[gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Todd Goodman]

Dale (and whoever else was having problems with Firefox and X hangs,)

I don't know if you've seen it but:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/24/54

looks like a thread that might be applicable?

Todd

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Todd Goodman wrote:
> Dale (and whoever else was having problems with Firefox and X hangs,)
>
> I don't know if you've seen it but:
>
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/24/54
>
> looks like a thread that might be applicable?
>
> Todd
>
>
>    

That does look interesting.  I had a few times where mine would just 
hang and I could use the SysReq keys but most of the time it just plain 
paniced.

I'm not subscribed so if you see something interesting, let me know.  I 
wish I could let them know it also causes kernel panics as well.  I 
suspect tho that whatever fix they come up with, it will fix it all.  I 
may go back to a older kernel too. lol  That may work for a temp fix 
anyway.

Thanks very much for the link.  At least it is not just me and they know 
about it now.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Todd Goodman]

* Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> [110725 14:43]:
> Todd Goodman wrote:
> > Dale (and whoever else was having problems with Firefox and X hangs,)
> >
> > I don't know if you've seen it but:
> >
> > http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/24/54
> >
> > looks like a thread that might be applicable?
> >
> > Todd
> >
> >
> >    
> 
> That does look interesting.  I had a few times where mine would just 
> hang and I could use the SysReq keys but most of the time it just plain 
> paniced.

Yes, I remember that.  But depending on your kernel config you could be
getting a "panic" based on settings (I believe.)

> 
> I'm not subscribed so if you see something interesting, let me know.  I 
> wish I could let them know it also causes kernel panics as well.  I 
> suspect tho that whatever fix they come up with, it will fix it all.  I 
> may go back to a older kernel too. lol  That may work for a temp fix 
> anyway.

I'll let you know if I see anything that looks related.  It would be
interesting if going back to 2.6.38 is a temp fix for you.  I know you'd
tried older kernels before but...

As someone else mentioned, you can certainly report it.  However, it
would be very helpful if you can get the panic information.  I know it's
difficult with X hanging and needing X to reproduce the problem but
SSHing to the machine and/or a netconsole might allow something to be
seen.  And the panic information would likely be quite illuminating.

> 
> Thanks very much for the link.  At least it is not just me and they know 
> about it now.

Yes, though hearing from more than one person with the issue might help
get it solved quicker.  There may be similarities between your machines
that point he finger at a certain area...

Todd

> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Todd Goodman wrote:
> * Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  [110725 14:43]:
>    
>> Todd Goodman wrote:
>>      
>>> Dale (and whoever else was having problems with Firefox and X hangs,)
>>>
>>> I don't know if you've seen it but:
>>>
>>> http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/24/54
>>>
>>> looks like a thread that might be applicable?
>>>
>>> Todd
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> That does look interesting.  I had a few times where mine would just
>> hang and I could use the SysReq keys but most of the time it just plain
>> paniced.
>>      
> Yes, I remember that.  But depending on your kernel config you could be
> getting a "panic" based on settings (I believe.)
>
>    

That is true.  I think .39 was the one that always paniced.  It seems 
the later .38 wold sometimes give me a change to use the SysReq keys.  
It' shard to recall now.  :/

>> I'm not subscribed so if you see something interesting, let me know.  I
>> wish I could let them know it also causes kernel panics as well.  I
>> suspect tho that whatever fix they come up with, it will fix it all.  I
>> may go back to a older kernel too. lol  That may work for a temp fix
>> anyway.
>>      
> I'll let you know if I see anything that looks related.  It would be
> interesting if going back to 2.6.38 is a temp fix for you.  I know you'd
> tried older kernels before but...
>
> As someone else mentioned, you can certainly report it.  However, it
> would be very helpful if you can get the panic information.  I know it's
> difficult with X hanging and needing X to reproduce the problem but
> SSHing to the machine and/or a netconsole might allow something to be
> seen.  And the panic information would likely be quite illuminating.
>
>    

I'm not subscribed there and that is a very high traffic list.  I did 
take a look at the option of subscribing tho.  I also tried to ssh into 
my rig from my old rig, it refused.  It couldn't even find my box.  It 
worked fine after I rebooted tho.


>> Thanks very much for the link.  At least it is not just me and they know
>> about it now.
>>      
> Yes, though hearing from more than one person with the issue might help
> get it solved quicker.  There may be similarities between your machines
> that point he finger at a certain area...
>
> Todd
>
>    
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>>      

Yea, having more info would be helpful but it appears that more than I 
have has already been given.  I may see if I can email someone directly 
or something.  Maybe that will work, if I don't go to spam or something.

Is this related to a specific nic driver?  I wasn't able to really tell 
much from all the error messages they posted.  I still haven't tried a 
different nic.  I sort of been busy.

Dale

:-)  :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[walt]

On 07/25/2011 01:00 PM, Dale wrote:
 
> I'm not subscribed and [lkml] is a very high traffic list.

Only a masochist or a kernel dev would subscribe to that list.
A far better way is to track the family of kernel-related lists
on gmane.org, e.g. the gmane.linux.kernel newsgroup.

You can even post to mailing lists if you're willing to give
gmane.org a working email address.

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Todd Goodman]

* Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> [110725 15:33]:
> Todd Goodman wrote:
> > * Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  [110725 14:43]:
> >    
> >> Todd Goodman wrote:
> >>      
> >>> Dale (and whoever else was having problems with Firefox and X hangs,)
> >>>
> >>> I don't know if you've seen it but:
> >>>
> >>> http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/24/54
> >>>
> >>> looks like a thread that might be applicable?
> >>>
> >>> Todd
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>        
> >> That does look interesting.  I had a few times where mine would just
> >> hang and I could use the SysReq keys but most of the time it just plain
> >> paniced.
> >>      
> > Yes, I remember that.  But depending on your kernel config you could be
> > getting a "panic" based on settings (I believe.)
> >
> >    
> 
> That is true.  I think .39 was the one that always paniced.  It seems 
> the later .38 wold sometimes give me a change to use the SysReq keys.  
> It' shard to recall now.  :/

Yes, I like to keep notes of what I've tried, but hindsight is 20-20

> 
> >> I'm not subscribed so if you see something interesting, let me know.  I
> >> wish I could let them know it also causes kernel panics as well.  I
> >> suspect tho that whatever fix they come up with, it will fix it all.  I
> >> may go back to a older kernel too. lol  That may work for a temp fix
> >> anyway.
> >>      
> > I'll let you know if I see anything that looks related.  It would be
> > interesting if going back to 2.6.38 is a temp fix for you.  I know you'd
> > tried older kernels before but...
> >
> > As someone else mentioned, you can certainly report it.  However, it
> > would be very helpful if you can get the panic information.  I know it's
> > difficult with X hanging and needing X to reproduce the problem but
> > SSHing to the machine and/or a netconsole might allow something to be
> > seen.  And the panic information would likely be quite illuminating.
> >
> >    
> 
> I'm not subscribed there and that is a very high traffic list.  I did 
> take a look at the option of subscribing tho.  I also tried to ssh into 
> my rig from my old rig, it refused.  It couldn't even find my box.  It 
> worked fine after I rebooted tho.

Yes it is very high traffic.

You don't need to subscribe to post though and it's quite common to
mention at the end that you're not subscribed and request direct email
responses.

As far as ssh'ing in, I'd suggest doing it before the problem manifests
and trying to get console output on your screen.

> 
> 
> >> Thanks very much for the link.  At least it is not just me and they know
> >> about it now.
> >>      
> > Yes, though hearing from more than one person with the issue might help
> > get it solved quicker.  There may be similarities between your machines
> > that point he finger at a certain area...
> >
> > Todd
> >
> >    
> >> Dale
> >>
> >> :-)  :-)
> >>      
> 
> Yea, having more info would be helpful but it appears that more than I 
> have has already been given.  I may see if I can email someone directly 
> or something.  Maybe that will work, if I don't go to spam or something.

I'd suggest emailing the list.  Emailing someone directly before that
might be considered quite rude.

> 
> Is this related to a specific nic driver?  I wasn't able to really tell 
> much from all the error messages they posted.  I still haven't tried a 
> different nic.  I sort of been busy.

No, there were a lot of IRQ changes.  It could impact pretty much any
driver though perhaps it's due to an incorrect assumption in a specific
driver that no longer holds after the IRQ rework.

Todd

> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Todd Goodman wrote:
>
> I'll let you know if I see anything that looks related.  It would be
> interesting if going back to 2.6.38 is a temp fix for you.  I know you'd
> tried older kernels before but...
> Todd
>
>    

This makes me wonder.  I have went all the way back to 2.6.35-r15 and it 
does the same thing.  Could it be that my problem is unrelated?

Also, I copied my current config over and ran make oldconfig.  Since I 
am actually downgrading, would that work the same way or would it have 
settings that no longer apply and may muck things up?

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Todd Goodman]

* Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> [110726 09:46]:
> Todd Goodman wrote:
> >
> > I'll let you know if I see anything that looks related.  It would be
> > interesting if going back to 2.6.38 is a temp fix for you.  I know you'd
> > tried older kernels before but...
> > Todd
> >
> >    
> 
> This makes me wonder.  I have went all the way back to 2.6.35-r15 and it 
> does the same thing.  Could it be that my problem is unrelated?

It's certainly possible it's unrelated.  Or it could be something
similar and the other bug reporter made a mistake bisecting or didn't run
long enough to fail with that bisection.  It's possibly a lot of things
since we don't have enough information.

> 
> Also, I copied my current config over and ran make oldconfig.  Since I 
> am actually downgrading, would that work the same way or would it have 
> settings that no longer apply and may muck things up?

I don't think that would work OK (but don't know for sure.)  In most
cases it would probably work OK as I believe unused parameters will
be ignored.  But if a parameter was removed or the meaning changed then
you might have a problem (unlikely I'd guess, but I don't know.)

Todd

> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Todd Goodman wrote:
>
> It's certainly possible it's unrelated.  Or it could be something
> similar and the other bug reporter made a mistake bisecting or didn't run
> long enough to fail with that bisection.  It's possibly a lot of things
> since we don't have enough information.
>
> I don't think that would work OK (but don't know for sure.)  In most
> cases it would probably work OK as I believe unused parameters will
> be ignored.  But if a parameter was removed or the meaning changed then
> you might have a problem (unlikely I'd guess, but I don't know.)
>
> Todd
>
>
>    

Here is a update.  Let's see what folks think about this situation.  I 
mentioned in another thread that I did a from scratch kernel.  It was a 
.35 version.  It seemed to work fine, for a while.  When I tell 
Seamonkey to download to my desktop, it works fine.  The minute I tell 
it to save it to my large 750Gb drive, I get a kernel panic.  Keep in 
mind, there is nothing OS related on that drive.  Nothing OS at all.  It 
is videos, CD ISO's and such as that.

Here is another thing I just found out.  I did download a few videos I 
wanted to save.  They were on my desktop and who likes desktop clutter.  
So, I dragged them over to the large data drive.  I did this by dragging 
from the desktop to a open Konqueror window.  This was not downloading 
or anything, just a straight move operation.  It copied a few Mbs and 
panic.  This had nothing to do with Seamonkey either.

So, did this issue just move from a Seamonkey sort of problem to 
completely something else?  Hmmmmm.  After the crash, I boot to single 
user mode.  I ran resierfsck --fix-fixable on the drive.  Not one 
error.  I ran the smart thingy and not one error there either.  Thinking 
file system is bad in the kernel, well my /home directory is on reiserfs 
too.  It is the one that works.

Now, what the heck is this about?  Does this make sense to anyone?

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Wednesday 27 July 2011 22:03:31 Dale wrote:

> Does this make sense to anyone?

Yes. I think your power interruption has damaged the drive electronics.

-- 
Rgds
Peter			Linux Counter number 5290

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[James Wall]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here is a update.  Let's see what folks think about this situation.  I
> mentioned in another thread that I did a from scratch kernel.  It was a .35
> version.  It seemed to work fine, for a while.  When I tell Seamonkey to
> download to my desktop, it works fine.  The minute I tell it to save it to
> my large 750Gb drive, I get a kernel panic.  Keep in mind, there is nothing
> OS related on that drive.  Nothing OS at all.  It is videos, CD ISO's and
> such as that.
>
> Here is another thing I just found out.  I did download a few videos I
> wanted to save.  They were on my desktop and who likes desktop clutter.  So,
> I dragged them over to the large data drive.  I did this by dragging from
> the desktop to a open Konqueror window.  This was not downloading or
> anything, just a straight move operation.  It copied a few Mbs and panic.
>  This had nothing to do with Seamonkey either.

This looks like a drive/cable issue, since it only occurs on the one
drive. If both drives are SATA, I would try swapping the cables to
rule out a bad cable. If the problem stays with the drive I would
first try a different SATA port to see if that clears up the issue.

> So, did this issue just move from a Seamonkey sort of problem to completely
> something else?  Hmmmmm.  After the crash, I boot to single user mode.  I
> ran resierfsck --fix-fixable on the drive.  Not one error.  I ran the smart
> thingy and not one error there either.  Thinking file system is bad in the
> kernel, well my /home directory is on reiserfs too.  It is the one that
> works.
>
> Now, what the heck is this about?  Does this make sense to anyone?
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)
>
>



-- 
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large
number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Wednesday 27 July 2011 17:18:19 James Wall wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Here is a update.  Let's see what folks think about this situation.  I
> > mentioned in another thread that I did a from scratch kernel.  It was a
> > .35 version.  It seemed to work fine, for a while.  When I tell
> > Seamonkey to download to my desktop, it works fine.  The minute I tell
> > it to save it to my large 750Gb drive, I get a kernel panic.  Keep in
> > mind, there is nothing OS related on that drive.  Nothing OS at all.
> >  It is videos, CD ISO's and such as that.
> > 
> > Here is another thing I just found out.  I did download a few videos I
> > wanted to save.  They were on my desktop and who likes desktop clutter.
> >  So, I dragged them over to the large data drive.  I did this by
> > dragging from the desktop to a open Konqueror window.  This was not
> > downloading or anything, just a straight move operation.  It copied a
> > few Mbs and panic. This had nothing to do with Seamonkey either.
> 
> This looks like a drive/cable issue, since it only occurs on the one
> drive. If both drives are SATA, I would try swapping the cables to
> rule out a bad cable. If the problem stays with the drive I would
> first try a different SATA port to see if that clears up the issue.

I would also check that all the cables are plugged in properly and that there 
is nothing conductive (like metal) touching the drive where it really 
shouldn't.
Maybe open the case, take the drive out and put it on a big sturdy cardboard 
box to avoid possible shorts.
> 
> > So, did this issue just move from a Seamonkey sort of problem to
> > completely something else?  Hmmmmm.  After the crash, I boot to single
> > user mode.  I ran resierfsck --fix-fixable on the drive.  Not one
> > error.

Did you do that on a mounted drive? I would first try a filesystem check before 
using that command.

> > I ran the smart thingy and not one error there either.

Did you force the short and long tests to be run and waited for them to be 
finished? On a large drive, the long test can easily take several hours 
(without any indication of how far it actually is)

> >  Thinking file system is bad in the kernel, well my /home directory is
> > on reiserfs too.  It is the one that works.

If it were the reiserfs implementation, the issue would be more common.

> > Now, what the heck is this about?  Does this make sense to anyone?

It does, there is something wrong with that drive.

Another thing you could try is to plug that drive into a different machine (I 
believe you still have your old one?) and see if the same issue occurs there.
Also, now would be a good time to have backups of the data on that drive :)

-- 
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> On Wednesday 27 July 2011 17:18:19 James Wall wrote:
>    
>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>      
>>> Here is a update.  Let's see what folks think about this situation.  I
>>> mentioned in another thread that I did a from scratch kernel.  It was a
>>> .35 version.  It seemed to work fine, for a while.  When I tell
>>> Seamonkey to download to my desktop, it works fine.  The minute I tell
>>> it to save it to my large 750Gb drive, I get a kernel panic.  Keep in
>>> mind, there is nothing OS related on that drive.  Nothing OS at all.
>>>   It is videos, CD ISO's and such as that.
>>>
>>> Here is another thing I just found out.  I did download a few videos I
>>> wanted to save.  They were on my desktop and who likes desktop clutter.
>>>   So, I dragged them over to the large data drive.  I did this by
>>> dragging from the desktop to a open Konqueror window.  This was not
>>> downloading or anything, just a straight move operation.  It copied a
>>> few Mbs and panic. This had nothing to do with Seamonkey either.
>>>        
>> This looks like a drive/cable issue, since it only occurs on the one
>> drive. If both drives are SATA, I would try swapping the cables to
>> rule out a bad cable. If the problem stays with the drive I would
>> first try a different SATA port to see if that clears up the issue.
>>      
> I would also check that all the cables are plugged in properly and that there
> is nothing conductive (like metal) touching the drive where it really
> shouldn't.
> Maybe open the case, take the drive out and put it on a big sturdy cardboard
> box to avoid possible shorts.
>    

I did check all the connections.  I unplugged all the things drive 
related, power and data, and everything looked fine.  No dust, no 
corrosion or anything that I could see.  I did use a flashlight and a 
magnifying glass to check.  It could still be something I didn't see but 
I looked.

>>      
>>> So, did this issue just move from a Seamonkey sort of problem to
>>> completely something else?  Hmmmmm.  After the crash, I boot to single
>>> user mode.  I ran resierfsck --fix-fixable on the drive.  Not one
>>> error.
>>>        
> Did you do that on a mounted drive? I would first try a filesystem check before
> using that command.
>
>    

I went to single user to run that.  It didn't report fixing anything or 
any other problems.

>>> I ran the smart thingy and not one error there either.
>>>        
> Did you force the short and long tests to be run and waited for them to be
> finished? On a large drive, the long test can easily take several hours
> (without any indication of how far it actually is)
>
>    

I did the long one.  It ran while I took a nap.  It does take a good 
while to run.  You nailed that one for sure.  I just wonder how long a 
3Tb drive would take.  o_O   I'm going to run it again tho.  See if it 
picks up on anything now.


>>>   Thinking file system is bad in the kernel, well my /home directory is
>>> on reiserfs too.  It is the one that works.
>>>        
> If it were the reiserfs implementation, the issue would be more common.
>
>    

That's what I think too.  It's also not the only partition that I use 
reiserfs on either.  I would think they would all have some sort of 
weirdness if it was that.  Then again, things tend to pick on me a LOT.  :/


>>> Now, what the heck is this about?  Does this make sense to anyone?
>>>        
> It does, there is something wrong with that drive.
>
> Another thing you could try is to plug that drive into a different machine (I
> believe you still have your old one?) and see if the same issue occurs there.
> Also, now would be a good time to have backups of the data on that drive :)
>
>    

I may test that drive in my old rig.  I have a SATA card in there.  
Actually, it was originally in that rig.  I did make backups of the 
stuff I have room for.  I just can't back up my video/audio files tho.

I'll post if anything changes or I get around to testing the drive in 
the old rig.  My garden and stuff sort of has me running.  I picked 
three 5 gallon buckets of okra yesterday.  O_O

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my drives 
file system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are called?  That may 
explain why I can't copy anything to it but it works fine as far as 
reading goes.

Thoughts?  How do I check/change it?  Headed to some man pages too.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Willie Wong]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 06:37:24PM -0500, Dale wrote:
> 
> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my
> drives file system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are
> called? 

That usually won't throw a kernel panic. That usually just gives an
error. 

W 
-- 
Willie W. Wong                                     wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire 
         et vice versa   ~~~  I. Newton

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Willie Wong wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 06:37:24PM -0500, Dale wrote:
>    
>> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my
>> drives file system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are
>> called?
>>      
> That usually won't throw a kernel panic. That usually just gives an
> error.
>
> W
>    

Never hurts to check tho.  You know me and weird things go together.  I 
did find this tho:

j_cnode_used:   1869
j_cnode_free:   14515

I was hoping it would be something fixable.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Michael Mol]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 7:37 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my drives file
> system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are called?  That may explain
> why I can't copy anything to it but it works fine as far as reading goes.
>
> Thoughts?  How do I check/change it?  Headed to some man pages too.

Stupid questions:
1) Is the filesystem mounted read-only?
2) Could the hard drive be in read-only mode? (Used to be there was
some flag you could trigger with hdparm to write-protect a hard drive.
Never poked that flag myself, I just remember that it was there.)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 7:37 PM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my drives file
>> system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are called?  That may explain
>> why I can't copy anything to it but it works fine as far as reading goes.
>>
>> Thoughts?  How do I check/change it?  Headed to some man pages too.
>>      
> Stupid questions:
> 1) Is the filesystem mounted read-only?
> 2) Could the hard drive be in read-only mode? (Used to be there was
> some flag you could trigger with hdparm to write-protect a hard drive.
> Never poked that flag myself, I just remember that it was there.)
>
>    

Mounted as this:

/dev/sdc1 on /data type reiserfs (rw)

This is from hdparm -I:

Security:
         Master password revision code = 65534
                 supported
         not     enabled
         not     locked
         not     frozen
         not     expired: security count
                 supported: enhanced erase
         140min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 140min for ENHANCED SECURITY 
ERASE UNIT.

Capabilities:
         LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
         Queue depth: 32
         Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific 
minimum
         R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 0
         Advanced power management level: disabled
         Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 0
         DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 
*udma6 udma7
              Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
         PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
              Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns


I don't see anything about it being write protected.  Anyone see 
anything wrong with this?  I can post the whole thing if needed.

With me, there is NO stupid question.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Adam Carter]

>> 1) Is the filesystem mounted read-only?

Dale, usually you'd check this by running mount without arguments, and
looking to see if the options have ro or rw listed;

eg
adam@rix ~ $ mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime)
none on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
etc

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Adam Carter]

> Dale, usually you'd check this by running mount without arguments, and
> looking to see if the options have ro or rw listed;

Sorry - didnt read your post correctly. Obviously you already know this.

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Adam Carter wrote:
>> Dale, usually you'd check this by running mount without arguments, and
>> looking to see if the options have ro or rw listed;
>>      
> Sorry - didnt read your post correctly. Obviously you already know this.
>
>
>    

Doesn't hurt to mention things sometimes.  There are things I don't 
know.  Shocking huh?  lol  Just breathe, nice breaths.  o_O

Dale

:-)   :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Thursday 28 July 2011 18:37:24 Dale wrote:
> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my drives
> file system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are called?  That may
> explain why I can't copy anything to it but it works fine as far as
> reading goes.
> 
> Thoughts?  How do I check/change it?  Headed to some man pages too.
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-)

To check this, you could try creating a new file (with size = 0) on the root of 
that drive, like (After you close and save all your work):

touch <mountpoint of drive>/LetMeseeIfThisWorksOrIfTheKernelPanicsAgain

If it doesn't panic, check if that file actually exists.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> On Thursday 28 July 2011 18:37:24 Dale wrote:
>    
>> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my drives
>> file system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are called?  That may
>> explain why I can't copy anything to it but it works fine as far as
>> reading goes.
>>
>> Thoughts?  How do I check/change it?  Headed to some man pages too.
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>>      
> To check this, you could try creating a new file (with size = 0) on the root of
> that drive, like (After you close and save all your work):
>
> touch<mountpoint of drive>/LetMeseeIfThisWorksOrIfTheKernelPanicsAgain
>
> If it doesn't panic, check if that file actually exists.
>
> --
> Joost
>
>
>    

It worked fine and it was there with 0 bytes.  Weird.

I sort of gave up on this drive.  I had a very kind soul to send me a 
video card when I did this build. He also sent me a 250Gb drive.  I 
copied all I could to that but did lose a LOT of my videos and such.  
Anyway, I'm doing this right now:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc

I figure that will put it back like brand new and very blank.  I'll 
recreate my partition, throw a file system on it and see if it will let 
me copy back to it or not.

While I am at it, what is the best file system for videos?  That is the 
biggest thing I use that drive for.  I had a LOT of NCIS, CSI and other 
shows that are now gone.  Anyway, what are opinions on a file system for 
videos on a 750Gb drive?  I had reiserfs on it before.

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joost Roeleveld wrote:
>>
>> On Thursday 28 July 2011 18:37:24 Dale wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Pardon me.  My brain passed gas here.  lol  Could it be that my drives
>>> file system has ran out of inodes or whatever they are called?  That may
>>> explain why I can't copy anything to it but it works fine as far as
>>> reading goes.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?  How do I check/change it?  Headed to some man pages too.
>>>
>>> Dale
>>>
>>> :-)  :-)
>>>
>>
>> To check this, you could try creating a new file (with size = 0) on the
>> root of
>> that drive, like (After you close and save all your work):
>>
>> touch<mountpoint of drive>/LetMeseeIfThisWorksOrIfTheKernelPanicsAgain
>>
>> If it doesn't panic, check if that file actually exists.
>>
>> --
>> Joost
>>
>>
>>
>
> It worked fine and it was there with 0 bytes.  Weird.
>
> I sort of gave up on this drive.  I had a very kind soul to send me a video
> card when I did this build. He also sent me a 250Gb drive.  I copied all I
> could to that but did lose a LOT of my videos and such.  Anyway, I'm doing
> this right now:
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc
>
> I figure that will put it back like brand new and very blank.  I'll recreate
> my partition, throw a file system on it and see if it will let me copy back
> to it or not.
>
> While I am at it, what is the best file system for videos?  That is the
> biggest thing I use that drive for.  I had a LOT of NCIS, CSI and other
> shows that are now gone.  Anyway, what are opinions on a file system for
> videos on a 750Gb drive?  I had reiserfs on it before.

I had a few terabytes of my own DVD rips on ext4 on a 3TB RAID5 once
upon a time. Worked very well.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>>
>> It worked fine and it was there with 0 bytes.  Weird.
>>
>> I sort of gave up on this drive.  I had a very kind soul to send me a video
>> card when I did this build. He also sent me a 250Gb drive.  I copied all I
>> could to that but did lose a LOT of my videos and such.  Anyway, I'm doing
>> this right now:
>>
>> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc
>>
>> I figure that will put it back like brand new and very blank.  I'll recreate
>> my partition, throw a file system on it and see if it will let me copy back
>> to it or not.
>>
>> While I am at it, what is the best file system for videos?  That is the
>> biggest thing I use that drive for.  I had a LOT of NCIS, CSI and other
>> shows that are now gone.  Anyway, what are opinions on a file system for
>> videos on a 750Gb drive?  I had reiserfs on it before.
>>      
> I had a few terabytes of my own DVD rips on ext4 on a 3TB RAID5 once
> upon a time. Worked very well.
>
>
>    

I'm not picky.  Unless someone comes up with something better, I'll give 
ext4 a try.  I have read it is pretty swift plus it is some shiney new . 
. . stuff.  ;-)  Shhh.  There may be a lady on here too.  Read between 
the lines.

I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it 
has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Alex Schuster]

Am 30.07.2011 01:06, schrieb Dale:
> Michael Mol wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:

>>> While I am at it, what is the best file system for videos?  That is the
>>> biggest thing I use that drive for.  I had a LOT of NCIS, CSI and other
>>> shows that are now gone.  Anyway, what are opinions on a file system for
>>> videos on a 750Gb drive?  I had reiserfs on it before.

I guess you won't motice much of a difference. Use what you like and
know best.

>> I had a few terabytes of my own DVD rips on ext4 on a 3TB RAID5 once
>> upon a time. Worked very well.
> 
> I'm not picky.  Unless someone comes up with something better, I'll give 
> ext4 a try.

I'm using ext3 mostly, and recently also ext4 because, why not. The
portage tree is on reiserfs, because I read it's fast and efficient with
small files. And simply because I wanted to lean how to use it. On the
other hand, I also read later that it will slow down with every emerge
--sync. But for large files, it probably won't matter much. I think ext
is a little slow when deleting large files compared to some other file
system (JFS? Reiser maybe?), but for me it's not bad. Anyway, putting
all those thoughts into it probably already has cost more time than
choosing the best file system would have saved me.

> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it 
> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/

Find the PID of the dd process with ps ax | grep [d]d or somethhing,
then kill -USR1 <pid>. This will dd output how far it is.

BTW, I like how the threads tend to soon have nothing to do with the
subject lately.

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Alex Schuster wrote:
> Am 30.07.2011 01:06, schrieb Dale:
>    
>
>> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it
>> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/
>>      
> Find the PID of the dd process with ps ax | grep [d]d or somethhing,
> then kill -USR1<pid>. This will dd output how far it is.
>
> BTW, I like how the threads tend to soon have nothing to do with the
> subject lately.
>
> 	Wonko
>
>    

Thanks for the info.  It was far enough along I think.

Actually this thread is still on the same topic as before.  This is 
related to the issue I had with Firefox and a kernel panic.  The thread 
just developed as things were tried and ruled out.

I'm just hoping this drive will work and no more panics.  If it still 
does, this thread may live a while longer yet.  :-(

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Mick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 813 bytes --]

On Saturday 30 Jul 2011 01:32:07 Dale wrote:
> Alex Schuster wrote:
> > Am 30.07.2011 01:06, schrieb Dale:
> >> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it
> >> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/

dcfldd has a progress indicator AFAIR.

To make sure that your dd speed is maxed out for the drive that you are dd-ing 
on, you need to run some tests with different block sizes:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024 count=1000000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
dd if=/dev/zero bs=2048 count=500000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
dd if=/dev/zero bs=4096 count=250000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
dd if=/dev/zero bs=8192 count=125000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt

On my 500G drive 2048 gives the best speed.

Then set bs=2048 or whatever is faster on yours when you run the dd command.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Mick wrote:
> On Saturday 30 Jul 2011 01:32:07 Dale wrote:
>    
>> Alex Schuster wrote:
>>      
>>> Am 30.07.2011 01:06, schrieb Dale:
>>>        
>>>> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it
>>>> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/
>>>>          
> dcfldd has a progress indicator AFAIR.
>
> To make sure that your dd speed is maxed out for the drive that you are dd-ing
> on, you need to run some tests with different block sizes:
>
> dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024 count=1000000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
> dd if=/dev/zero bs=2048 count=500000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
> dd if=/dev/zero bs=4096 count=250000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
> dd if=/dev/zero bs=8192 count=125000 of=/tmp/1G_file.txt
>
> On my 500G drive 2048 gives the best speed.
>
> Then set bs=2048 or whatever is faster on yours when you run the dd command.
>
>    

I finally stopped it.  It was almost done.  Here is the update for this 
weird kernel panic problem.  I did the dd thing.  I created my partition 
like I had before and put ext4 on it this time.  I restored the stuff I 
had backed up to the drive and then downloaded some videos to test the 
thing.  It downloaded just fine.  No panic or even a burp.

What could have caused this?  Could it be a file system problem?  I 
don't think it is a physical failure since it is working now after 
giving it a fresh start.  I just don't get how this could have caused a 
kernel panic.  This is plain weird.

Would love to hear some thoughts on what caused this problem given the fix.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 30 July 2011 11:17:52 Dale wrote:

> What could have caused this?  Could it be a file system problem?  I
> don't think it is a physical failure since it is working now after
> giving it a fresh start.  I just don't get how this could have caused a
> kernel panic.  This is plain weird.

One possibility is that, having now written to almost every location on the 
disk, its controller has marked some faulty blocks that used to contain code 
in the disk subsystem. If it was reading damaged data, there's no surprise 
in anything that happened next!

> Would love to hear some thoughts on what caused this problem given the
> fix.

That's mine :-)

(And it's not far off what I suggested to you before: that the lightning 
strike had damaged your hardware.)

-- 
Rgds
Peter		Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 8:03 AM, Peter Humphrey
<peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 30 July 2011 11:17:52 Dale wrote:
>
>> What could have caused this?  Could it be a file system problem?  I
>> don't think it is a physical failure since it is working now after
>> giving it a fresh start.  I just don't get how this could have caused a
>> kernel panic.  This is plain weird.
>
> One possibility is that, having now written to almost every location on the
> disk, its controller has marked some faulty blocks that used to contain code
> in the disk subsystem. If it was reading damaged data, there's no surprise
> in anything that happened next!

Well, except that it should have thrown some errors when the
on-platter reed-solomon encoding didn't quite match.

If the controller flagged some faulty blocks, it should show up via
smartctl -A $DEVICE_NODE


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 8:03 AM, Peter Humphrey
> <peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org>  wrote:
>    
>> On Saturday 30 July 2011 11:17:52 Dale wrote:
>>
>>      
>>> What could have caused this?  Could it be a file system problem?  I
>>> don't think it is a physical failure since it is working now after
>>> giving it a fresh start.  I just don't get how this could have caused a
>>> kernel panic.  This is plain weird.
>>>        
>> One possibility is that, having now written to almost every location on the
>> disk, its controller has marked some faulty blocks that used to contain code
>> in the disk subsystem. If it was reading damaged data, there's no surprise
>> in anything that happened next!
>>      
> Well, except that it should have thrown some errors when the
> on-platter reed-solomon encoding didn't quite match.
>
> If the controller flagged some faulty blocks, it should show up via
> smartctl -A $DEVICE_NODE
>
>
>    


I did run the SMART test thing at least twice.  It never reported any 
problems.  This look OK:

root@fireball / # smartctl -A /dev/sdc
smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [x86_64-pc-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      
UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
   1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  
Always       -       0
   3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   081   081   011    Pre-fail  
Always       -       6510
   4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       105
   5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  
Always       -       0
   7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   253   253   051    Pre-fail  
Always       -       0
   8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0025   100   100   015    Pre-fail  
Offline      -       11324
   9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   
Always       -       15355
  10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0033   100   100   051    Pre-fail  
Always       -       0
  11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
  12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       105
  13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate    0x000e   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0033   100   100   000    Pre-fail  
Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   074   069   000    Old_age   
Always       -       26 (Min/Max 23/28)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   074   068   000    Old_age   
Always       -       26 (Min/Max 23/30)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       143830378
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age   
Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x000a   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate    0x000a   100   100   000    Old_age   
Always       -       0

root@fireball / #

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
>   -       0
> 197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
>   -       0
> 198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline
>    -       0

No bad sectors. At least, not that the drive controller knows about.

You might try "smartctl -t offline $DEVICE_NODE" to have the drive run
a self-test. Don't let "offline" fool you; you can still do other
things, the test will just be suspended during disk activity, and
resume when disk activity dies down.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Michael Mol wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
>>    -       0
>> 197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
>>    -       0
>> 198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline
>>     -       0
>>      
> No bad sectors. At least, not that the drive controller knows about.
>
> You might try "smartctl -t offline $DEVICE_NODE" to have the drive run
> a self-test. Don't let "offline" fool you; you can still do other
> things, the test will just be suspended during disk activity, and
> resume when disk activity dies down.
>
>    


I have ran that at least a couple times.  It passed each time.  I 
actually run that every couple months or so anyway.  From what I have 
read, it does sometimes warn of a problems in time to take action.  It 
may not help if it is a bearing failure or some other mechanical failure 
but some warning is better than none.

At least I know it is living at the moment.  I just hope it stays that way.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Saturday 30 July 2011 11:17:52 Dale wrote:
>
>    
>> What could have caused this?  Could it be a file system problem?  I
>> don't think it is a physical failure since it is working now after
>> giving it a fresh start.  I just don't get how this could have caused a
>> kernel panic.  This is plain weird.
>>      
> One possibility is that, having now written to almost every location on the
> disk, its controller has marked some faulty blocks that used to contain code
> in the disk subsystem. If it was reading damaged data, there's no surprise
> in anything that happened next!
>
>    
>> Would love to hear some thoughts on what caused this problem given the
>> fix.
>>      
> That's mine :-)
>
> (And it's not far off what I suggested to you before: that the lightning
> strike had damaged your hardware.)
>
>    


It could be that it was some bad bocks.  It wasn't lightning tho.  It 
was just a plain power failure where my UPS failed.  The relay just 
didn't act quick enough that time I guess.  Still weird that it caused a 
kernel panic.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[pk]

On 2011-07-30 01:06, Dale wrote:

> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it
> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/

http://www.rootninja.com/dd-with-a-progress-bar/

(emerge sys-apps/pv)

Disclaimer: I haven't used this myself...

HTH

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

pk wrote:
> On 2011-07-30 01:06, Dale wrote:
>
>    
>> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it
>> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/
>>      
> http://www.rootninja.com/dd-with-a-progress-bar/
>
> (emerge sys-apps/pv)
>
> Disclaimer: I haven't used this myself...
>
> HTH
>
> Best regards
>
> Peter K
>
>
>    


Looks interesting.  I'm sort of finished now tho.  lol  I wish I knew 
about that two days ago.  Funny how that happens isn't it?

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 30 July 2011 00:06:57 Dale wrote:

> I'm just curious as to how much longer dd is going to take.  I wish it
> has some sort of a progress bar or something.  :/

I'm in a similar process. I have an external disk which I use to back my 
boxes up. I need a bootable vfat partition for the Win-XP part of my laptop, 
but what I'd set up was far too small. So I was faced with either losing all 
my Linux backups, or shrinking the ext4 partition to make more space for 
vfat.

Gparted is currently moving all the ext4 data up the disk. The partition is 
now 731 GB with 369 GB occupied. I started it nearly 18 hours ago and it 
still says it has 5h 40m to go. It may want to do some other housekeeping 
after the copy too.

It says it's copying 731 GB, but that must be an error, since nowhere on the 
disk (and nothing on the network, come to that) is large enough to receive 
that much data.

One thing's certain: it's a good test of the USB disk! I just hope your 
power incident doesn't happen to me too.   :-)

-- 
Rgds
Peter		Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
> One thing's certain: it's a good test of the USB disk! I just hope your
> power incident doesn't happen to me too.   :-)
>
>    

That would suck.  I sure did hate to lose my videos.  I bet AT&T does to 
since I have to go find them and download them again.  :/

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday 30 July 2011 15:50:11 Dale wrote:
> Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > One thing's certain: it's a good test of the USB disk! I just hope your
> > power incident doesn't happen to me too.   :-)
> 
> That would suck.  I sure did hate to lose my videos.  I bet AT&T does to
> since I have to go find them and download them again.  :/

I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a 
partition! Never heard anything like it.

All I have to do now is to persuade Win-XP to find the disk. No luck so 
far...

-- 
Rgds
Peter		Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Mick]

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On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 01:53:39 Peter Humphrey wrote:

> I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a
> partition! Never heard anything like it.

Not unheard of.  If you have too small/large bs and the disk is relatively 
large it will take quite some hours to get it transfered bit by bit.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Mick wrote:
> On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 01:53:39 Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
>    
>> I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a
>> partition! Never heard anything like it.
>>      
> Not unheard of.  If you have too small/large bs and the disk is relatively
> large it will take quite some hours to get it transfered bit by bit.
>
>    

How do you know what size bs to use?  I didn't specify one when I did 
mine.  Is there a "auto" option maybe?

Just curious.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Mick]

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On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 09:49:33 Dale wrote:
> Mick wrote:
> > On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 01:53:39 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> >> I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a
> >> partition! Never heard anything like it.
> > 
> > Not unheard of.  If you have too small/large bs and the disk is
> > relatively large it will take quite some hours to get it transfered bit
> > by bit.
> 
> How do you know what size bs to use?  I didn't specify one when I did
> mine.  Is there a "auto" option maybe?
> 
> Just curious.

Sorry I was thinking of using dd to move/clone a partition, which allows you 
to set bs.  Not sure how parted does it - it could potentially default to 
bs=512 for all but the latest large disks, which would make things slower I 
guess.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Joshua Murphy]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 09:49:33 Dale wrote:
>> Mick wrote:
>> > On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 01:53:39 Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> >> I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a
>> >> partition! Never heard anything like it.
>> >
>> > Not unheard of.  If you have too small/large bs and the disk is
>> > relatively large it will take quite some hours to get it transfered bit
>> > by bit.
>>
>> How do you know what size bs to use?  I didn't specify one when I did
>> mine.  Is there a "auto" option maybe?
>>
>> Just curious.
>
> Sorry I was thinking of using dd to move/clone a partition, which allows you
> to set bs.  Not sure how parted does it - it could potentially default to
> bs=512 for all but the latest large disks, which would make things slower I
> guess.
> --
> Regards,
> Mick
>

Well, GParted, if I recall, does a couple checks to guess 'best' block
size when cloning or moving a partition, but I'm really not sure how
it does things when shrinking and shifting it sideways to a spot that
overlaps with where it started... but based on the above, I would
guess it really does do a bs of 512, or ar best, the cluster size of
the file system it is moving (usually 4k), since it's moving the data
stored there, not the whole partition, block for block.

-- 
Poison [BLX]
Joshua M. Murphy

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 31 July 2011 14:15:20 Joshua Murphy wrote:

> Well, GParted, if I recall, does a couple checks to guess 'best' block
> size when cloning or moving a partition, but I'm really not sure how
> it does things when shrinking and shifting it sideways to a spot that
> overlaps with where it started... but based on the above, I would
> guess it really does do a bs of 512, or ar best, the cluster size of
> the file system it is moving (usually 4k), since it's moving the data
> stored there, not the whole partition, block for block.

In fact it did run those tests, and it settled on a value of, I think, 16MB 
blocks. It then ran a read-only test of the entire file system, and only then 
started copying it. As it was moving the partition upwards by about half its 
occupied size, there was considerable overlap. That must mean that it 
started with the highest-numbered block and worked steadily (very!) 
downwards.

I don't know where in the partition it ran its speed tests, but on a 
partition that occupies almost all the physical disk, as it did, there must 
be a considerable speed difference between its two ends.

-- 
Rgds
Peter		Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Joshua Murphy]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Peter Humphrey
<peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> On Sunday 31 July 2011 14:15:20 Joshua Murphy wrote:
>
>> Well, GParted, if I recall, does a couple checks to guess 'best' block
>> size when cloning or moving a partition, but I'm really not sure how
>> it does things when shrinking and shifting it sideways to a spot that
>> overlaps with where it started... but based on the above, I would
>> guess it really does do a bs of 512, or ar best, the cluster size of
>> the file system it is moving (usually 4k), since it's moving the data
>> stored there, not the whole partition, block for block.
>
> In fact it did run those tests, and it settled on a value of, I think, 16MB
> blocks. It then ran a read-only test of the entire file system, and only then
> started copying it. As it was moving the partition upwards by about half its
> occupied size, there was considerable overlap. That must mean that it
> started with the highest-numbered block and worked steadily (very!)
> downwards.
>
> I don't know where in the partition it ran its speed tests, but on a
> partition that occupies almost all the physical disk, as it did, there must
> be a considerable speed difference between its two ends.
>
> --
> Rgds
> Peter           Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23
>
>

There probably is a fair chunk of difference in maximum speed the disk
can work at on each end (I've even seen around a 20MB/s difference on
several 160GB drives I've dealt with), but outside of some older
drives that've been heavily abused in their lives, I'm not sure I've
seen a sata drive that I've used my usual drive test (MHDD on a
Hiren's bootable USB) on register below around 60MB/s on the slow end,
and USB2's *theoretical* limit is 480Mb/s (60MB/s) ... real-world
implementations rarely reach, let alone top, around 40MB/s, so disk
speed variation across the disk is an unlikely source of the slowdown.
More likely, it's the fact that parted has to start from the end, and
work its way backwards, reading, writing, and verifying in separate
rotations of the disk with no benefit from the drive's ability to
stream a larger block into cache, since the whole process is backwards
compared to the streaming read most drives are optimized for. Of
course, this is all off the cuff conjecture on my part, including my
assumptions about how parted approaches the whole task... mixed with a
bit of anecdotal evidence on my end... but, makes for amusing
conversation and contemplation, if nothing more substantial. I will
point out that the newer advanced format WD 500GB blue's I've worked
recently with pulled a consistent 120-110MB/s speed from end to end...
when their older 320s usually peaked at around 85 or so.

-- 
Poison [BLX]
Joshua M. Murphy

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 31 July 2011 15:17:16 Joshua Murphy wrote:

> There probably is a fair chunk of difference in maximum speed the disk
> can work at on each end (I've even seen around a 20MB/s difference on
> several 160GB drives I've dealt with), but outside of some older
> drives that've been heavily abused in their lives, I'm not sure I've
> seen a sata drive that I've used my usual drive test (MHDD on a
> Hiren's bootable USB) on register below around 60MB/s on the slow end,
> and USB2's *theoretical* limit is 480Mb/s (60MB/s) ... real-world
> implementations rarely reach, let alone top, around 40MB/s, so disk
> speed variation across the disk is an unlikely source of the slowdown.

Sounds entirely reasonable, and I wasn't really trying to blame the slowness 
on that variation - just mentioning it in passing.

> More likely, it's the fact that parted has to start from the end, and
> work its way backwards, reading, writing, and verifying in separate
> rotations of the disk with no benefit from the drive's ability to
> stream a larger block into cache, since the whole process is backwards
> compared to the streaming read most drives are optimized for.

Perhaps I'm naive here, but I should have thought an intelligent disk 
copying algorithm would be able to account for that, at least in part. Maybe 
that's why it ran the speed tests at the beginning.

> Of course, this is all off the cuff conjecture on my part, including my
> assumptions about how parted approaches the whole task... mixed with a
> bit of anecdotal evidence on my end... but, makes for amusing
> conversation and contemplation, if nothing more substantial.

Indeed.

> I will point out that the newer advanced format WD 500GB blue's I've
> worked recently with pulled a consistent 120-110MB/s speed from end to
> end... when their older 320s usually peaked at around 85 or so.

Well, I haven't run any proper tests, but watching gkrellm during an 
occasional large transfer I don't remember seeing more than half that lower 
figure. These are two Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB disks in md-raid with LVM-2, 
and I haven't fiddled with any of their settings.

-- 
Rgds
Peter		Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Saturday 30 July 2011 15:50:11 Dale wrote:
>    
>> Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>      
>>> One thing's certain: it's a good test of the USB disk! I just hope your
>>> power incident doesn't happen to me too.   :-)
>>>        
>> That would suck.  I sure did hate to lose my videos.  I bet AT&T does to
>> since I have to go find them and download them again.  :/
>>      
> I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a
> partition! Never heard anything like it.
>
> All I have to do now is to persuade Win-XP to find the disk. No luck so
> far...
>
>    

I'm glad you wasn't in a hurry.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Joshua Murphy]

On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 8:53 PM, Peter Humphrey
<peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 30 July 2011 15:50:11 Dale wrote:
>> Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> > One thing's certain: it's a good test of the USB disk! I just hope your
>> > power incident doesn't happen to me too.   :-)
>>
>> That would suck.  I sure did hate to lose my videos.  I bet AT&T does to
>> since I have to go find them and download them again.  :/
>
> I hope you're pleased to know the process finished. 23 hours to move a
> partition! Never heard anything like it.
>
> All I have to do now is to persuade Win-XP to find the disk. No luck so
> far...
>
> --
> Rgds
> Peter           Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Ouch... that's a case of a read-write-verify with small blocks over
USB showing just how slow USB really is, I think. Parted does things
the safest way it can, and verifies things every step of the way, and
I've even had it take several hours to transition a third or so as
much data on an internal sata disk. Add in the limitations on speed of
a USB bus and... well, 23hrs sounds about right to me...

-- 
Poison [BLX]
Joshua M. Murphy

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Mick]

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On Sunday 31 Jul 2011 01:53:39 Peter Humphrey wrote:

> All I have to do now is to persuade Win-XP to find the disk. No luck so
> far...

I don't know what's your partition topology, but you may want to use:

fixboot (to rewrite the partition boot record on the WinXP partition)
fixmbr (to rewrite the MBR boot code on the disk MBR)

with a MSWindows CD.

If the partition of the WinXP installation is intact then the position of the 
partition on the disk may be causing you trouble, in which case play around 
with the GRUB hide and chainload options to hide other disks/partitions, so 
that WinXP thinks it is the first partition on the first disk.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 31 July 2011 18:20:02 Mick wrote:

> If the partition of the WinXP installation is intact then the position of
> the partition on the disk may be causing you trouble, in which case play
> around with the GRUB hide and chainload options to hide other
> disks/partitions, so that WinXP thinks it is the first partition on the
> first disk.

In fact it is so, by design. I don't know what I did, but after enough 
reboots Win-XP was happy. Thanks anyway.

-- 
Rgds
Peter		Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23

Re: OT: Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
>
> In fact it is so, by design. I don't know what I did, but after enough
> reboots Win-XP was happy. Thanks anyway.
>
>    

That sounds like winders.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Joost Roeleveld]

On Friday, July 29, 2011 02:41:20 PM Dale wrote:
> Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> > To check this, you could try creating a new file (with size = 0) on the
> > root of that drive, like (After you close and save all your work):
> > 
> > touch<mountpoint of drive>/LetMeseeIfThisWorksOrIfTheKernelPanicsAgain
> > 
> > If it doesn't panic, check if that file actually exists.
> > 
> > --
> > Joost
> 
> It worked fine and it was there with 0 bytes.  Weird.

Hmm...

> I sort of gave up on this drive.  I had a very kind soul to send me a
> video card when I did this build. He also sent me a 250Gb drive.  I
> copied all I could to that but did lose a LOT of my videos and such.
> Anyway, I'm doing this right now:
> 
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc
> 
> I figure that will put it back like brand new and very blank.  I'll
> recreate my partition, throw a file system on it and see if it will let
> me copy back to it or not.

It will, is this the dodgy one?
If yes, and this works, then there likely is/was something wrong with the 
filesystem itself that the filecheck tools didn't find.
In this case, a copy would be really usefull for developers to try to find out 
what was actually causing the issue.

> While I am at it, what is the best file system for videos?  That is the
> biggest thing I use that drive for.  I had a LOT of NCIS, CSI and other
> shows that are now gone.  Anyway, what are opinions on a file system for
> videos on a 750Gb drive?  I had reiserfs on it before.

For large filesizes, I tend to use XFS.
For small filesizes (like email and website), I tend to use reiserfs.

Not sure what other options there are.
JFS might also be good for large filesizes, but then you definitely need a 
good and reliable UPS to shut down cleanly. (If I remember it all correctly)

-- 
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] X Freezes With Firefox on Many Post 2.6.38 Kernels

[Dale]

Joost Roeleveld wrote:
> On Friday, July 29, 2011 02:41:20 PM Dale wrote:
>    
>
>> I sort of gave up on this drive.  I had a very kind soul to send me a
>> video card when I did this build. He also sent me a 250Gb drive.  I
>> copied all I could to that but did lose a LOT of my videos and such.
>> Anyway, I'm doing this right now:
>>
>> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc
>>
>> I figure that will put it back like brand new and very blank.  I'll
>> recreate my partition, throw a file system on it and see if it will let
>> me copy back to it or not.
>>      
> It will, is this the dodgy one?
> If yes, and this works, then there likely is/was something wrong with the
> filesystem itself that the filecheck tools didn't find.
> In this case, a copy would be really usefull for developers to try to find out
> what was actually causing the issue.
>
>    

That was the dodgy one.  After dd finished, I created a new file system, 
copied my data back over and it has been working fine ever since.  So, 
it was not the drive itself or at least appears not to be anyway.  It 
doesn't seem to have been the kernel or related either.  Something just 
got messed up on the drive somewhere.  I think we beat the crap out of 
everything else.  ;-)   I do find it odd that it caused a panic like 
this.  If the OS was on it, then I could see it doing that but not just 
a data drive   Should have been a error in messages, dmesg or something 
other than a panic.

>> While I am at it, what is the best file system for videos?  That is the
>> biggest thing I use that drive for.  I had a LOT of NCIS, CSI and other
>> shows that are now gone.  Anyway, what are opinions on a file system for
>> videos on a 750Gb drive?  I had reiserfs on it before.
>>      
> For large filesizes, I tend to use XFS.
> For small filesizes (like email and website), I tend to use reiserfs.
>
> Not sure what other options there are.
> JFS might also be good for large filesizes, but then you definitely need a
> good and reliable UPS to shut down cleanly. (If I remember it all correctly)
>
>    

I used XFS before and I still have a bad taste from it.  You are correct 
on needing a UPS if you use XFS.  The rig I used it on didn't have that 
so it crashed and burned with each power failure hence the bad taste.  :/

I went with ext4 for the file system.  It seems to work OK.  I still got 
my fingers crossed.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-)