Hmmm.... continuing problems since my last recompile (of 2.4.17). (i.e. these didn't used to happen...)
1) If I need to do anything that is intensive disk-wise (writing large files to disk), I am unable to do anything else, otherwise the system locks up. A symptom of this, for example, is that xmms loops about a second of the MP3 I'm playing. X does not respond to ctrl-alt-backspace, the system doesn't respond to ctrl+alt+del.
2) Although I have not changed my etc/fstab file, on booting, the system refuses to mount a vfat partition ("wrong fs type, bad superblock or wrong option"). If I mount it manually as root, I can access the partition (but only as root). I DID compile in vfat, DOS and UMSDOS support.
Unfortunately, I cannot seem to view anything but the X server logs in /var/logs , as it says that the file is not viewable. How could I view these log files? Which one should I look at? Any parameters I can pass on at boot to enable more verbose logging?
I'm VERY close to reinstalling / and chmod'ing my /home partition!
Ricardo
on Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 11:01:57PM +0000, Ricardo Campos wrote:
Hmmm.... continuing problems since my last recompile (of 2.4.17). (i.e. these didn't used to happen...)
It didn't used to happen with some other kernel version, or it didn't happen with a previous configuration of linux 2.4.17?
- If I need to do anything that is intensive disk-wise (writing large
files to disk), I am unable to do anything else, otherwise the system locks up. A symptom of this, for example, is that xmms loops about a second of the MP3 I'm playing. X does not respond to ctrl-alt-backspace, the system doesn't respond to ctrl+alt+del.
I think xmms probably seems to be looping the MP3 because the audio is buffered somewhere (possibly sound card, maybe kernel) I have seen similar problems under win32 on a laptop, but the trigger was high network traffic. Did you disable some work around in the kernel config that you left enabled before? e.g. the CMD640 chipset bugfix and the RZ1000 chipset bugfix (they probably don't apply, but there might be something like that)
If you still have your old kernel, you might want to try booting it and comparing the output from dmesg right after it boots and the output from dmesg right after the new kernel boots. If you have the kernel config for both, you could of course compare them. The kernel configs are in /usr/src/linux/.config or /usr/src/linux/.config.somethingelse, or /usr/src/linux-version/.config*
diff(1) is a nice, fast way of comparing files like these.
- Although I have not changed my etc/fstab file, on booting, the system
refuses to mount a vfat partition ("wrong fs type, bad superblock or wrong option"). If I mount it manually as root, I can access the partition (but only as root). I DID compile in vfat, DOS and UMSDOS support.
The error suggests it is trying to mount the partition as an ext2 filesystem, so either the field is incorrect in /etc/fstab, or it is just deciding to ignore it. When you mount it as root, do you explicitly say "mount -t vfat"? If not, then it sounds like something is deciding to ignore the type in /etc/fstab at boot up or is forcing it to try ext2.
Unfortunately, I cannot seem to view anything but the X server logs in /var/logs , as it says that the file is not viewable. How could I view these log files? Which one should I look at? Any parameters I can pass on at boot to enable more verbose logging?
You may want to check the permissions on /var/log; root should definitely be able to view files in /var/log.
Which file to look at depends on your configuration, but generally the files "messages" or "syslog" will have kernel error messages. If you can bring up a shell, running "dmesg" will show them too.
n Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:19:55 xs@kittenz.org said most everything I could have thought of to say and some more besides, but see below:
on Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 11:01:57PM +0000, Ricardo Campos wrote:
- If I need to do anything that is intensive disk-wise (writing large files to disk), I am unable to do anything else, otherwise the system locks up. A symptom of this, for example, is that xmms loops about a second of the MP3 I'm playing. X does not respond to ctrl-alt-backspace, the system doesn't respond to ctrl+alt+del.
Is this a temporary lock up or a permanent one? Unix systems in general can get into a situation where an application has written so mych data into the disk cache that is then being written out to disk that there is no disk bandwith to read anything in - any process that requires something to get pages in to run will not run until the disk write is complete.
If the lock up is permanent I would make sure you have the Magic SysReq key enabled in your kernel (from the debug menu at the end in make xconfig) as this may help you unount filesystems before reseting the box and this may save an fsck on next boot.
Also, if the lock up is permanent does the disk writing stop? If so does this happen immediately the system appears to lock for other tasks or does it carry on in the background and stop at a later date.
I think xmms probably seems to be looping the MP3 because the audio is buffered somewhere (possibly sound card, maybe kernel) I have seen similar problems under win32 on a laptop, but the trigger was high network traffic.
I am pretty sure this is happenning on the card - if the card doesn't get fed any new data and isn't told to stop it just keeps looping round the data it doesn have. This means that you cannot take the fact that sound still plays even as an indication that the kernel still responds to interrupts.
Steve.
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Ricardo Campos -
Steve Fosdick -
xs＠kittenz.org