link with a higher number. If several links have the same priority then there is no guarantee of the order they are executed (in fact the 'init' process can actually be made to run them simultaneously on a multiprocessor system).

Hi all,

as I said yesterday I managed to log in t kde and run yum to update the system. On top of the existing 2.2.25-15 kernel the 2.2.26.6-79 was added. Now the "slowness" (lol) has gone away. I can normally boot into runlevel 5. Plz don't ask me to boot with the previous kernel. I am really afraid....

But I am facing the following situation: After I enter username and password at the login screen of kde (sometimes even during entering them) one of the following happens:
a) The mouse stops responding
b) The keyboard stops responding
c) Both are working fine but when I hit a key at the keyboard it never stops repeating

Below you may find the xorg.conf that is used. (The mouse section was not there so I added it myself)

The mouse is a standard microsoft optical usb one, and the keyboard is again a usb one

Again, I would really appreciate any help
thanx
/axel

I think I didn't tell you that if I start at runlevel 2 and from there startx none of this happens. If from runlevel 2 I enter runlevel 5 then it happens. Also if I boot at runlevel 5 it happens

/axelmang

Hi,

after trying and trying and trying I ended up with the following solution: I used "noapic acpi=off" at the kerenel parameters while starting. Now both mouse and keyboard work ok.

My question is what are these two parameters? I have searched around the web but the only thing I found was how this solved the problem on other people. Not what it actually is or does. Can anyone provide me with some more details or direct me somewhere to read about these two parameters. Is there any potential harm in the pc if they are used?

thanx again
/axelmang

'noapic' switches off the kernel's Advanced Peripheral Interrupt Controller driver - historically this has been a support chip separate from the CPU. There is a related driver - the 'lapic' driver - "Local APIC" - which is an APIC built into (or onto) the same chip as the CPU. If the CPU does not set up the PIC properly, some (if not all) interrupts will not be received and all sorts of things will go wrong with the kernel.

[edit] The 'P' is 'Programmable', not 'Peripheral' - once upon a time it was 'Peripheral'.

[edit2] This wikipedia article actually mentions the issue toward the end:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_APIC_Architecture

So I have switched off Interrupt Controller. I get that. Why did I switch it off in order to make my mouse and keyboard work? I assume that some interrupt signals were messing things up ... blah blah blah. Ok so far. But since I have switched it off, what am I loosing? I guess that by not switching it off, if something went wrong I would be notified by some message or the kernel itself would take some action. Now that I have switched it off, what is the situation?

How to deal with this since switching it off is the only way to make the mouse and keyboard to work?

Moreover, if I set up some monitoring utility (eg gkrellm) will it be able to receive the values (may be the last one is completely irrelevant and has nothing to do with all the above, but I need to make sure)

thanx
/axelmang