Re: [SLE] 9.3 woes (the epilogue?)

From: Carl E. Hartung (suselinux_at_cehartung.com)
Date: 08/12/05

  • Next message: Ken Schneider: "Re: [SLE] SCSI Tape compression" 
    To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 14:10:57 -0400

    Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Your input is helping me a lot in terms of
    quantifying the situation.

    Comments/Responses:

    On Friday 12 August 2005 9:12 am, Bruce Marshall wrote:
    > Don't have any opinions but I have 9.3 running on 6 machines with nary a
    > problem.
    That seems to be the experience of almost everybody else, doesn't it? I agree
    with Sid, this is starting to look a lot like a subtle hardware-specific
    issue.

    On Friday 12 August 2005 1:16 am, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
    > Maybe not, though I directly installed 9.3 on my system (without 9.2)
    > and have had none of the problems you describe.
    I had no problems installing 'fresh' *or* upgrading on top of 9.2; the
    procedures (about five iterations, so far) went smoothly with everything
    looking to be in order. After about Aug. 9th or 10th, I also had no
    difficulties with the GNOME 2.1x and KDE 3.4.2 supplementary updates. Again,
    the procedures went smoothly with none of the typical dependency hiccups...
    no discernable errors at all, in fact.
    >
    > Maybe if you post the exact error messages that you get during the
    > crashes etc, the guru-s here can help you.
    Deciphering error messages is what Google and the many Linux list
    archives are for. When answers can't be found there, *then* I ask the great
    people here. In any event, I've chased down and resolved the repetitive
    items. That's why I've asked other people to share their experiences. If 20%
    had responded with short 'laundry lists' of things to check, based on
    comparable experiences to mine, I'd have a roadmap of sorts to follow. As it
    stands, I think I'm looking for a needle in a haystack.

    On Friday 12 August 2005 2:00 am, Jerry Westrick wrote:
    > First I've experienced non of these things on any of the 4 or 5 9.3
    > installations I've done.
    I am envious! Again, that does seem to be most people's experience...
    >
    > On 9.2 what kernel where you using? on 9.3?
    2.6.8-24.17-default in 9.2
    2.6.11.4-21.8-default in 9.3
    >
    > Could it be that your hardware in not (or badly) support in the new kernel?
    The mainboard is a PC Chips M810LMR v. 3.0 using an SiS730 chipset.
    It seems like (my theory) the IDE module, in concert with the 9.3 kernels, now
    bugs out when it tries to support adjacent ext3 and Reiserfs partitions on
    the same physical drive. After installation, I immediately started getting
    "barrier-based sync failure" errors and corruptions in *both* partitions.
    That only stopped when I wiped the partitions clean and formatted both as
    Reiserfs 3.6. Of course, 9.2, 9.0 and 8.2 (maybe 8.1?) didn't have the
    problem on this hardware.
    I think the graphics module (sis) is non-GPL and maintained, I believe, by a
    former SiS employee who also maintains portions of X. It hasn't posed a
    problem before.
    >
    > Have you tried it on another machine?
    >
    I would, but the system I want to run it on here is unique in this respect:
    The other hardware I've got access to for experimentation is even more
    proprietary (horrible older Gateway & HP consumer boxes,) hence inherently
    prone to problems in other areas. I'm not sure going down that path gets me
    closer to a solution on this box.
    >
    > I've been running 9.3 on my sony laptop since the day it was released (In
    > germany, which used to be 2 weeks before USA), and it runs rock stable.
    >
    > In fact I 've only boot the original XP-Pro once in 3 months...
    > (That is how I measure usefullness!)..
    That's funny... I also like to keep track of how often I'm forced to fire up
    that side. I wish it were never, but some programs have no counterparts in
    Linux, yet. That day is coming, though...
    >
    > So I think that your problems are hardware related, even though you seam to
    > have crossed that off of your list.
    I haven't crossed hardware off the list completely, but where to start looking
    when it functions perfectly under different software? (The OS is still
    software, isn't it?)

    On Friday 12 August 2005 4:44 am, Peter Nikolic wrote:
    > Try installing an DVD drive on the machine and reinstall i have found
    > install data sometimes gets clobbered over network installs .
    Installing additional drives in this box isn't an option, I'm afraid, without
    upgrading the chassis, fans and power supply. In any event, I verified the
    md5 sums of the local iso images before installing (mount -o loop etc...). If
    data were being clobbered, it would have to be happening between hdc4 and
    hdc2... which I know is theoretically possible... but with that kind of
    problem I wouldn't think the installer and YOU would run reliably at all.

    On Friday 12 August 2005 4:21 am, Sid Boyce wrote:
    > I still have a gut suspicion that your hardware is on the edge of
    > tolerance.
    My gut instincts are pointing in that direction, too, but I'm hoping to
    identify a precise cause, which would open the possibility for a solution. It
    would be nice not to have my personal workhorse stuck at 9.2..

    On Friday 12 August 2005 11:58 am, Janne Karhunen wrote:
    > > - the file system getting severely corrupted, twice (ext3 and Reiserfs)
    > Saw it once on Epox MB, VIA KT400 chipset.
    Great fodder for Google! Thanks!

    > > - artifacts (leftover bits and pieces of windows) remaining after
    > > resizing windows and closing programs
    > 9.1 (and possibly 9.2) with old versions of Qt suffered from
    > this, but haven't seen it with 9.3 anymore.
    Another potentially useful tidbit. Thanks!

    > > - in gnome, netapplet closing 'suddenly' when I log in
    > > - SuSE Watcher & Plugger not 'embedding' correctly in the panel
    > That, indeed, happens with Gnome. KDE is ok.
    I realize these are small problems likely unrelated to the larger difficulties
    I'm having, but knowing that it isn't just happening on this system is an
    important clue for the mix. Thanks!

    Both KDE and Gnome seem to be really, really close to functioning nicely. If I
    could identify the cause for the screen anomalies and random program
    crashes ... which are much less frequent with the file system stabilized... I
    could migrate to 9.3 and work through the small stuff like this in my spare
    time. But the crashes are sudden and yielding no useful backtraces. It's
    acting like the memory is marginal, but it passes all the tests and runs my
    other two OS's uneventfully.

    Thanks, everbody, for all of your feedback. I'll keep pluggin' at this and
    will let you know via the list if and when I find something...

    regards,

    - Carl 

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  • Next message: Ken Schneider: "Re: [SLE] SCSI Tape compression"