6 Oct
2011
6 Oct
'11
9:23 p.m.
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap KDE 3
and go to KDE 4.")
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that were
working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not only
Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes ago, was my
desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random KDE one "set up"
for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all had different
backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure desktop" showed, I found
that my screensaver had been turned off.
The most benign reason I can come up with is that the CMOS battery needs
changing. Something is obviously on the way out. Motherboard also springs
to mind. :-(
It could, of course, be software related. I just can't think what!
All other ideas and suggestions for solving this gratefully received. If the
advice is bin the thing it will only echo my fears. I built this box about 8
years ago, so something crucial dying is not impossible.
It would happen now. :-( I am in the middle of something that is important to
me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to meet. I have had
to give up driving because my eyesight has deteriorated, I live in the
country and my husband (i.e. my transport) is away for the next 2 weeks.
My, the gremlins are having fun. ;-(
Lisi
6 Oct
6 Oct
9:32 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
Am Donnerstag, 6. Oktober 2011 schrieb Lisi:
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap KDE
3 and go to KDE 4.")
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that were
working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not only
Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes ago, was
my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random KDE one
"set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all had
different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure desktop"
showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off.
The most benign reason I can come up with is that the CMOS battery needs
changing. Something is obviously on the way out. Motherboard also springs
to mind. :-(
It could, of course, be software related. I just can't think what!
All other ideas and suggestions for solving this gratefully received. If
the advice is bin the thing it will only echo my fears. I built this box
about 8 years ago, so something crucial dying is not impossible.
It would happen now. :-( I am in the middle of something that is important
to me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to meet. I have
had to give up driving because my eyesight has deteriorated, I live in the
country and my husband (i.e. my transport) is away for the next 2 weeks.
My, the gremlins are having fun. ;-(
Look at the logs (/var/log/messages), if nothing's in it, run memtest. Could
be a good idea to make a backup ...
Nik
Lisi
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--
Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp
Einnehmerstraße 14
A-4810 Gmunden
Tel.: +43 650 82 11 724
email: office(a)klepp.biz
10:12 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:32:50 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 6. Oktober 2011 schrieb Lisi:
Thanks, Nik. Will run memtest overnight. I'll look into logs in the morning.
Lisi
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap
KDE 3 and go to KDE 4.")
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that
were working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not
only Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes
ago, was my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random
KDE one "set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all
had different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure
desktop" showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off.
The most benign reason I can come up with is that the CMOS battery needs
changing. Something is obviously on the way out. Motherboard also
springs to mind. :-(
It could, of course, be software related. I just can't think what!
All other ideas and suggestions for solving this gratefully received. If
the advice is bin the thing it will only echo my fears. I built this box
about 8 years ago, so something crucial dying is not impossible.
It would happen now. :-( I am in the middle of something that is
important to me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to
meet. I have had to give up driving because my eyesight has
deteriorated, I live in the country and my husband (i.e. my transport) is
away for the next 2 weeks.
My, the gremlins are having fun. ;-(
Look at the logs (/var/log/messages), if nothing's in it, run memtest.
Could be a good idea to make a backup ... 
9:33 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap
KDE 3
and go to KDE 4.")
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that
were
working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not only
Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes ago, was
my
desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random KDE one "set
up"
for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all had different
backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure desktop" showed, I
found
that my screensaver had been turned off.
The most benign reason I can come up with is that the CMOS battery needs
changing. Something is obviously on the way out. Motherboard also
springs
to mind. :-(
It could, of course, be software related. I just can't think what!
All other ideas and suggestions for solving this gratefully received. If
the
advice is bin the thing it will only echo my fears. I built this box
about 8
years ago, so something crucial dying is not impossible.
It would happen now. :-( I am in the middle of something that is
important to
me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to meet. I have
had
to give up driving because my eyesight has deteriorated, I live in the
country and my husband (i.e. my transport) is away for the next 2 weeks.
My, the gremlins are having fun. ;-(
Lisi
I would strongly suggest checking the RAM and your hard disk both for any
problems. KDE3.5 and Lenny, while outdated, are very stable.
Tim
7 Oct
7 Oct
7:45 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:33:14 Timothy Pearson wrote:
Thanks, Timothy. I checked the RAM over-night. HDDs (1 for /, 1 for /home)
will be checked over the next 2 nights, probably in that order.
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap
KDE 3
and go to KDE 4.")
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that
were
working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not only
Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes ago, was
my
desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random KDE one "set
up"
for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all had different
backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure desktop" showed, I
found
that my screensaver had been turned off.
The most benign reason I can come up with is that the CMOS battery needs
changing. Something is obviously on the way out. Motherboard also
springs
to mind. :-(
It could, of course, be software related. I just can't think what!
All other ideas and suggestions for solving this gratefully received. If
the
advice is bin the thing it will only echo my fears. I built this box
about 8
years ago, so something crucial dying is not impossible.
It would happen now. :-( I am in the middle of something that is
important to
me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to meet. I have
had
to give up driving because my eyesight has deteriorated, I live in the
country and my husband (i.e. my transport) is away for the next 2 weeks.
My, the gremlins are having fun. ;-(
Lisi
I would strongly suggest checking the RAM and your hard disk both for any
problems. KDE3.5 and Lenny, while outdated, are very stable.
I know - that is why I continue to use them. This is why my first thought was
hardware.
I'm outdated, my desktop is outdated, Lenny and KDE 3.5.10 just complete the
picture. ;-)
Lisi
6 Oct
6 Oct
9:44 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonker
Hi Lisi
Try creating a new user and see if it happens again. If it doesn't your share
directory is messed up. Rename it .old and copy what does work from it to the
new share dir.
Good luck
Kate
On Thursday 06 October 2011, Lisi wrote:
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap KDE
3 and go to KDE 4.")
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with. Applications that were
working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not only
Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes ago, was
my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random KDE one
"set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all had
different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure desktop"
showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off.
The most benign reason I can come up with is that the CMOS battery needs
changing. Something is obviously on the way out. Motherboard also springs
to mind. :-(
It could, of course, be software related. I just can't think what!
All other ideas and suggestions for solving this gratefully received. If
the advice is bin the thing it will only echo my fears. I built this box
about 8 years ago, so something crucial dying is not impossible.
It would happen now. :-( I am in the middle of something that is important
to me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to meet. I have
had to give up driving because my eyesight has deteriorated, I live in the
country and my husband (i.e. my transport) is away for the next 2 weeks.
My, the gremlins are having fun. ;-(
Lisi
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7 Oct
7 Oct
7:49 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
Hi, Kate!
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:44:23 Kate Draven wrote:
Try creating a new user and see if it happens again.
If it doesn't your
share directory is messed up. Rename it .old and copy what does work from
it to the new share dir.
Thanks for the input. I appreciate it. I am currently working my way
methodically through the suggestions you have all so kindly made!
Lisi
7:34 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:23:11 Lisi wrote:
I am in the middle of something that is important to
me, and has a deadline of Monday, which I am not going to meet.
In situations where the software is messed up and I don't have enough time for
troubleshooting, my solution is to run from a live CD. If it's software, not
hardware, then that will provide a stable platform for getting your work
done. Troubleshooting can wait until you have done enough to meet your
deadline.
Good luck
Neil
8 Oct
8 Oct
8:11 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:23:11 Lisi wrote:
Bonkers is the best description I can come up with.
Applications that were
working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not only
Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes ago, was
my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random KDE one
"set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all had
different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure desktop"
showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off.
I ran memtest overnight from Thursday to Friday. No errors. It was only 6
passes, so is not definitive, but it is a good indication that the memory is
OK.
I have looked at the log as suggested by Nik. I can see nothing, but then I
don't know what I am looking for.
And last night I ran (from a Live CD, so outside the system): first smartctl,
which found some errors, and then badblocks, which didn't.
So I imagine that I should start looking for a new hard drive? :-( I do worry
a bit in case it is something more major. And I may change the CMOS battery
first.
smartctl is obviously warning me: the drive is on its way out, so do something
about it. I shall try to limp to next Tuesday, since it will mean a lot of
sorting out. (Acquire the HDD, install Squeeze/Trinity, try to use my
present /home and all the data on it etc.)
That would also, of course, sort out the software. Provided that I don't go
and restore some faulty configurations. I shall anyhow try the viable part
of Kate's suggestion. Kate - I realised that the fault is too intermittent
to show up in a hurry. We are talking days, not hours. And I, as me, need
to access my data etc.
I am still open to suggestions!!
Thanks all for your invaluable help.
Lisi
10:54 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
I had a drive die on my too, thankfully I didn't have all the problems you
did. Sorry lass. And data retrieval was a snap.
Be happy, you're running linux and not windows, data retrieval would be a
nightmare. Assuming it was possible.
I wish I could help, I have some spare healthy HDs I could have lent you.
If you're in the US, take advantage of the memorial day sales coming up.
Also, don't buy any HD with a less than 5 year warranty. They are more likely
to fail within the first 90 days of operation (cheaper - none mission
critical, consumer level construction).
Seagates, Western Digitals and Maxtor (Seagate) are my favs.
I hope all goes well.
Kate
On Saturday 08 October 2011, Lisi wrote:
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:23:11 Lisi wrote:
Bonkers is the best description I can come up
with. Applications that
were working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not
only Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes
ago, was my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random
KDE one "set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all
had different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure
desktop" showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off.
I ran memtest overnight from Thursday to Friday. No errors. It was only 6
passes, so is not definitive, but it is a good indication that the memory
is OK.
I have looked at the log as suggested by Nik. I can see nothing, but then
I don't know what I am looking for.
And last night I ran (from a Live CD, so outside the system): first
smartctl, which found some errors, and then badblocks, which didn't.
So I imagine that I should start looking for a new hard drive? :-( I do
worry a bit in case it is something more major. And I may change the CMOS
battery first.
smartctl is obviously warning me: the drive is on its way out, so do
something about it. I shall try to limp to next Tuesday, since it will
mean a lot of sorting out. (Acquire the HDD, install Squeeze/Trinity, try
to use my present /home and all the data on it etc.)
That would also, of course, sort out the software. Provided that I don't
go and restore some faulty configurations. I shall anyhow try the viable
part of Kate's suggestion. Kate - I realised that the fault is too
intermittent to show up in a hurry. We are talking days, not hours. And
I, as me, need to access my data etc.
I am still open to suggestions!!
Thanks all for your invaluable help.
Lisi
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12:29 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
Thanks for your help and support. I appreciate it. :-)
Lisi
6:41 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now, your's could fail any second.
If you do not hear a clicking noise from your drive, then I'd say you make a
1:1 copy with a live CD (e.g.: puppy linux), replace your old drive with the
new one and keep going till you find time to reinstall.
Nik
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011 schrieb Lisi:
On Thursday 06 October 2011 22:23:11 Lisi wrote:
--
Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp
Einnehmerstraße 14
A-4810 Gmunden
Tel.: +43 650 82 11 724
email: office(a)klepp.biz
Bonkers is the best description I can come up
with. Applications that
were working fine are suddenly not. (In particular Konqueror, but not
only Konqeror.) Settings change randomly. The latest, a few minutes
ago, was my desktop settings, which have disappeared and the same random
KDE one "set up" for all the desktops (4 - and until just now they all
had different backgrounds). When I went to check what "configure
desktop" showed, I found that my screensaver had been turned off.
I ran memtest overnight from Thursday to Friday. No errors. It was only 6
passes, so is not definitive, but it is a good indication that the memory
is OK.
I have looked at the log as suggested by Nik. I can see nothing, but then
I don't know what I am looking for.
And last night I ran (from a Live CD, so outside the system): first
smartctl, which found some errors, and then badblocks, which didn't.
So I imagine that I should start looking for a new hard drive? :-( I do
worry a bit in case it is something more major. And I may change the CMOS
battery first.
smartctl is obviously warning me: the drive is on its way out, so do
something about it. I shall try to limp to next Tuesday, since it will
mean a lot of sorting out. (Acquire the HDD, install Squeeze/Trinity, try
to use my present /home and all the data on it etc.)
That would also, of course, sort out the software. Provided that I don't
go and restore some faulty configurations. I shall anyhow try the viable
part of Kate's suggestion. Kate - I realised that the fault is too
intermittent to show up in a hurry. We are talking days, not hours. And
I, as me, need to access my data etc.
I am still open to suggestions!!
Thanks all for your invaluable help.
Lisi
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9:10 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On Saturday 08 October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus
Klepp wrote:
In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so
without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more like
a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in
the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk
the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors.
Tim
Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now,
your's could fail any
second.
I have one on order!
Lisi
10:12 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On Saturday 08 October 2011 22:10:36 Timothy Pearson wrote:
Thanks, Tim. I can't afford to not use my main workhorse this week, so I must
just be extra careful with backups of my important data. Would it be likely
to help if I keep the box running permanently instead of shutting down
over-night etc.?
Lisi
On Saturday 08
October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so
without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more like
a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in
the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk
the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors. Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now,
your's could fail any
second.
I have one on order!
Lisi
10:17 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On Saturday 08 October 2011 22:10:36 Timothy Pearson
wrote:
In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so
without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more
like
a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in
the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk
the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors.
Thanks, Tim. I can't afford to not use my main workhorse this week, so I
must
just be extra careful with backups of my important data. Would it be
likely
to help if I keep the box running permanently instead of shutting down
over-night etc.?
Lisi
It depends on the failure mode. If it is a mechanical failure (IMHO less
likely with your symptoms) then keeping the box on 24/7 prevents sudden
mechanical death at power-on. If it is bad disk material, then shutting
the box down overnight will lessen the amount of corruption from the OS
normally writing its files to the disk.
Tim
On
Saturday 08 October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now, your's could fail
any
second.
I have one on order!
Lisi
10:44 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
Thanks for such a fast reply, Tim. I shall shut down more often than usual,
rather than less than usual.
Lisi
On Saturday 08 October 2011 23:17:23 Timothy Pearson wrote:
On Saturday 08
October 2011 22:10:36 Timothy Pearson wrote:
Thanks, Tim. I can't afford to not use my main workhorse this week, so I
must
just be extra careful with backups of my important data. Would it be
likely
to help if I keep the box running permanently instead of shutting down
over-night etc.?
Lisi
It depends on the failure mode. If it is a mechanical failure (IMHO less
likely with your symptoms) then keeping the box on 24/7 prevents sudden
mechanical death at power-on. If it is bad disk material, then shutting
the box down overnight will lessen the amount of corruption from the OS
normally writing its files to the disk. On
Saturday 08 October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now, your's could fail
any
> second.
I have one on order!
Lisi
In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so
without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more
like
a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in
the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk
the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors. 
11:29 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
Timothy Pearson wrote:
You said you ran smartctrl which found "some errors", but you didn't say
how many or how serious. Most hard drives will be expected to develop
bad blocks over time: they're normally found by the drive and mapped
away to never be used again.
Have you done an fsck on the file system?
I always install two hard drives in desktops and use software RAID-1 for
redundancy in case of a failed drive. RAID is not just for servers :)
--
Steven
On Saturday 08
October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so
without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more like
a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in
the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk
the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors. Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now,
your's could fail any
second.
I have one on order!
Lisi
20 Oct
20 Oct
8:25 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On 9 October 2011 00:29, Steven D'Aprano <steve(a)pearwood.info> wrote:
Timothy Pearson wrote:
You said you ran smartctrl which found "some errors", but you didn't say
how
many or how serious. Most hard drives will be expected to develop bad blocks
over time: they're normally found by the drive and mapped away to never be
used again.
Have you done an fsck on the file system?
I always install two hard drives in desktops and use software RAID-1 for
redundancy in case of a failed drive. RAID is not just for servers :)
Well, I installed a new drive (twice the size of the old one, but
small by today's standarsd at 160GB. I then tried to install an OS.
After trying 4 times with Lenny and having it fail each time, and
having major problems with the partitioner, I decided that Lenny as
Old Stable might be OK ot use, but apparently not to install. So I
tried Squeeze. Apart from a small glitch over network card drivers
which didn't cause any real problems, I was presented with a system
that the installer reckoned just needed to reboot.
Since when I have had major problems. X is a mess. The log-in screen
flashes, flickers and is useless anyway because the mouse and keyboard
are dead. I had uswed LXDE for teh instalation, so nI relogged in at
teh CLI and installed Trinity, hoping that kdm would be better than
gdm. It was. It flickered less than gdm. But it still didn't allow
me to do anything.
Attempts to install an xorg.conf that I know works with that monitor
and video card nall failed for different reasons. When I log in at
the CLI I get SOSs from the kernel about missing mod files.
There is obviously more than just the HDD wrong with this machine, and
I still fear the motherboard. So next I will try the CMOS battery,
and if that doesn't work I shall have to decide what to about/with
that desktop.
I feel that at this stage I am clutching at straws. Ideas still
welcomed! I haven't yet reached the stage where I am quite ready to
pension the old girl off.
Lisi
On Saturday 08 October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so
without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more like
a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in
the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk
the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors.
Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now, your's could fail any
second.
I have one on order!
Lisi
10:12 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On 10/20/2011 01:25 PM, Lisi Reisz wrote:
There is obviously more than just the HDD wrong with
this machine, and
I still fear the motherboard. So next I will try the CMOS battery,
and if that doesn't work I shall have to decide what to about/with
that desktop.
Even if the CMOS battery is dead it won't make the system unstable; it'll
just use default values for everything. But if the clock is still keeping
time, the CMOS battery is OK. The clock is the first symptom of a dying
battery.
I'd reseat the CPU, memory, and all cards, then swap in a different power
supply; sometimes a power supply will die a slow death and make things weird
for a while. And swap in different memory if you have any, or if no extra
memory, take half of it out and test with the other half, then swap.
--
PGP key: http://homestead-products.com/pubkey.htm
27 Oct
27 Oct
9:29 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
21.10.2011 02:12, Dan Youngquist wrote:
Even if the CMOS battery is dead it won't make the
system unstable; it'll
just use default values for everything. But if the clock is still keeping
time, the CMOS battery is OK. The clock is the first symptom of a dying
battery.
I'd reseat the CPU, memory, and all cards, then swap in a different power
supply; sometimes a power supply will die a slow death and make things weird
for a while. And swap in different memory if you have any, or if no extra
memory, take half of it out and test with the other half, then swap.
I second all above. Exhausted CMOS battery would lead to the "CMOS checksum
error" message each time you completely poweroff your workstation (i.e. turn it
off and remove the 110/220/240V (whatever is used in your country) voltage from
being provided to the power supply unit. Even when CMOS settings are lost worst
problem you would hit is system trying to boot from incorrect boot device,
incorrect settings for the operation mode of your SATA controller (might switch
into "IDE/Compatibility" mode from "Native/AHCI" one) and some linux
services
hanging at startup due to not being prepared to find system time to be way back
into past.
My general experience in diagnosis of "magical problems" suggests that the
first
candidate to blame usually turns out to be faulty memory modules (you had tested
it and proven that's not the case - 6 memtest86+ passes are good enough to be
sure that the memory is OK with 99% probability), then comes the slowly dying
power supply unit and third one to blame are usually bad/oxidised contacts. If
you've got some spare and known to be functional PSU to test with - that would
be your best bet to start with. It wouldn't hurt in any case to eject and insert
back CPU, memory and all other ejectable expansion cards your system is equipped
with. Booting from live CD of one of the LTS distros and trying to work at that
environment for a while would also help to distinct if your problem is caused by
hardware or by software.
Good luck with your fight for stability, I know how bad is it to have faulty system.
--
Best regards,
Alexey Loukianov mailto:mooroon2@mail.ru
System Engineer, Mob.:+7(926)218-1320
*nix Specialist
8 Oct
8 Oct
9:59 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
On 08/10/2011 20:41, Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now,
your's could fail any second.
If you do not hear a clicking noise from your drive, then I'd say you make a
1:1 copy with a live CD (e.g.: puppy linux), replace your old drive with the
new one and keep going till you find time to reinstall.
Nik
Copying 1:1, strictly speaking (e.g. using dd), a defunct disk could lead you to obtain a
clone that is less functional than the original. I had the problem because of bad sectors
on a huge xfs logical volume (lvm). I was simply unable to mount/check/restore the clone
xfs volume after cloning it with dd. I ended to reformat the new hdd manually and make
copies with rsync which, at least, was able to copy 99% of the files, except the files
written on bad blocks.
Nicolas
27 Oct
27 Oct
9:39 a.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers - "progress" so far
09.10.2011 01:59, Nicolas Bercher wrote:
I was simply unable to mount/check/restore the clone
xfs volume after cloning it with dd.
Most common problem with using dd to close faulty volumes is that people use
conv=noerror and not conv=noerror,sync which results in DD not writing zeroed
blocks to the copied image in place of unreadable source blocks. Also copying
process from faulty source should be iterative, starting with full image copy
using big block size and then trying to retry copying bad block using 512 bytes
size. Using specialized tools like dd_rescue are also of a big help.
I had one case when I had been facing faulty harddrive that had been returning
garbage data when trying to read bad sectors instead of reporting the system
about unreadable block. Key point to dig the data from it was to create ~20
copies of disk image from it and then use statistical methods to determine which
data for each sectors to use.
--
Best regards,
Alexey Loukianov mailto:mooroon2@mail.ru
System Engineer, Mob.:+7(926)218-1320
*nix Specialist
8 Oct
8 Oct
10:04 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
On 06/10/2011 23:23, Lisi wrote:
Hello, all.
This is a KDE problem, not a Trinity one, but I know of nowhere else that
would give me a sympathetic hearing. ("KDE 3 is dead already. Scrap KDE 3
and go to KDE 4.")
Hi,
Yes, you're certainly right, this is the right place!
Do you have parts of KDE4 installed? Even if your situation seems more serious than what
it ought to be, I feel that these changes could come from a bad mix of KDE3 and KDE4
programs.
Do you use a pure Lenny install or do you use other repositories such as testing,
unstable, etc. ?
Silly questions: are you sure to log in as the expected user? Did you do some tricky
things with uids, user accounts, /home directories, etc. ? Does your ~/.kde folder seems
ok, or quite empty/new/fresh. Can you recognize anything personnal in there? (mostly in
~/.kde/share/apps/<any_app_you_use_and_customised>/)
Also, I have had bad adventures while I inadvertently modified /tmp perms:
$ ls -ld /tmp
must mention: "drwxrwxrwxt" and "root root".
What's the problem with your CMOS battery?
Nicolas
10:41 p.m.
New subject: [trinity-users] KDE 3 in Lenny has gone bonkers
Thanks for the reply, Nicolas.
On Saturday 08 October 2011 23:04:18 Nicolas Bercher wrote:
Do you have parts of KDE4 installed? Even if your
situation seems more
serious than what it ought to be, I feel that these changes could come from
a bad mix of KDE3 and KDE4 programs. Do you use a pure Lenny install or do
you use other repositories such as testing, unstable, etc. ?
Pure Lenny, except for a couple of Lenny-backports.
Silly questions: are you sure to log in as the
expected user?
Yes. I have it going straight to the desktop without going via logging in.
Did you do
some tricky things with uids, user accounts, /home directories, etc. ?
I removed a large chunk of data from /home, but /home isn't on the dying disk.
Does your ~/.kde folder seems ok, or quite
empty/new/fresh. Can you
recognize anything personnal in there?
Yes. Some desktop backgrounds that I had imported.
(mostly in
~/.kde/share/apps/<any_app_you_use_and_customised>/)
Also, I have had bad adventures while I inadvertently modified /tmp perms:
$ ls -ld /tmp
must mention: "drwxrwxrwxt" and "root root".
It does.
What's the problem with your CMOS battery?
Nothing, I hope. But a dying CMOS battery can sometimes cause strange
problems, and it is cheap (and usually easy) to change it.
But there is no point in worrying about anything else while I know that the
hard drive is flaky. There may well be something else the matter, but I
shall be able better to see the wood for the trees by dealing with things one
at a time and seeing whether each of them works, before carrying on.
Lisi
4567
days inactive
4588
days old
24 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
Alexey Loukianov -
Dan Youngquist -
Kate Draven -
Lisi -
Lisi Reisz
-
Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp -
Neil Youngman -
Nicolas Bercher -
Steven D'Aprano -
Timothy Pearson