On 12/16/21 10:04 AM, mick crane wrote:
On 2021-12-11 18:58, David Christensen wrote:
When a computer gets to the point that it is doing weird things that I
cannot understand, troubleshoot, or fix, I download the OS installer
of choice, burn it to USB, make sure my configuration files are
checked in to CVS, backup my data, remove the system disk, insert a
blank system disk, do a fresh install, take an image of the system
disk, boot, check out the old configuration files to a side directory,
edit the new configuration files (rebooting and testing as I proceed),
and restore data. This is the only way I know to get a "clean", and
hopefully reliable, OS image.
lovely.
I've used vi for the last 3 days and it's happened once instead of
multiple times.
Assuming the bug is in Debian, it's not Nano and it's not Vi. But Nano
somehow increases the bug frequency. And, the intermittent nature leads
me to believe it is a race condition. So, it's likely to be down deep
(e.g. IRQ device driver).
I'd love it to be user error, well to know what the use error is, but
I've been using basic editing with vi/vim for years and this never
happened before.
Is it at all possible that running Perl executable file somehow shares
the same memory as same file opened in vi and they get jumbled?
I seriously doubt it.
I don't understand why the error is random words from elsewhere in the
file get randomly inserted as opposed to garbage.
My guess is that the bug is somewhere in the keyboard and mouse input
stacks.
I'm inclined to get another PC and see if it still does it.
Whatever you can do to isolate the problem, go for it.
Are using a KVM switch? I have an IOGEAR GCS78KIT. It has a power
adapter, but can obtain power from any connected computer that provides
power. Several of my computers do, so the KVM switch is power cycled
only infrequently (when I take the time to disconnect everything, wait 2
minutes, then reconnect everything). Over long periods (months?
years?), it can start producing weird UI bugs. I need to bypass it,
connect my keyboard, monitor, and mouse directly to a computer with an
OS/ applications disk under test, use it for an hour or more, see if the
problems exhibit, try another disk and/or machine, etc.
Another potential problem is my PS/2 to USB adapters -- IOGEAR GUC100KM
(older) and GUC10KM (newer). I have not seen the random UI weirdness
with these, but the newer model tends to lose the connection when the
computer powers down (e.g. keyboard and mouse do not work on next boot;
I must disconnect the adapter from everything and hot-plug everything to
the booted computer).
David