USB stick umount locks up machine
Greetings: When I unmount a USB memory stick my machine becomes completely unresponsive. I can't access a console and even the sysreq key sequences don't work. I end up shutting it down with the power button. My /etc/fstab has this line: # /dev/sda1 /media/usb autorw,user,noauto 0 0 This is an IBM R40 laptop running Sarge. Any ideas for using USB sticks successfully? (Yes, I'll upgrade to Etch eventually, but right now I'm too busy for that.) Please CC me as I'm not currently subscribed. PostID -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: USB stick umount locks up machine
Ron Johnson wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
On 02/24/08 15:11, postid wrote:
Greetings:
When I unmount a USB memory stick my machine becomes completely
unresponsive. I can't access a console and even the sysreq key sequences
don't work. I end up shutting it down with the power button.
My /etc/fstab has this line:
#
/dev/sda1 /media/usb autorw,user,noauto 0 0
This is an IBM R40 laptop running Sarge.
Any ideas for using USB sticks successfully?
(Yes, I'll upgrade to Etch eventually, but right now I'm too busy for
that.)
Please CC me as I'm not currently subscribed.
- From the console, or within X?
From Konsole within X.
Are you sure that it's successfully mounted?
I can access the contents of the Swissbit stick in Konqueror.
I'd run "# tail /var/log/syslog" in one xterm, while in the other
run "# umount -v /media/usb".
- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA
I tried first with the Swissbit stick.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ mount /media/usb
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ umount -v /media/usb /dev/sda1 umounted
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$
R40:/home/ellsworth# tail /var/log/syslog
Feb 25 07:35:52 localhost udev[5612]: creating device node '/dev/sda'
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 245760 512-byte hdwr
sectors(126 MB)
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: sda: assuming Write Enabled
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 245760 512-byte hdwr
sectors(126 MB)
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: sda: assuming Write Enabled
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost kernel: /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost udev[5657]: configured rule in
'/etc/udev/rules.d/z_hal-plugdev.rules[2]' applied, 'sda1' becomes '%k'
Feb 25 07:35:53 localhost udev[5657]: creating device node '/dev/sda1'
R40:/home/ellsworth#
After umount, tried:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ umount -v /media/usb
Could not find /media/usb in mtab
umount: /media/usb is not mounted (according to mtab)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$
Removing stick results in:
Feb 25 07:49:51 localhost kernel: usb 1-3: USB disconnect, address 3
Feb 25 07:49:51 localhost udev[5743]: removing device node '/dev/sda1'
Feb 25 07:49:52 localhost udev[5809]: removing device node '/dev/sda'
R40:/home/ellsworth#
Even after unmounting, Konqueror still indicates that it's mounted in the
devices directory.
Inserting "M" stick (no mount command) results in:
R40:/home/ellsworth# tail /var/log/syslog
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost scsi.agent[6015]: sg: loaded sucessfully (for
cdrom)
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost kernel: Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi1, channel
0, id 0, lun 0, type 0
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost kernel: Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi1, channel
0, id 0, lun 1, type 5
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost udev[6076]: creating device node '/dev/sg0'
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost udev[6081]: creating device node '/dev/sg1'
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost usb.agent[6046]: usb-storage: already loaded
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost udev[5993]: configured rule in
'/etc/udev/rules.d/cd-aliases.rules[8]' applied, added symlink '%c{1} %c{2}
%c{3} %c{4} %c{5} %c{6}'
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost udev[5993]: configured rule in
'/etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules[20]' applied, added symlink 'sr%n'
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost udev[5993]: configured rule in
'/etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules[20]' applied, 'sr0' becomes 'scd%n'
Feb 25 07:54:00 localhost udev[5993]: creating device node '/dev/scd0'
R40:/home/ellsworth#
It looks like it thinks it's a cd?! It's loading usb-storage. Why is it
creating /dev/scd0 instead of /dev/sda1?
What do I do about this?
Thanks in advance for advice here!
Please CC me as I am not currently subscribed.
Postid
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What causes bad inodes?
Greetings: For the second time in a month I got an error message indicating bad inodes and had to fsck manually. I've had bad inodes before not long after a failure to load my PCMCIA modem (which resulted in endless error messages on boot) and before I knew alt sysrq-r -s -e -i -u -b and had shut down by shutting down the power. I've had the modem problem once about a week ago and rebooted with RSEIUB. Oh yes, and about a week ago I was trying a USB stick and the machine froze and I did an RSEIUB. This time the machine froze in KDE, so I did RSEIUB. Upon rebooting, I got "Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found" and got the suggestion to run fsck manually. That resulted in "Inode 820174 was part of the orphan inode link. Fix?" and a few saying the same for some other inodes. It then asked permission to fix a deleted inode with zero dtime, clear an unattached zero-length inode, fix inode bitmap differences, and fix a wrong inodes count for group #50. Any ideas as to what causes such problems? Is it that PCMCIA loading problem, my hard drive dying, an OS problem or a software problem? postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What causes bad inodes?
Mike Bird wrote: On Sun March 9 2008 08:59:45 postid wrote: Any ideas as to what causes such problems? Is it that PCMCIA loading problem, my hard drive dying, an OS problem or a software problem? ext2? ext3? ... If ext2, I'd suggest adding a journal. --Mike Bird ext3 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What causes bad inodes?
Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 03:59:45PM +, postid wrote: For the second time in a month I got an error message indicating bad inodes and had to fsck manually. I've had bad inodes before not long after a failure to load my PCMCIA modem (which resulted in endless error messages on boot) and before I knew alt sysrq-r -s -e -i -u -b and had shut down by shutting down the power. I've had the modem problem once about a week ago and rebooted with RSEIUB. Oh yes, and about a week ago I was trying a USB stick and the machine froze and I did an RSEIUB. This time the machine froze in KDE, so I did RSEIUB. Upon rebooting, I got "Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found" and got the suggestion to run fsck manually. That resulted in "Inode 820174 was part of the orphan inode link. Fix?" and a few saying the same for some other inodes. It then asked permission to fix a deleted inode with zero dtime, clear an unattached zero-length inode, fix inode bitmap differences, and fix a wrong inodes count for group #50. Any ideas as to what causes such problems? Is it that PCMCIA loading problem, my hard drive dying, an OS problem or a software problem? The magic keystrokes just sync the disks, they do not unmount the filesystems. Thus, things can become corrupted. If it were me, after such a reboot, I'd come up in init=/bin/sh and run fsck manually. Please pardon my ignorance here, but what do you mean by "come up in init=/bin/sh"? Ideally, you'd use ext3 with data=journal. That way, syncing the disks will get the data _somewhere_ on the disk so that replaying the journal in a normal boot fsck would set things right. Again, my apologies, this time for not supplying more complete info. I'm using ext3, running Sarge on an IBM R40 laptop along with Knoppix (hd install) and WinXP (for encrypted DVDs. Well, ideally, the system should be stable enough not to need a reboot. If this is Etch, check for bug reports. If the hard drive is dying, there should be some errors in /var/log/syslog. Also, install smartmontools so that you can check the S.M.A.R.T. data on the drives. If smart tells you that the drive is failing then believe it. If it tells you that everything is fine, take it with a grain of salt. Always have good backups. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What causes bad inodes?
Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 07:57:03PM +, postid wrote: Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 03:59:45PM +, postid wrote: The magic keystrokes just sync the disks, they do not unmount the filesystems. Thus, things can become corrupted. If it were me, after such a reboot, I'd come up in init=/bin/sh and run fsck manually. Please pardon my ignorance here, but what do you mean by "come up in init=/bin/sh"? Edit the kernel command line, add init=/bin/sh When the kernel boots, instead of runing /bin/init, it will run /bin/sh and give you a shell, no password required. Isn't this a bit of a security breach? Anyone booting my laptop would have potential access to my files. Would a person using this shell have root privileges? I suppose I could just use a Knoppix CD to edit the line only when needed. No initscripts will have run so only the root fs will be mounted ro, the other filesystems will not be mounted at all. This is one reason why its good to have separate filesystems. Keeps the / fs small and unlikely to be corrupted. So at that point I run fsck, right? Ideally, you'd use ext3 with data=journal. That way, syncing the disks will get the data _somewhere_ on the disk so that replaying the journal in a normal boot fsck would set things right. Again, my apologies, this time for not supplying more complete info. I'm using ext3, running Sarge on an IBM R40 laptop along with Knoppix (hd install) and WinXP (for encrypted DVDs. I've never used Knoppix so I don't know what mode they use for ext3. Debian by default only journals metadata not your actual data. Its supposed to guarantee that the filesystem stays consistant in the event of an unclean shutdown but your data is at risk. data=journal means that your data is journaled as well. See the man pages. Am I therefore risking the system files but saving the data if I data=journal? Well, ideally, the system should be stable enough not to need a reboot. If this is Etch, check for bug reports. It's Sarge. I'm in a busy time of year and don't have time to upgrade yet. Can you update a Knoppix hd-install or do you just reinstall a newer knoppix? I don't think it updates. Knoppix is based on Debian, but is really not meant for use on other than a CD or DVD. I installed it long ago to check out some unstable features and just have never gotten rid of it. If the hard drive is dying, there should be some errors in /var/log/syslog. Also, install smartmontools so that you can check the S.M.A.R.T. data on the drives. If smart tells you that the drive is failing then believe it. If it tells you that everything is fine, take it with a grain of salt. Always have good backups. Doug. Installed smartmontools today. Thanks for the advice. postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What causes bad inodes?
Rich Healey wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 postid wrote: Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 03:59:45PM +, postid wrote: For the second time in a month I got an error message indicating bad inodes and had to fsck manually. I've had bad inodes before not long after a failure to load my PCMCIA modem (which resulted in endless error messages on boot) and before I knew alt sysrq-r -s -e -i -u -b and had shut down by shutting down the power. I've had the modem problem once about a week ago and rebooted with RSEIUB. Oh yes, and about a week ago I was trying a USB stick and the machine froze and I did an RSEIUB. This time the machine froze in KDE, so I did RSEIUB. Upon rebooting, I got "Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found" and got the suggestion to run fsck manually. That resulted in "Inode 820174 was part of the orphan inode link. Fix?" and a few saying the same for some other inodes. It then asked permission to fix a deleted inode with zero dtime, clear an unattached zero-length inode, fix inode bitmap differences, and fix a wrong inodes count for group #50. Any ideas as to what causes such problems? Is it that PCMCIA loading problem, my hard drive dying, an OS problem or a software problem? The magic keystrokes just sync the disks, they do not unmount the filesystems. Thus, things can become corrupted. If it were me, after such a reboot, I'd come up in init=/bin/sh and run fsck manually. Please pardon my ignorance here, but what do you mean by "come up in init=/bin/sh"? Ideally, you'd use ext3 with data=journal. That way, syncing the disks will get the data _somewhere_ on the disk so that replaying the journal in a normal boot fsck would set things right. Again, my apologies, this time for not supplying more complete info. I'm using ext3, running Sarge on an IBM R40 laptop along with Knoppix (hd install) and WinXP (for encrypted DVDs. Well, ideally, the system should be stable enough not to need a reboot. If this is Etch, check for bug reports. If the hard drive is dying, there should be some errors in /var/log/syslog. Also, install smartmontools so that you can check the S.M.A.R.T. data on the drives. If smart tells you that the drive is failing then believe it. If it tells you that everything is fine, take it with a grain of salt. Always have good backups. Doug. why are you still running sarge? Haven't the time to upgrade. I want to get rid of Knoppix and make a separate home partition. Also want to take more time setting things up the way I want it. Also why XP for encrypted dvds? just build libdvdcss. Questionable legality. Or has that issue been solved? postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Recovery required on readonly filesystem
Greetings: When I booted my IBM R40 laptop running Sarge this morning I noticed a rather disturbing series of messages in the log. Maybe it's happened before, but I don't recall seeing it. Localhost kernel: Mounted root (cramfs filesystem) readonly and EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem and EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery "Recovery" from what? It's up and running now. Should I do something? Should I wait till the next boot and see if it does it again or has it fixed itself already since it's experienced recovery? postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
tar on flash drive
I have a damaged system on my laptop and am trying to salvage data, then will likely install a new system (etch or lenny, was sarge). I'd like to save the home folder and a few useful files gleaned from the etc folder, keeping permissions. I'll use a live cd to do the salvage work (lenny live, knoppix, knoppix STD or slax -- I have all available) and write to a 4GB usb flash drive. Is this the proper syntax? I believe the -c must be first and the -f last. tar -chpvf /mnt/sda1/homebackup.tar /mnt/hda2/home -c is create a new archive -h is retain symlinks but not the files to which they point -p is preserve permissions -v is verbose -f is indicating that the destination file name follows immediately after Is -h the best way to handle symlinks? Is having the destination file on a flash drive a potential problem? On my older desktop machine running sarge drag and drop with the flash drive in K3b doesn't work well and it loaths umounting the flash drive. Sarge on the hard drive was occasionally problematic, too. Slax lists my partitions on the console as /mnt/sda1 (or /media/sda1 -- the flash drive) and /mnt/hda2 (or /media/hda2 -- it's the partition with the problem). Your input is appreciated. Please cc me as I am not currently subcribed to the list. -- postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: tar on flash drive
--- dtu...@vianet.ca wrote: From: "Douglas A. Tutty" To: pos...@basicisp.net Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: tar on flash drive Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:05:44 -0500 On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:25:01PM -0800, pos...@basicisp.net wrote: > I have a damaged system on my laptop and am trying to salvage data, > then will likely install a new system (etch or lenny, was sarge). I'd > like to save the home folder and a few useful files gleaned from the > etc folder, keeping permissions. I'll use a live cd to do the salvage > work (lenny live, knoppix, knoppix STD or slax -- I have all > available) and write to a 4GB usb flash drive. > > Is this the proper syntax? I believe the -c must be first and the -f > last. > > tar -chpvf /mnt/sda1/homebackup.tar /mnt/hda2/home > > -c is create a new archive -h is retain symlinks but not the files to > which they point -p is preserve permissions -v is verbose -f is > indicating that the destination file name follows immediately after > > Is -h the best way to handle symlinks? Is having the destination file > on a flash drive a potential problem? > Your input is appreciated. Please cc me as I am not currently > subcribed to the list. [done] For what it does, yes your tar options look fine. Are you sure that you want to lose other stuff such as /etc, your package choices, etc? I'll attach the script I use. I alter it for each box (since each is slightly diffferent). The script I'm attaching is what I run on the box from which I'm sending this email (plot). It uses a list of directories to backup and a list to exclude. I'll include those files too. Doug. Thanks, gentlemen for your input. I was aware of needing to save some things from etc, so I had copied the contents of fstab, modules, hosts, inittab, network/interfaces and resolve.conf into a text file. I had also copied the contents of grub's menu.lst and copied the folders modprobe.d, modutils and ppp. I had copied some files from home, hoping that somewhere in there (a subfolder in a dot file?) were the browser bookmarks, address books and e-mail folders. It was then that I got to thinking about the symlinks and using tar rather than simply copying. I'll save what I need on CDs so I'll have to do tar a handful of times, recording bite-sized chunks that the CDs can swallow. Wish I had a DVD burner. I'll tar to the flash drive, then transfer those tar folders to CDs. Again, thanks for your input and scripts. postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
lenny reinstall
I need to reinstall lenny using netinstall. (I had some problems with the network, etc. during the first attempt.) I want to keep the partitioning I currently have set up. I especially don't want to risk messing up hda1 since I promised the user that I'd give them the option of booting either system. hda1 win2000 hda2 / hda5 /swap hda6 /home Will the partitioner give me the option of reusing the current scheme and formatting over the old data on hda2 and hda6 or do I need to delete the contents of hda2 and hda6 using a live distro (or the installer command line?) before I start the install? I seem to recall reading somewhere that Debian won't install over itself. Any pitfalls to watch for here or am I just paranoid? I don't want to lose the contents of hda1. I'm planning on using the graphical installer and manual partitioning. postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Illogical drives?
Just finished a lenny install. I used manual partitioning in the graphical installer to do the following: #1 primary 19.0 GBntfs #2 primary 6.0 GB B F ext3 / #5 logical 1.0 GB F swap swap #6 logical 14.0 GB F ext3 /home #1 is Win2000 and boots from grub just fine. Lenny works nicely, too, however things arren't exactly where I suspected they would be, but then I've not had logical partitions before. On the Gnome desktop, when I click on the computer icon, I get a list that includes an icon for "filesystem," which appears to be #2 since it's 5.5 GB total capacity with 3.3 GB used. But I have no icon for #6 which is /home. When I make a directory of the filesystem, I see that there's a home folder there that properties tells me is located at / and is a volume called /home which is 13 GB. Shouldn't /home be listed as a separate drive? Shouldn't it have its own icon? Why is it located in /, it's its own partition, isn't it? Or, as a logical partition, is it physically located within /? /etc/fstab lists hda2, hda5 and hda6, so at the console at least it's a separate partition. I see, however, that that when I make a directory of /mnt it's empty! If I'm in / or home (hda2 or hda6), shouldn't the other one appear in /mnt? If memory serves me correctly, guided partitioning suggested the logical partitions for a scheme, before I decided to do it manually. I'm tempted to reinstall, this time making all four partitions primary partitions. These logical partitions seem illogical to me. Have I done something wrong or is it just that way with logical partitions? What are the advantages/disadvantages of logical and primary partitions?. I've read about them on the web, but it's still as clear as mud to me. --postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Illogical drives?
Greetings: Thank you all for your explanations and patience. I've done some more reading, though I'm not sure that I completely understand. Here's what I think I'm hearing: When I look at a directory I'm looking at a file system, not necessarily a list of physical locations. But on the other hand, the partitions are specific-sized containers where parts of the file system reside. The file system directory is a like an address book listing the members of a family in a genealogical tree and indicating how they're tied into the system in a heirarchically connected telephone conference call. The partitions are their actual locations (the homes where they reside at a physical address). Am I understanding that correctly or am I still not getting it? Here's my setup: #1 primary 19.0 GBntfs #2 primary 6.0 GB B F ext3 / #5 logical 1.0 GB F swap swap #6 logical 14.0 GB F ext3 /home I'm beginning to think that I need more space for hda2, which is /. I only have the Gnome metapackage loaded and I've used up a couple of gig. I'm tempted to use gparted to resize some partitions, shrinking hda1 and enlarging hda2 and hda6. I can always just reinstall if I really mess things up. And I suppose that losing Windows 2000 wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. There's no data there, just programs. I'm either learning a lot or getting reckless. ;-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Prepartitioning, Grub location for Lenny?
I'm preparing to install Debian Lenny on an IBM R40 laptop. My old layout was as follows: hda1=primary=WinXP hda2=primary=Debian Sarge hda3=primary=swap hda4=primary=Knoppix (There's also a hidden partition with WinXP recovery stuff at the end of the drive. I'm going to leave that designated by the BIOS as hidden.) I've wiped the partitions and reinstalled WinXP on hda1. I'll again use Partition Magic under WinXP (or a parted magic live CD) to create a new layout: hda1=primary=6GB=WinXP hda2=primary=10GB=Debian Lenny / hda3=primary=12GB= /home hda4=extended=7GB hda5=logical=1GB=swap hda6=logical=3GB=Test distro (Slax, Slitaz, Knoppix, etc.) hda7=logical=3GB=Test distro (Slax, Slitaz, Knoppix, etc.) In order to get WinXP to boot during the reinstall, I did an "install-mbr /hda." After installing Lenny, should I install Grub on the mbr or should I locate it somewhere else (for example, at the beginning of hda2)? --postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Prepartitioning, Grub location for Lenny?
On Sunday 28 June 2009 09:01:45 am you wrote: > On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 08:22 -0500, postid wrote: > > hda2=primary=10GB=Debian Lenny / > > > > hda3=primary=12GB= /home > > I I were you, I wouldn't use a primary partition for /home > (you you can use that partition to install another OS) > Why not install /home as primary? I've read that data recovery is easier when done from a primary partition. Is that not so? Or are there other considerations? Unlike Windows, Linux can be bootable even when not installed early on the disk. I was also considering having WinXP, Debian's / and another distro as primary partitions as you suggest, then swap, /home and another distro as logical partitions. Better? Why? I've been trying to understand the primary versus logical issues and frankly the more I read, still the more undecided I am. --postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Prepartitioning, Grub location for Lenny?
On Sunday 28 June 2009 09:13:17 am Osamu Aoki wrote: > On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 08:22:38AM -0500, postid wrote: > > (There's also a hidden partition with WinXP recovery stuff > > at the end of the drive. I'm going to leave that designated > > by the BIOS as hidden.) > > This is not makinhg sense. Where is this "hidden partition". > I believe that it's at the end of the drive. I've never toggled it on to see. --postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
X -configure goof results in /root gui desktop?
I was running "X -configure" then redoing kde settings and got distracted and thought a prompt was wanting me to log in as root when in fact I now wonder if it was asking me to enter a new account name and password. There's now a desktop icon in /root. The X -configure command resulted in the creation of .xorg.conf.new, but the desktop icon -- and maybe some other files, I suspect -- are a result of my goof, right? How do I undo this? Kdm won't allow me to login as root, so that's normal, but I seem to have at least a partially set up kde root desktop since I have a desktop icon there. I assume that I may have created a security problem. Do I just remove the extra files in /root or must I do more to undo the results of my goof? Please CC me as I am not currently subscribed. -- postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Reinstall Debian when adding drive?
I have an older machine (Dell Optiplex GS150) that needs more hard drive space. I have some nonoperational hand-me-down computers from which I can rob a drive. If I keep the original as the master and add one of these used drives as a slave, must I reinstall Debian Lenny or will Lenny detect the new hardware and allow me to mount it, format it, etc.? postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Printer install question
I have a Canon PIXMA MP620 multifunction printer which I'm trying to set up to use with Debian Lenny. I found instructions posted by users and have downloaded the Canon Linux driver and ppd files from one of Canon's overseas sites (they don't support Linux in the US). I had installed the packages, then discovered that there was an instruction manual for this at Canon's Australia site. The instructions by the user said to install the drivers using dpkg -i and then connect the printer by USB cable. Canon's Aussie manual says to connect the printer by USB, then turn on the printer, install the drivers, then restart cups. Both instructions require that I install the common Canon driver first, then install the model-specific driver. I've already installed the drivers. Should I follow the user's advice and connect the printer now to finish setting up the printer or should I uninstall the drivers, connect the printer and reinstall the drivers with the printer connected, then restart cups? Does it matter whether I do one or the other? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Multiboot partitioning to share data, not dot files
I'll be installing Lenny on an IBM R-40 laptop. I want to have WinXP, Lenny (with KDE, bells and whistles) and another Lenny(with Fluxbox, pared down to just what I need, and used for some experimenting). I want the two Lennys to share the files in the data partition. While all the normal data files will be in the data (or "documents") partition, the /home directories will exist on their own partitions just to keep the dot files there. This way, I think that the two Lennys can share data, but not have problems with conflicting configuration files. It will also ease data backups. Here are two examples with the proposed setup. The difference is that the first puts the data file as a primary, while the other puts the / partitions as primary. hda1 -- WinXP -- primary 6 GB hda2 -- /data -- primary --- 8 GB hda3 -- swap -- primary 1 GB hda4 -- extended -- extended -- 20 GB hda5 -- /home 1 -- logical 1 GB hda6 -- /home 2 -- logical 1 GB hda7 -- / Lenny 1 -- logical - 10 GB hda8 -- / Lenny 2 -- logical -- 8 GB hda1 -- WinXP -- primary ---6 GB hda2 -- / Lenny 1 -- primary - 10 GB hda3 -- / Lenny 2 -- primary -- 8 GB hda4 -- extended -- extended - 11 GB hda5 -- /home 1 -- logical -- 1 GB hda6 -- /home 2 -- logical -- 1 GB hda7 -- /data -- logical 8 GB hda8 -- swap -- logical - 1 GB Does this make sense or is there a better way? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4b81f5c4.1050...@att.net
Minimum size for /home?
I'm setting up a laptop for triple boot: WinXP; Debian Lenny with KDE and lots of bells and whistles; Debian Lenny with Fluxbox and just the essentials. I may swap one of those three for a different distro later. Here's the planned layout: hda1 WinXP hda2 / for first distro hda3 / for second distro hda4 extended hda5 /home for first distro hda6 /home for second distro hda7 shared data partition hda8 swap All data will be stored in the shared data partition, except for what's in the dot files (e-mail, etc.) in the /home partitions. (I'm not using a shared /home partition since I want to avoid config conflicts.) I have limited hard-drive space. Here are the questions: -- How small can I make the /home partitions? -- With data being stored in its own partition, what are the limiting factors for /home partition size? I suspect it's e-mail attachments that could bloat /home the quickest. On the other hand, I could just let /home be a part of / for each distro (as below) and back up the dot files regularly. hda1 WinXP hda2 / for first distro hda3 / for second distro hda4 extended hda5 shared data partition hda6 swap -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4b900ff6.7080...@att.net
Re: Minimum size for /home?
Pairing /home with either / or data files offers the greatest flexibility, but it doesn't accomplish what I'm trying to do. On the other hand, maybe I'm just trying to do it the hard way. I looked at a handful of machines here and observed that a single user's home contained at least 640 MB of files. That's a machine on which Debian Lenny had been loaded recently and had never been connected to the Internet. I'm leaning toward allocating 1 GB for each /home. Does that sound reasonable? It seems way too large to me. I suppose that if I later find that such a large /home isn't necessary, I could set aside a directory in /home to be used for data storage that didn't need to be shared. At least that way I wouldn't be wasting space. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4b9089f3.9000...@att.net
Re: Minimum size for /home?
The laptop in use here has a 40 GB hard drive. Part of that is taken up by a hidden recovery partition. If I had 320 GB of hard drive space, I'd be less concerned with allocation. The use of this laptop includes OpenOffice (word processing, spreadsheet and a little database), Scribus (DTP), Gimp, Internet mail and browsing, etc. To put this in perspective, I'll plug in some sizes in the proposed layout that's evolved in response to this discussion: hda1 -- 6 GB ---WinXP hda2 -- extended hda3 --- 8 GB -- / for first distro hda4 --- 1 GB -- /home for first distro hda5 --- 8 GB -- / for second distro hda6 1 GB -- /home for second distro hda7 -- 10 GB -- shared data partition hda8 --- 1 GB -- swap Windows (which gets used a couple of times per year) is taking up too much space here. I should probably eliminate the recovery partition and put the space to a better use. Thanks to all who offered advice. I appreciate your input. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4b9151b5.50...@att.net
How do I recover from modprobe mistakes?
Greetings: Last night I was playing around with a new install on my IBM R40 laptop. I'm making this a lean, fast system. I loaded just the base system and was building from there. I was looking for some monitoring tools and tried lm_sensors (I did the sensor-detect) and then discovered that some Thinkpads can be damaged (messes with the EEPROM security chip) by the scan process and/or the i2c-i801 module and I was looking at what I needed to do to back away from this. I thought that when I'd originally done a modprobe -l there had been only a half a pagefull listed there, but later when I did the same command there were many more modules listed. I recall trying to do a modprobe -l with a wildcard as I was looking for a particular module and I goofed and left out the -l . Which leads me to question #1: Could I have accidentally loaded a whole group of available modules? Question 2: Is it possible for me to list modules by the date that they were installed? I'd especially like to know when the i2c-i801 module was loaded. Question 3 & 4: Lsmod currently lists about 67 modules loaded; is that normal for a basic system? If not, then must I install the system all over again to revert to a less-cluttered state? Please cc me since I am not currently on the list. Postid -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4c28c876.80...@att.net
