very unstable, almost virus-infected behaviour

akudewan · 03-19-2005, 01:09 AM

Hi there,

I'm using Slack 10.1. My system is acting very strange. All of a sudden, the whole system hangs. Its not like just a particular application or the X server hangs, but everything hangs all at once. There is no response from the keyboard when pressing NUM lock etc.

It hangs at random, sometimes while watching a video, sometimes while browsing the net. And all I can do is press the reset button.

As the system reboots, fsck checks my root partition and /home parition and it ALWAYS finds errors and reboots the system.

Here is a list of things that I have done recently (before the problem started) in chronological order:

1) Formatted my whole HDD and made partitions using qtpart (from Yoper-insall CD)
2) I didn't like Yoper too much so I formatted my root partition (using cfdisk) and installed slack 10.0
3) Then I upgraded to slack 10.1 by downloading the ISOs
<After this was the time when my system was getting unstable>
4) I noticed that my /home partition had unsupported features, so I removed e2fsprogs given by slack and downloaded the latest version (source code).
5) After compiling e2fsprogs, some libraries in /lib were missing (such as libblkid.so.1). So I popped in the slack 10.1 CD and copied the missing libs into my /lib folder.
6) After this my system hangs at random, as if infected by a virus. Almost windows-like behaviour.

Can anyone figure out whats wrong? Please help me.

EDIT: here are a few lines from /var/log/messages around the time my system hung (approx 12:15PM)

Code:

Mar 19 10:56:57 ranjan404 gconfd (akudewan-2421): starting (version 2.6.2), pid 2421 user 'akudewan'
Mar 19 10:56:58 ranjan404 gconfd (akudewan-2421): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source at position 0
Mar 19 10:56:58 ranjan404 gconfd (akudewan-2421): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/akudewan/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Mar 19 10:56:58 ranjan404 gconfd (akudewan-2421): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source at position 2
Mar 19 11:15:58 ranjan404 -- MARK --
Mar 19 11:35:58 ranjan404 -- MARK --
Mar 19 11:55:58 ranjan404 -- MARK --
Mar 19 12:16:00 ranjan404 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Mar 19 12:16:01 ranjan404 kernel: klogd 1.4.1, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
Mar 19 12:16:01 ranjan404 kernel: BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
Mar 19 12:16:01 ranjan404 kernel: 127MB LOWMEM available.
Mar 19 12:16:01 ranjan404 kernel: ide_setup: hdd=ide-scsi
Mar 19 12:16:01 ranjan404 kernel: Initializing CPU#0
Mar 19 12:16:01 ranjan404 kernel: Memory: 126368k/131008k available (1831k kernel code, 4252k reserved, 607k data, 120k init, 0k highmem)

Thoreau · 03-19-2005, 01:40 AM

Your hard drive is dead. Get a new one. No mystery here.

akudewan · 03-19-2005, 01:49 AM

WTF. I got my Samsung 80 GB just last year on my birthday!!

Now that I think about it, there have been a few electricity fluctuations. I have a spike-guard, but no stabilizer or UPS. I'll get my hard disk checked ASAP.

Anyone else got any suggestions?

JSpired · 03-19-2005, 02:02 AM

I actually thought the same after reading your post..sorry.

scott_R · 03-19-2005, 02:08 AM

That's not nearly enough info to diagnose a system. The whole file, or a dmesg output might help more. Just a guess, but part of the problem might be your somewhat haphazard updating/upgrades. For instance, these caught my attention:

4) I noticed that my /home partition had unsupported features, so I removed e2fsprogs given by slack and downloaded the latest version (source code).

[what unsupported features? a /home partition isn't an entity, it's simply a placeholder]

5) After compiling e2fsprogs, some libraries in /lib were missing (such as libblkid.so.1). So I popped in the slack 10.1 CD and copied the missing libs into my /lib folder.

[copy pasting sometimes works with MS Windows, but Linux works on systems from watches to Cray computers. The chances of dropping in the correct driver at random, directly off a cd aren't in your favor.]

Noting the second ("5") item, it makes me wonder if you took the time to read the e2fsprogs install instructions, or just made a guess as to what was the problem (and inadvertantly made things worse by doing so).

Additionally, perhaps you made the decision to install Slackware with an older (ext2) filesystem, and there might be a problem with some of the software that goes along with that, simply because few people use that older filesystem these days.

Mainly though, I would suggest a reinstallation. Not because slackware is a problem, but because your situation is beyond your ability to manage it. Most Slack users (including myself) use slackware-current, using swaret or another updater to keep things up-to-date. Essentially, Slack can be a pain to install, but once it's set up properly, is almost a hands-off system.

Experienced Slack/Linux users would have no problem fixing your problem, but it's not worth the time it would take you to learn the subtletys of the system, especially as a newbie. You need familairity with the OS before you can work on even simple problems like this.

Not that you should feel bad about this, most of us have a MS background, and we all have migrated through various stages of "dumbness" before we understood these systems at a better level. Funny thing is, I don't know anyone who would prefer to return to "the other OS".

akudewan · 03-20-2005, 06:30 AM

I understand that my method of updating e2fsprogs was quite risky. I should have done a little more research.

My system is not hanging since the past 2-3 days. I guess I'll just wait and watch. If it does give problems, then I'll re-format my linux partition and start over. I'll also keep a watch on my hard-disk.

Thanks for all the help.

masonm · 03-20-2005, 06:39 AM

Sounds like a reinstall is in order to me as well. Using good practices and procedures when making changes to the system will prevent many problems. Be sure to read up on chnges before making them so that you know what you are about to do.

Even seemingly small configuration changes can make a system unstable. The things you've decribed doing are well outside of proper practices and will likely ensure an unstable system.