[SOLVED] Busted file system in Debian Buster, even after manual fsck. Dell Inspiron 7580.

gustavsposten · 06-23-2019, 03:09 PM

I posted this in the "Debian" forum but it seems like it's not online for some reason. I hope it works here.

This is my first time posting here and my first time ever using Debian. I have only used DeepinOS for about 6 months and I'm new to Linux. I know I could just stay with Deepin (which is working out of the box for the most part) but I really liked Debian and it seems to be the perfect one for me if I ever get it to work properly (and I could even learn from this difficulty, right?). Deepin is running in the PC I'm using now and I never installed it on my laptop.

I'll try to provide all information I can, so forgive me for not knowing just what is actually necessary!

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 7580. It came with Ubuntu installed.
When I type in lspci I get:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 3e34 (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 3ea0 (rev 02)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Skylake Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 0c)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Skylake Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9df9 (rev 30)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9ded (rev 30)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Device 9def (rev 30)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 9de8 (rev 30)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device 9de0 (rev 30)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device 9dd3 (rev 30)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9dbc (rev f0)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9db0 (rev f0)
00:1d.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9db1 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d84 (rev 30)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9dc8 (rev 30)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device 9da3 (rev 30)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 9da4 (rev 30)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1d10 (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device 2526 (rev 29)

At first I was trying to install Debian Stretch because it's stable. Everything seems to work well but WiFi is never detected and things I should do with fn+key (like volume control and screen brightness) didn't work. I did try using the non-free firmware links in sources.list and the stretch backports but nothing changed. Connection was only possible via cable. So then I sought help in the Debian IRC thing and a nice guy there told me I had to update the kernel from 4.9 to 4.19 because my hardware seems to be too new for 4.9. I tried with no success of course, but then realized that Buster comes with 4.19 and it's about to get stable anyway.

So I installed Buster. First I had tried one ISO with "live" and "non-free" in the name and another with "firmware" in the name but those got frozen in the "Configure Network" screen for hours, so I deleted them from my flash drives. It only worked from the ISO: Debian GNU/Linux buster-DI-rc1 "Buster" - Official RC amd64 DVD Binary-1 20190411-22:33. Whatever firmware the installer said was missing I just downloaded from another PC and inserted via flash drive and pressed Continue.

Everything worked perfectly, including every fn+key the laptop has and even some KDE customization I could not get from Stretch! And WiFi! It did work for a few minutes! However, when I was installing some things and changing some colors, or even opening a terminal, I started getting the following error for every single thing (konsole is just one case):

"Configuration file "/home/user/.kde/share/config/konsolerc" not writable.
Please contact your system administrator"

And it would open anyway but no changes were made from configurations or applications used. So I tried to change permissions and I could not, not even as root. So I rebooted and got a black screen with the following text (btw is there a way to copy this other than by hand?):

Code:

[	1.322467] i915 0000:00:02.0: firmware: failed to load i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.
bin (-2)
[	1.322470] firmware_class: See https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware for informat
ion about missing firmware
[	1.364940] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: gr: failed to load nvidia/gp108/gr/sw
_nonctx.bin (-2)
[	1.364945] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: gr: failed to load gr/sw_nonctx
[	1.954938] psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query device: -5
[	3.495912] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: Pointer to TMDS table invalid
[	3.496445] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: failed to create kernel channel, -22
Resuming from hibernation

/dev/sda2: recovering journal
/dev/sda2 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Deleted inode 3148825 has zero dtime. FIXED.
/dev/sda2: Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan liked list found.

/dev/sda2: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
	(i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck exited with status code 4
The root filesystem on /dev/sda2 requires a manual fsck


BusyBox v1.30.1 (Debian 1:1.30-4) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs)

So I used a live system to manually run sfck on /dev/sda2 and this solved the problem, but only for a while (now with no WiFi possible, only cable) until the "not writable" errors started popping up again and whenever I reboot I get the black screen. I don't want to reinstall from the same ISO because I would likely get the same problem, so it's still in the black screen.

What should I do?

Thank you for helping!

gustavsposten · 06-23-2019, 07:00 PM

Just a quick update:

I removed the 128GB SATA M.2 SSD I had inside the laptop and inserted the 1TB HDD.

It is much slower to install but it seems to work perfectly. I rebooted a few times just to see if I would get the black screen and didn't have any problem so far. Even WiFi is working perfectly. It's weird because originally Ubuntu came installed in that very SSD and not the HDD.

So I now have this free SSD M.2 slot and I would like to use it instead of the 1TB HDD (because of performance) but how can I do that? Did my SSD come broken or something? Can I fix it instead of buying another one? Should I buy the same M.2 thing or the one that goes where the HDD is now? How should I report that back to Dell Support for a possible reimbursement?

Thanks again in advance.

syg00 · 06-23-2019, 11:23 PM

Does (did) Ubuntu have the same problem ?. If you scrubbed Ubuntu, do you have install media and/or a backup ?.
Going read-only is the filesystem trying to protect itself from (perceived) errors - have a look at /etc/fstab on /dev/sda2. The errors are usually dodgy hard drive/SSD. Looks like you have NVMe so hopefully it's actually ok (hence the q re Ubuntu).
Sounds more likely a mismatch between the actual SSD and the I/O scheduler, driver, trim support whatever. Knowing the differences between the Ubuntu setup and the Debian would make interesting reading in all likelihood.

Should have added, I don't use either of those distros.

gustavsposten · 06-24-2019, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

Does (did) Ubuntu have the same problem ?. If you scrubbed Ubuntu, do you have install media and/or a backup ?.
Going read-only is the filesystem trying to protect itself from (perceived) errors - have a look at /etc/fstab on /dev/sda2. The errors are usually dodgy hard drive/SSD. Looks like you have NVMe so hopefully it's actually ok (hence the q re Ubuntu).
Sounds more likely a mismatch between the actual SSD and the I/O scheduler, driver, trim support whatever. Knowing the differences between the Ubuntu setup and the Debian would make interesting reading in all likelihood.

Should have added, I don't use either of those distros.

No, Ubuntu came installed originally and I don't have any install media or backup of that. I just bought the laptop with Ubuntu and decided to use Debian. I didn't even consider having a backup because GNU/Linux install processes are usually quite simple, and I have never had such problems.

I think your answer came before my update there. Perhaps the information there helps clarify something I'm not aware of. So my problem now is: what to do with that SSD? Can I still use it? Will it be 'read only' for ever?

Thank you so much.

rknichols · 06-24-2019, 04:17 PM

What is the brand and model of the SSD? Does this warning seem relevant? Does the problem go away if you turn off all trim/discard?

syg00 · 06-24-2019, 10:22 PM

Yes I never saw the second post - might have been quarantined for a while as you are a new user (checking for bots probably).
As per the response above, turning off trim would be a simple check.

BTW, I reported your duplicate of this thread for closure - generally frowned upon in LQ.

gustavsposten · 06-25-2019, 04:29 PM

Quote:

What is the brand and model of the SSD? Does this warning seem relevant? Does the problem go away if you turn off all trim/discard?

I called Dell and the brand is Dell itself: Dell 128GB M.2 SSD SATA SM210. They told me Ubuntu is installed as soon as the SSD is produced (I'm not even sure if that makes any difference at all).

Now I'm able to run any OS from the HDD and everything works but the SSD. Even when I try to use it as simple storage I cannot write anything into it. I mount it, access it (only as root though) and then I'm unable to even create a directory or file in it. It shows messages like "unauthorized access" or "read only".
The Dell people told me it's probably because I installed Debian over the Ubuntu that came with the computer in the first place and that I should run a "benchmark test" and then "absolutely clean the SSD to ZERO" in order to reinstall the system with nothing written "under" it. I don't even know what a "benchmark test is and I'm about to look it up, but it would certainly be nice to "wipe out" completely anything from that media and start from scratch just to be sure. Does that make any sense to you guys? Any tips on how to "absolutely clean" the SSD?

Quote:

Yes I never saw the second post - might have been quarantined for a while as you are a new user (checking for bots probably).
As per the response above, turning off trim would be a simple check.

BTW, I reported your duplicate of this thread for closure - generally frowned upon in LQ.

I'm so sorry about that. That's why my post was not shown at the Debian section for the first day or so. I was convinced it never went online. But since I'm having the same problem with any OS I think this section here is the right place for this thread anyway. I'll remove the duplicate myself if possible and I sincerely apologize for that.

Thank you.

gustavsposten · 06-25-2019, 04:52 PM

Well I had asked Dell for the manual of the computer (it does not come with it somehow!) and I just got this two PDF files by e-mail. They're actually available online so I'll link them here if it's of any help at all. Thanks again.

http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/inspi...nual_en-us.pdf
and
https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/insp...uide_en-us.pdf

syg00 · 06-25-2019, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gustavsposten

The Dell people told me it's probably because I installed Debian over the Ubuntu that came with the computer in the first place and that I should run a "benchmark test" and then "absolutely clean the SSD to ZERO" in order to reinstall the system with nothing written "under" it.

Sounds like vendor drivel to me.

You can quickly clear a SSD with

Code:

blkdiscard /dev/sdb

Make sure you get the device correct. This will simply erase all the data. Might be sufficient.
If you want to "reset to factory", which is probably what they are suggesting, read ATA_Secure_Erase - take a seat and read it carefully. Note all the scary warnings.
If it were me I'd do it, and send it back to Dell if it died, but it's your choice.

gustavsposten · 06-26-2019, 09:39 PM

blkdiscard /dev/sdb is exactly the command I should use. I can see it from lsblk. The problem is that it's always "command not found" when I try it. I'm still trying to learn Bash to use the terminal, but should I "install" that command somehow? Every page on that I can find simply mentions it as a working command but it doesn't seem to exist to me. I've seen in the forums some advice about adding directories to my search path but it's always "not found" command.

Code:

root@debian:/home/gustav# lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   512M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0 915.3G  0 part /
└─sda3   8:3    0  15.7G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0 119.2G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0 119.2G  0 part 
root@debian:/home/gustav# blkdiscard /dev/sdb
bash: blkdiscard: command not found
root@debian:/home/gustav# blkdiscard /dev/sdb1
bash: blkdiscard: command not found
root@debian:/home/gustav#

If this doesn't work I'll try the secure erase thing and see what happens, I've nothing to lose, really. And I wish I was more advanced in this stuff, Bash seems to be so practical when you know what to do with it!

syg00 · 06-26-2019, 10:18 PM

Dunno.
Like I said, I don't use Debian, but on a fresh Mint (nominally based on Ubuntu, hence Debian) it is available to non-root users, in /sbin
Both lsblk and blkdiscard are provided by util-linux. Hang around for a Debian user to chime in.

rknichols · 06-27-2019, 09:20 AM

/sbin/blkdiscard is present in my default install of Debian 8.

How did you become root? Is /sbin not in your PATH? Is this just a matter of the difference between "su" and "su -" ?

gustavsposten · 06-27-2019, 08:53 PM

I really don't know. I don't quite understand how this works. I often find my terminal saying 'command not found' or something of that kind and it seems like the commands are somewhere in my computer but not in the right bash 'path' or something like that. As I said, I'm still learning how to use linux, and that's one of the reasons for trying Debian out (I'm loving it by the way). I just have to study more, but it does take time.

I was actually thinking about installing Mint just to erase the bloody disk because syg00 uses it and the command works for him. However you, rknichols, mentioned "su -" and I didn't even know there was such command. I always used simple 'su' in Debian to insert root password and it usually works. Now, thanks to you, I used 'su -' and it worked. It looks like the SSD has been erased (from what I get from lsblk). I didn't get any notification of progress or something like that after "blkdiscard". Now I'll have to try and install Debian in it and see how it goes. If it doesn't work I'll try the Secure Erase thing. I'll have to try it during the weekend though.

I'll keep you all informed, thank you so much for your inputs!

gustavsposten · 01-18-2022, 10:33 AM

So after all this time I've been using the HD and not the SSD. A few weeks ago I was trying to solve a problem with my wife's laptop, and she needed to update some firmware. After some research I found out I also had the possibility of uptading my own SSD firmware which was a .exe file I downloaded from DELL's website. So I booted a windows system from a USB stick and installed it and this was it. I then installed Debian on the SSD and I'm using it right now and the computer seems like new.

Just wanted to update this and say what the solution was, even if it feels kind of stupid (how didn't I think about this?). I guess that's how we learn and I did learn quite a bit from this. Didn't want to leave the thread hanging, so we can add the "solved" tag there.

Thank you guys. Stay safe.

chrism01 · 01-18-2022, 11:31 PM

FYI

Code:

# This logs you in as root BUT keeps your personal env/path
su

# This logs you in as root with root's env/path(!)
su -

NB You can actually add any username at the end of those cmds to switch user, but if none is specified, root is assumed...

HTH