Linux-Setup Digest #594, Volume #20 Fri, 9 Feb 01 06:13:06 EST
Contents:
Re: LILO - just L's (Eric)
Re: Too many crashes on RH6.1 ("Robert Fleming")
Re: What does Lilo write to boot= ? (Eric)
Re: fips for NTFS (Eric)
Re: Win 95/ linux (Eric)
Problem with my swap partition (Ash)
Linux with USB Mouse ("dazer")
Re: mandrake 7.2, linux 2.4.1 and microsoft intelli usb ("dazer")
Re: GCONF (Thomas Zajic)
Re: fips for NTFS ("Pavan Burbure")
Re: X Window to WinNT (Joerg Ettrich)
Re: Problem with my swap partition (Michael Heiming)
Disk image ("Andrea Frigo")
Re: Too many crashes on RH6.1 (TheMartian)
Re: Problem with my swap partition (Ash)
FYI: fdisk / mke2fs problem workaround: reboot ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Problem with my swap partition (Michael Heiming)
via ac97 sound drivers for linux ("alik blochin")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LILO - just L's
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 08:45:12 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Lilo spits out "L" repeatedly line after line and
> nothing else. I took the same drive to my
> machine at work and it booted with no
> problem at all. I can boot from a floppy and
> access the drive so I don't think its the ribbon
> or anything like that. Possible that it's a BIOS
> thing? I actually had it running before and
> decided to do a reinstall (well, about 4 or 5
> really) using the custom setting as I only want
> web services running and my drive is short on
> space. Somewhere along the line, it started to
> wig out. I'm stumped. Any help would be much
> appreciated...
Boot from the bootfloppy, and see what /etc/lilo.conf contains.
If it's nothing weird, run `/sbin/lilo -v`
If that succeeds, reboot.
Eric
------------------------------
From: "Robert Fleming" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Too many crashes on RH6.1
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 00:54:05 -0700
It sounds to me link you might have something else wrong. I have a machine
running linux mandrake and I have a p166 with 32 mb ram, 1.2gig disk, with
mandrake 6 which is redhat 6.x anyway. If you haven't compiled a kernel for
this machine it might be time to. This will clean out dead wood. Then
decide if you really have to use that top heavy Xmanager. KDE, and GNOME
suck period they aren't fast, they use massive memory amounts, and they tend
to take a lot of time rendering. I have used windowmaker because it isn't
using a mass amount of libraries to do things like render a window frame.
If you want to go beyond this use something like Fvwm2 and you'll see a real
difference.
The other problem that you could have is something dealing with the X
server. If your card isn't supported fully by the server you could be
running into a problem where X will barf the next application.
Another problem is the limit on memory that you could be running into if you
have it set in the /etc/security/limits "rss" for the machine defaults. If
you are running into a problem where memory gets used beyond that it will
allow it will just kill your app for you.
The same goes for "hproc" in that file which is the number of processes a
user can run at the same time without barfing something.
Robert Fleming
Systems Administrator
"David Punsalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hi,
>
> I have been running RH6.1 (GNOME Workstation installation) on my AMDk6 -
> 350Mhz 64MB ram (128MB swap) for a while now and I am tired of X apps
> crashing/freezing on me. I run 2 maybe 3 apps at a time (Netscape, XMMS,
> terminal, GIMP). I would think this should be no problem. Is this
> relatively common for RH6.1?
>
> I am beginning to think that in order to get these long uptimes I keep
> hearing about in linux, I need to run X-less.
>
> Is there a better distribution that runs X applications with more
> stability out of the box? I just don't know where to begin as far as
> manually making my system more stable against freezes/crashes besides
> investing in ram. I was thinking about Mandrake 7.2. I tried installing
> Debian 2.1 on my system but it just never worked.
>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> Regards,
> David
>
>
>
------------------------------
From: Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What does Lilo write to boot= ?
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 08:31:55 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Well I don't know if it's relevent but I have the rescue disk created by
> the Linux on hdc. It uses grub and gives the option of booting from the
> floppy or from hdc. It will boot from hdc from that prompt but maybe by
> then it has the info it needs, I don't know???
It can boot with the *kernel* on hdc?
or just the root fs on hdc?
If it is the first, then booting from hdc is possible.
> > You can try this by overwriting the MBR (on hda that is) with lilo code to
> > directly boot linux from hdc (back it up first, as it now contains the
> > OS/2 bootmanager).
>
> The OS/2 bootmanager is on sda. It calls the Lilo thingie from hda7 which
> works for the Linux on hda7 and by having the image from hdc in the /boot
> of hda7 alongside the one for hda7.
That means you either have the lilo.conf wrong (check the 0x8* numbers
again)
or you cannot boot from hdc.
> I just wrote a long message talking about wanting to try what you said
> Currently the Linux on hda is booting from hda7 and the lilo there has
> root=hda7. From what I got from the messages, I believe that if I get the
> lilo from hdc to write to boot block of hda7 it could work. Now I boot to
> hdc by chaining through hda7 AND by having the image on the /boot of hda7.
try mounting hdc's /boot from the linux on hda (/mnt/hdc_boot), and add
to
hda's linux lilo.conf a line that has an image=/mnt/hdc_boot/vmlinuz-hdc
part. rerun that lilo, and see if that boots.
> It's all getting on my nerves. If I knew for sure that the problem was
> because the bios can't boot from the 3rd drive, I would take the time to
> reinstall...but that is such a lot of work! Where I use the machine for
> the business, I can't have it screwed up for very long.
>
It's not that much work (At least not for linux)
all that needs to be adjusted is fstab and lilo.conf
Eric
------------------------------
From: Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: fips for NTFS
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 08:40:48 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> We have purchased many new Dell desktop PCs that were pre-configured
> with W2K in NTFS. I am trying to repartition the disk for Linux
> installation. The fips version 2 does not seem to support NTFS. Is there
> any newer version fips that can do?
I doubt it, but you could use PartitionMagic.
This will resize NTFS partitions (and FAT and ext2)
Eric
------------------------------
From: Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Win 95/ linux
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 08:37:10 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
enness wrote:
>
> I was trying to reduce the windows partition using a tool which I had
> successfully used before. I again reduced it successfully 2nd time, but
> third time I got it wrong. Everytime before I reduce partition, I used to
> defrag and proceed. Probably 3rd time I reduced the partition so less ( from
> 650 Mb to 600 Mb) that some of the Non-movable files which I used to see
> during defrag, got out of the partition ( this is only my guess). I have not
> formatted any of the win partitions. I have my data fully backed up, so no
> problem there. But I would definitely like to revive win95 and get to know
> the cause first than reinstall.
>
> I can boot from win95 startup disk and then change to C drive. That is all I
> can do in C drive.
>
Did you check what villy wrote?
if you put the LILO code on hda1. it's surely wreck the ability to mount
hda1
Check if a file /boot/boot.0301 exists, and if it was made when you made
the changes.
If so, use `lilo -u` to restore it (read the manpage first!)
And check the disc with the dd command I mentioned.
Eric
------------------------------
From: Ash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Problem with my swap partition
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 21:16:57 +1300
Hi,
I am new to linux (obviously :-) )
If someone could help me with my problem.....
I managed to setup linux, and was all happy until I ran gtop and
realised that all my swap space was marked
free!!
I checked out /etc/fstab and /dev/hda5 is listed in there as swap
space(which seems to be correct), and swap is `on`. I've tried turing it
off and back on, nothing happens! I have 192MB of RAM.
Please help me out!!
Thanx
Ash
------------------------------
From: "dazer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Linux with USB Mouse
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 02:24:02 -0600
Hi,
I am running RedHat Linux 7. Recently, I got a new USB mouse from
Logitech (the iFeel mouse at
http://www.logitech.com/cf/products/productoverview.cfm/79)
After plugging the mouse in and starting up Linux, mouseconfig was run
automatically (while passing the "Checking for new hardware" phase), and I
chose the Generic 3-button (USB) mouse from the selection menu. I know that
the extra features of the iFeel mouse won't work (ie. vibration), but I
can't even use the mouse in XWindows anymore!!! Before I had a PS/2 mouse,
and it was working fine. Of course, I see a mouse pointer in XWindows in
the middle of the screen, but I can't move it nor clicking on anything.
When I restart my system, I got the message "Mouse console service [FAILED]"
I just want to have the mouse working in normal mode (no iFeel feature,
just being able to use it like any other generic mouse out there). Anyone
out there has anything to add? All suggestions/comments are appreciated.
------------------------------
From: "dazer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: mandrake 7.2, linux 2.4.1 and microsoft intelli usb
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 02:26:19 -0600
I hve the same problem with Redhat 7, with the Logitech iFeel USB mouse. I
can see that the USB modules are loaded, but can't get the mouse in XWindows
("Mouse console service [FAILED]")
If you or anyone has a workaround, please let me know
"Topp Dogg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Is there anyway to get the USB Microsoft Optical mouse to work on a
> Mandrake 7.2 install full, Kernel 2.4.1 SMP and Kde 2.0.1 system?
>
> If I select USB wheel mouse the systems will not give me a mouse. On
> boot you can see it mounting the USB and the light is on with the
> mouse. I am new to linux and stuck on this one. I appreciate any
> help.
>
> Thanks,
> Leigh...
>
> To E-Mail remove the .NOT to .net
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Zajic)
Subject: Re: GCONF
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Zajic)
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 08:30:15 GMT
On 09/02/01, SC Patton ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> [ gnomeric upgrade ]
>
> checking for gconf-config... no
> checking for GCONF - version >= 0.9.0... no
> [ ... ]
> Is GCONF part of some other software package/library upgrade?
> Where can I find GCONF?
<ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/GConf/>
> PS: I am running slakware 7.0 (and obviously, whatever version of
> GNOME that it came with).
In that case, I'd suggest to get rid of all original Gnome packages
that came with Slack (they're quite outdated meanwhile anyway), and
start compiling Gnome completely from scratch. I did the same thing
on three PCs during the last days myself, and I'm pretty satisfied
with the results.
[zlatko@sphere]:~/$ cat /etc/slackware-version
7.0.0
[zlatko@sphere]:~/$ stowES list gnome
Listing packages in /usr/local/stow matching [ gnome ] (32 matches):
I gnome-GConf-0.12
I gnome-ORBit-0.5.7
I gnome-audio-1.0.0
I gnome-bonobo-0.35
I gnome-bug-buddy-1.2
I gnome-control-center-1.2.2
I gnome-core-1.2.4
I gnome-db-0.2.2
I gnome-gal-0.5
I gnome-gdm-2.0beta4
I gnome-glade-0.5.11
I gnome-glibwww-0.2
I gnome-gtkhtml-0.8.2
I gnome-guile-1.4
I gnome-icons
I gnome-libgda-0.2.2
I gnome-libghttp-1.0.9
I gnome-libglade-0.15
I gnome-libgtop-1.0.10
I gnome-libole2-0.2.0
I gnome-libs-1.2.11
I gnome-libunicode.gnome-0.4
I gnome-libxml-1.8.11
I gnome-oaf-0.6.2
I gnome-pim-1.2.0
I gnome-print-0.25
I gnome-python-1.0.53
I gnome-vfs-0.5
I gnomemm-1.1.14
URL recommendation: <http://www.karubik.de/gig/index.html> (nevermind
the .de domain, it's in English ;-).
Additional hint: even though libxml2-2.3.0 is out already, stick with
libxml-1.8.11 for the time being. A few of the later "high level"
packages depending on libxml won't compile cleanly with libxml2, some
won't compile at all.
Good luck & HTH,
Thomas
--
=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
- Thomas "ZlatkO" Zajic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Linux-2.2.18/slrn-0.9.6.3pl4 -
- "It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw." (M. C.) -
=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
------------------------------
From: "Pavan Burbure" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: fips for NTFS
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 14:20:15 +0530
Eric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > We have purchased many new Dell desktop PCs that were pre-configured
> > with W2K in NTFS. I am trying to repartition the disk for Linux
> > installation. The fips version 2 does not seem to support NTFS. Is there
> > any newer version fips that can do?
>
> I doubt it, but you could use PartitionMagic.
> This will resize NTFS partitions (and FAT and ext2)
Older PartitionMagics(<6) will give error on W2K's NTFS. Only PartitionMagic
6 supports W2K.
Pavan
------------------------------
From: Joerg Ettrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: X Window to WinNT
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 09:47:49 +0100
Hi all,
I'm impressed !! That's a really nice tool, one of those you copy on your
desk, install, run, lean back, relax, take a cup of coffee and be pleased
not to run a Microsoft pool !
Thanks,
Joerg
Eric schrieb:
>
> brien wrote:
> >
> > VNC [Virtual Network Computing] will let you do it. just go to
> > http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ and read/download. it works very
> > well and also runs on just about ANY os.
> >
>
> Nice :-)
>
> I stand corrected, appearantly it is possible.
>
> Eric
------------------------------
From: Michael Heiming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Problem with my swap partition
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 11:06:35 +0100
Ash wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am new to linux (obviously :-) )
> If someone could help me with my problem.....
>
> I managed to setup linux, and was all happy until I ran gtop and
> realised that all my swap space was marked
> free!!
>
> I checked out /etc/fstab and /dev/hda5 is listed in there as swap
> space(which seems to be correct), and swap is `on`. I've tried turing it
> off and back on, nothing happens! I have 192MB of RAM.
>
Hello,
what to you asume should happen, if you use swapon/swapoff?
dmesg |grep swap
shows what's done on startup
apropos swap
should show you all available man pages on this topic, that are installed
on your box.
Good luck
Michael Heiming
Sysadmin
------------------------------
From: "Andrea Frigo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Disk image
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 11:07:03 +0100
In Linux is it possible to create a image of the full disk over some
support, in such a way that in case of HD failure I can easily recover all
my data without reinstalling Linux and all other applications, and without
configuring everything?
Thank you
Andrea Frigo
------------------------------
From: TheMartian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Too many crashes on RH6.1
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 10:03:19 GMT
I found RH6.1 to be a real dog, almost as badl as RH7. I have a RH6.2 box
thats been running X (windowmaker) for 188days with not a single glitch, and
thats as shipped with 6.2, only updates have been security, all but the
kernel.
The other box also RH6.2 has been running with 2.4ac7 kernel for 18 days
again with no problems, and thats running KDE2.01
The main problems I have had with X have been when running gnome, looks like
apps with a memory issue (leaks, gready etc) will kill X dead at random
intervals. KDE2 is more stable than gnome or KDE1 but I would not recommend
this for your system, unless you get much more memory, as its huge and eats
memory.
I think your problem is a combination of RAM, gnome and possibly the kernel
(I would use 2.2.16), and recommed that you try Window maker which is
smaller, much faster, almost unbreakable, and still with gnome and KDE
installed runs all the same apps.
www.windowmaker.org
BTW. Netscape 4, is very very buggy and is known to freeze up. 6 does not do
this as badly as 4.
David
--
Sydney, Australia
In article <buNg6.1222$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Robert Fleming" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It sounds to me link you might have something else wrong. I have a machine
> running linux mandrake and I have a p166 with 32 mb ram, 1.2gig disk, with
> mandrake 6 which is redhat 6.x anyway. If you haven't compiled a kernel for
> this machine it might be time to. This will clean out dead wood. Then
> decide if you really have to use that top heavy Xmanager. KDE, and GNOME
> suck period they aren't fast, they use massive memory amounts, and they tend
> to take a lot of time rendering. I have used windowmaker because it isn't
> using a mass amount of libraries to do things like render a window frame.
> If you want to go beyond this use something like Fvwm2 and you'll see a real
> difference.
> The other problem that you could have is something dealing with the X
> server. If your card isn't supported fully by the server you could be
> running into a problem where X will barf the next application.
> Another problem is the limit on memory that you could be running into if you
> have it set in the /etc/security/limits "rss" for the machine defaults. If
> you are running into a problem where memory gets used beyond that it will
> allow it will just kill your app for you.
> The same goes for "hproc" in that file which is the number of processes a
> user can run at the same time without barfing something.
>
> Robert Fleming
> Systems Administrator
>
> "David Punsalan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have been running RH6.1 (GNOME Workstation installation) on my AMDk6 -
> > 350Mhz 64MB ram (128MB swap) for a while now and I am tired of X apps
> > crashing/freezing on me. I run 2 maybe 3 apps at a time (Netscape, XMMS,
> > terminal, GIMP). I would think this should be no problem. Is this
> > relatively common for RH6.1?
> >
> > I am beginning to think that in order to get these long uptimes I keep
> > hearing about in linux, I need to run X-less.
> >
> > Is there a better distribution that runs X applications with more
> > stability out of the box? I just don't know where to begin as far as
> > manually making my system more stable against freezes/crashes besides
> > investing in ram. I was thinking about Mandrake 7.2. I tried installing
> > Debian 2.1 on my system but it just never worked.
> >
> > Thanks for any input.
> >
> > Regards,
> > David
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Ash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Problem with my swap partition
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 23:30:23 +1300
thanx Michael,
dmesg | grep swap gives me ...
Starting kswapd v1.8
Adding Swap: 457816K swap-space (priority -1)
I guess swap is being turned on at startup.
I am running XMMS, Mozilla, and a few other appz, my memory usage is
about 75 - 80% whilst swap space is not used! Surely that can't be
normal can it?
>>
>
> Hello,
>
> what to you asume should happen, if you use swapon/swapoff?
>
> dmesg |grep swap
>
> shows what's done on startup
>
> apropos swap
>
> should show you all available man pages on this topic, that are installed
> on your box.
>
> Good luck
>
> Michael Heiming
> Sysadmin
>
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FYI: fdisk / mke2fs problem workaround: reboot
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 10:22:46 GMT
FYI:
Using mke2fs on a newly creaded partition /dev/hda7 (running
RedHat7.0), I got this ugly error:
[root@redzone /]# mke2fs /dev/hda7
mke2fs 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
/dev/hda7: Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up
superblock
[root@redzone /]#
The reason kept unclear, untill I started reading the output from the
fdisk command creating the /dev/hda7:
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Re-read table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
Reboot your system to ensure the partition table is updated.
WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.
[root@redzone /test]#
In other words: fdisk had not been able to write the /dev/hda7
partition, and I had to reboot first (goodbye uptime)
[root@redzone /test]# reboot
After the reboot, the mke2fs worked OK.
In other words: reason unclear, workaround works.
Lamzak
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: Michael Heiming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Problem with my swap partition
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 11:43:51 +0100
Ash wrote:
> thanx Michael,
>
> dmesg | grep swap gives me ...
> Starting kswapd v1.8
> Adding Swap: 457816K swap-space (priority -1)
>
> I guess swap is being turned on at startup.
>
> I am running XMMS, Mozilla, and a few other appz, my memory usage is
> about 75 - 80% whilst swap space is not used! Surely that can't be
> normal can it?
>
quite normal, as Linux has this approach:
You paid for all this RAM, I will use it....:-)
run
top
or in X
xosview
and you will see that most of your RAM is just (shared)/buffered/cached the VM
will just handle this
fine, freeing some of this RAM if a process needs it and swapping other things
out to disk if needed.
>
> >>
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > what to you asume should happen, if you use swapon/swapoff?
> >
> > dmesg |grep swap
> >
> > shows what's done on startup
> >
> > apropos swap
> >
> > should show you all available man pages on this topic, that are installed
> > on your box.
> >
> > Good luck
> >
> > Michael Heiming
> > Sysadmin
> >
> >
Michael Heiming
Sysadmin
------------------------------
From: "alik blochin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: via ac97 sound drivers for linux
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 12:47:26 +0200
Hi i would like to know where i can get
the linux sound drivers for Via AC97 onchip sound card ?
except for paying for this at Opensound org.
Thanks in advance
--
Best regards
ALik Blochin
------------------------------
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