ISO problems???

ilikejam · 12-18-2005, 06:33 PM

I wouldn't bother, 10 minutes should be enough.

Check dmesg | tail one more time - if there's nothing error or temp related, I think we can rule that out.

What actually happens when the machine crashes? Does it lock up hard, or can you still move the mouse etc.?

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 06:46 PM

I should have known better. I talked about how good it was doing and it cratered. It just locks up, no stuttering of the mouse or no warning, just freezes. I have to hold down the power button to restart. Doesn't seem to matter what it's doing either. It can crash doing anything from opening a browser, to sitting on a blank desktop with the screensaver running. When it crashed, I was opening an email notification window from kopete and it locked up. I checked the /var/log/message files and the message files are still blank. I checked the xorg log file and didn't notice anything fishy. I wish I knew what the deal is here....

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 06:52 PM

Do you think a fresh install from another download location would matter? Or maybe not because the md5 checks out? I wonder why others aren't having major problems like this. That's the only reason I don't think the iso is bad, because surely others would complain and it would be removed from the server. Seems like a huge pain in the rear, but I really like this distro. I guess maybe getting in touch with the people at PCLinuxOS may be the next step.

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 08:11 PM

Well, maybe it DOES matter what the computer is running. I've tried to rip a dvd in k9copy twice and it froze on 4% the first time and 3% the second time. Maybe the apps are running it out of memory and freezing it up?

ilikejam · 12-18-2005, 08:25 PM

Ah.

Could you post the output of 'uname -a'. Lets see if there's any known issues with the kernel version you're running.

Also, post the output of 'free'.

Dave

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 10:06 PM

Okay...

[hardwire@localhost ~]$ uname -a
Linux localhost 2.6.13-oci2.mdk #1 Thu Oct 27 19:42:17 CDT 2005 i686 Mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3000+ unknown GNU/Linux

[hardwire@localhost ~]$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 451200 354704 96496 0 28636 189912
-/+ buffers/cache: 136156 315044
Swap: 907632 0 907632

And then I ran "free" again while synaptic is updating packages...

[hardwire@localhost ~]$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 451200 443108 8092 0 20540 255216
-/+ buffers/cache: 167352 283848
Swap: 907632 0 907632

Cutting it kinda close with an application open as far as free memory goes it looks like. Also, I made a post on pclinuxos's forum. A moderator replied and here's the thread.... http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules...=9072&forum=59

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 10:12 PM

Code:

[hardwire@localhost ~]$ uname -a
Linux localhost 2.6.13-oci2.mdk #1 Thu Oct 27 19:42:17 CDT 2005 i686 Mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3000+ unknown GNU/Linux
[hardwire@localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.13-oci2.mdk
[hardwire@localhost ~]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        451200     354704      96496          0      28636     189912
-/+ buffers/cache:     136156     315044
Swap:       907632          0     907632
[hardwire@localhost ~]$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        451200     443108       8092          0      20540     255216
-/+ buffers/cache:     167352     283848
Swap:       907632          0     907632
[hardwire@localhost ~]$

See if this is easier to read.

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 10:48 PM

Well, I think I'm left to assume this is indeed a memory problem. I've opened ksysmonitor to watch how the memory is performing. I've opened multiple applications that are kinda system heavy (i.e. dvd rippers, etc) and I can watch the ram fill up, but I never get anything on the swap monitor. Is it possible that PCLos is not able to use the swap partition for some reason? I would think that when the ram is filled up, it should spill into the swap partition. I have a 1Gb swap partition set up from Suse, but PCLos mounts it and should be able to use it with no problem. However, I think my ram is filling up and when it maxes out, there is nothing going to the swap partition and the system crashes. I wonder what I can do to fix this?

Agentvenom · 12-18-2005, 11:17 PM

Well, I've updated my position in the forum... http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules...=9072&forum=59 I think I am going to try adding a small swap partition on the end of my PCLinuxOS extended partition and see if that doesn't fix things. I feel like the swap partition being on my extended partition (hda3) with suse is maybe the problem. Well see...

ilikejam · 12-19-2005, 11:12 AM

I very much doubt the amount of memory in your system is a problem. I used to run KDE on 256MB of RAM, and never had any problems.

I'm not too sure of the rules regarding extended partitions and swap, but I'd imagine that's fine too. The swap partition does generally start filling up well before you run out of RAM, though so maybe there is a problem.

What's inside your /etc/fstab?

Dave

gconn77 · 12-19-2005, 12:41 PM

I had trouble downloading iso images before and then downloaded the bit torrent version and the disk was good.

Agentvenom · 12-19-2005, 01:36 PM

Here's my /etc/fstab:

Code:

# 
This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
## Livecd-install Automatically added by livecd-install

none	/proc	proc	defaults	0 0
none	/dev/pts	devpts	mode=0620	0 0
none	/proc/bus/usb	usbfs	defaults	0 0

# /dev/hda1, size=47134647, type=131: Journalised FS: ext3 (primary)
/dev/hda1	/	ext3	defaults	0 0

# /dev/hda5, size=1815282, type=130: Linux swap (extended)
/dev/hda5	swap	swap	defaults	0 0

# /dev/hda7, size=107351370, type=131: Journalised FS: ReiserFS (extended)
/dev/hda7	/mnt/hda7	reiserfs	user,exec,rw,noauto,notail,noatime	0 0

# cdrom: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4080N
/dev/hdc	/mnt/cdrom	auto	user,exec,ro,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0	0 0

/tmp/app/1/image /tmp/app/1 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0
/tmp/app/2/image /tmp/app/2 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0
/tmp/app/3/image /tmp/app/3 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0
/tmp/app/4/image /tmp/app/4 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0
/tmp/app/5/image /tmp/app/5 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0
/tmp/app/6/image /tmp/app/6 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0
/tmp/app/7/image /tmp/app/7 cramfs,iso9660 user,noauto,ro,loop,exec 0 0

Also, /etc/mtab is:

Code:

[hardwire@localhost ~]$ mount
/dev/hda1 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw)
/dev/hdc on /mnt/cdrom type udf (ro,nosuid,nodev,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,user=hardwire)
[hardwire@localhost ~]$

Maybe downloading via bittorrent is my other option....people won't tend to share a file they've had problems with.

ilikejam · 12-19-2005, 02:13 PM

I wouldn't bother re-downloading - if the MD5s are the same as the PCLinuxOS website's, then there's only a 1 in 340000000000000000000000000000000000000 (roughly) chance that the disc was burned incorrectly. (And since the disc contains a Linux operating system, as opposed to a random collection of bits, I'd say it's pretty certain your disc is fine).

I don't see anything wrong with your setup. You've got plenty of RAM left and it's not overheating. You could grab a copy of memtest86 ( http://www.memtest.org/ ) and see if your RAM is a bit dodgy.

Dave

Agentvenom · 12-20-2005, 11:34 AM

I'm a step ahead of you.

I installed and ran the memtest on boot, and it got to 68% and froze up! So I dunno what that means...my ram is being flaky or something? If my ram is bad or maybe being flaky, how come it doesn't show up in other distros? Perhaps I should try the memtest again and see what I get the second time.

ilikejam · 12-20-2005, 11:54 AM

This is sounding more and more like a hardware problem.

Have you got any spare RAM you could swap in? If you've got a spare power supply somewhere, I'd try that too - dodgy powers can cause all sorts or weirdness.

Dave