Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 (edited) This almost looks as though Ubuntu is trying to mount your hda4 extended as the /swap. However, an ext is not a mountable partition on a drive. It's a combination of the two partitions within it... hda5 and 6. When you were installing the Ubuntu, did you by any chance set hda4 as the /swap by accident?An equally good question! It is a fact that previously, when Ubuntu worked, swap was indeed hda4, acording to the old, installed fstab, before I started editing fstab! That's how I found it when I first 'got in' (having figured out how to mount hda2). Edited October 27, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Cross-post Clutter . . . look above your last post . . . . Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 Cross-post Clutter . . . look above your last post . . . . BrunoLet me recheck more closely, but the fast answer is it appears to be a transcription error on my part. Hand entered from a pen and ink table I copied in front of the monitor. Not actual output. Let me relook at that. I think the two numbers indeed should be the same. Highly suspect I reversed the 3 and the 8 during transcription! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Save yourself the aggravation, Clutter...Format --> Repartiton --> ReinstallSeriously, it would be easier than trying to repair that partition table or that installation of Ubuntu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 If the typo is yours . . . and it is not the "real" output of "fdisk -l", in that case your partition table looks 100% okay and I can see nothing wrong with it.In that case a reinstall on the same partitions should fix it. ( in most cases a kernel panic means re-install, sorry ) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 (edited) Yes, yes- It was a transcription error on my part. The actual line for hda4 reads 3836 4865Sorry. I should have checked. I get in a hurry, especially when I am doing things by stupid, manual methods. I do remember at the time I first viewed the table, there was no overlap and all the numbers with the extended partition did make sense. If the typo is yours . . . and it is not the "real" output of "fdisk -l", in that case your partition table looks 100% okay and I can see nothing wrong with it.In that case a reinstall on the same partitions should fix it. ( in most cases a kernel panic means re-install, sorry ) BrunoHey, no problem! I sure appreciate all the help. No idea here what I might have done to hose that OS, but what the heck? You have to break a few eggs for omelet, eh? So maybe I'll go ahead and install gutsy over root now (the only real question is Gutsy vs. Feisty).Thanks very much for all the help, Bruno and everyone else! I continue to learn something new almost every day. Edited October 27, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Yes, yes- It was a transcription error on my part. The actual line for hda4 readsSorry. I should have checked. I get in a hurry, especially when I am doing things by stupid, manual methods. I do remember at the time I first viewed the table, there was no overlap and all the numbers with the extended partition did make sense. No problem Clutter . . . happens to us all :)Anyway, that makes the partition-table 100% okay . . so that leaves a toasted Ubuntu install. Solution: backup important data ( using the live CD ) and re-install.Note: you only will have to re-format the hda2 partition during the install, not your /home ( hda3 ) . . . . so your data will be saved. Still you should make a backup of important data that lives on hda3 too, just to be sure. Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 (edited) No problem Clutter . . . happens to us all :)Anyway, that makes the partition-table 100% okay . . so that leaves a toasted Ubuntu install. Solution: backup important data ( using the live CD ) and re-install.Note: you only will have to re-format the hda2 partition during the install, not your /home ( hda3 ) . . . . so your data will be saved. Still you should make a backup of important data that lives on hda3 too, just to be sure. BrunoRight, absolutely. I will decline the offer to format my /home partition, and all should go OK. :thumbsup:Oh, BTW I'm sure there are plenty of slick ways to do that backup Linux style, but as an expediency, I'm going to whip out my BootitNG floppy and just image the partition up into my VFAT storage partition. It's quick, it's easy, and most important, I know how to do it and could do it in my sleep (almost) Edited October 27, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Right, absolutely. I will decline the offer to format my /home partition, and all should go OK. Good . . . that leaves me to wish you a successful Gutsy install Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 Good . . . that leaves me to wish you a successful Gutsy install :wacko: BrunoThanks again! Good night. I'll let you know how Gutsy 'feels' on that computer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Good night. Yep, maybe you should get some sleep first . . could be a good idea :thumbsup:LOLB) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 Save yourself the aggravation, Clutter...Format --> Repartiton --> ReinstallSeriously, it would be easier than trying to repair that partition table or that installation of Ubuntu.Hi, Eric-Bruno agreed; you were right. It's all academic now, as I have indeed formatted and reinstalled over the old OS. I had no emotional investment in the old OS. I just saw it as a learning opportunity. But we have now learned most all of we could from the mess, and what we learned is that the OS was toast. Heh!I'm typing this from the Cluttermaster running Feisty. I came real close to installing Gutsy, but saw a couple of things I didn't like. I'll play with Gutsy later. Both OS's were finding my hard drive as supposedly a SATA drive? It labels the partitions sda1, sda2, etc. instead of hda. Strange. Device Manager groups them all under "5513 (IDE)" but then lists them all as SCSI devices, but then labels them as if they were SATA. It found the Zip250 just fine from live CD session, then can't fully describe it, once installed. But it at least sees it. Probably those stupid jumpers on the drive still aren't right! I may even have to look at the HD jumpering- do I have it set as C/S or master? I don't remember. I've got my work cut out for me. I'm almost tempted to go back to Dapper. Oh, BTW the grub boot menu works fine, and sees 98SE. Also, my /home partition saved just fine, so up came my penguin desktop and all saved settings when Feisty first booted. Yeah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Ah ... the hda>sda shuffle again... that's libATA in action, nowadays used with the most distros. Now better watch it Clutter, it doesn't know anything about hdx, only sdx partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 (edited) Ah ... the hda>sda shuffle again... that's libATA in action, nowadays used with the most distros. Now better watch it Clutter, it doesn't know anything about hdx, only sdx partitions. Is it harmless? My distro seems to work so far- 'sort of'. :whistling:That's wierd, because my other computer with Feisty reports the drives as hda, etc. Edited October 27, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Is it harmless? My distro seems to work so far- 'sort of'harmless, yes. That's wierd, because my other computer with Feisty reports the drives as hda, etc.Probably another kernel used without the libATA business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 Thanks, striker-I'll make note of what kernels are being used in the two feistys. Perhaps there is a difference. I know Eric disliked the libATA stuff so much he took to compiling his own distros. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ross549 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Is it harmless? My distro seems to work so far- 'sort of'. :whistling:That's wierd, because my other computer with Feisty reports the drives as hda, etc. Yes it is harmless, unless you have more than 16 partitions on your hard drive, which i do not think is an issue for you.... :whistling:Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 (edited) Thanks, Adam-Nope, I run smaller drives, and rarely carve them up much beyond 4-5 partitions.The drive in the Cluttermaster right now is only a 40G. Really just enough for 98SE plus one Linux distro. Edited October 27, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 The drive in the Cluttermaster right now is only a 40G. Really just enough for 98SE plus one Linux distro.C'mon... I ran Breezy (and then Dapper) on a PIII with a 10GB HD. Even though I installed pretty much everything in sight, I still had a couple of Gigs of "latitude". Of course, one fine day the disk decided to self-destruct... so I got me a 20GB-ersatz... man, that's HUGE! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Yup. LibATA is no problem for folks with less than 15 partitions on any drive on their system. For folks like me with numerous large drives, partitions are a necessity to efficiently utilize space. My Linux drive has 18 partitions, so I don't deal will with the libATA SCSI partition limit of 15. Fortunately, only one distro on my system used libATA drivers on the stock kernel (Zenwalk). I fixed that one, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Note to Clutter: ( just to complicate things a little )You will see the mention of sda in the /etc/fstab and the partitioner . . . . but Grub will still see the drives as hda ( because at that moment the kernel is not yet loaded . . . . and you can not fool a decent bootloader ) . . . so do not get confused and do not panic when you pull up the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and see it uses "hda" and not "sda" BrunoPS: If you now want to adapt you /etc/fstab to include the Win partitions . . . let me know and we will give you a hand . . step by step . . . without creating a new mess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 28, 2007 Author Share Posted October 28, 2007 (edited) C'mon... I ran Breezy (and then Dapper) on a PIII with a 10GB HD. Even though I installed pretty much everything in sight, I still had a couple of Gigs of "latitude". Of course, one fine day the disk decided to self-destruct... so I got me a 20GB-ersatz... man, that's HUGE! I've run Dapper on a 4.3G drive (all in 1 partition). But that's a little too tight for me, not much room for expansion. Used up ~2.7G starting out (fully loaded to my preferred configuration, some helper software). But it works just fine. No room for OS images, just for example.BTW, in retrospect, If I'd had an image of that Dapper OS stashed away in anotherpartition, I bet I'd still be running Dapper on the Cluttermaster. FWIW. But I need to move on and try Gutsy now, anyway. Edited October 30, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 28, 2007 Author Share Posted October 28, 2007 (edited) Note to Clutter: ( just to complicate things a little )You will see the mention of sda in the /etc/fstab and the partitioner . . . . but Grub will still see the drives as hda ( because at that moment the kernel is not yet loaded . . . . and you can not fool a decent bootloader ) . . . so do not get confused and do not panic when you pull up the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and see it uses "hda" and not "sda" BrunoPS: If you now want to adapt you /etc/fstab to include the Win partitions . . . let me know and we will give you a hand . . step by step . . . without creating a new mess I didn't really give Gutsy a fair try before loading Feisty last night. I saw two potential problems- the libATA thing, sda/hda, which I had never personally seen before. The other thing, Gutsy throws up and hangs, loading a live CD session, apparently because of my nVidia FX5200 card(?) It loads fine in safe video mode. So at the time, I decided to drop back to Feisty, which I at least know.I think I may just go ahead and load Gutsy over Feisty in the Cluttermaster. I already have one copy of Feisty on another P4 box. BTW Feisty did, somehow, set up lines in fstab autmagically, for hda1 and hda6, my 98SE and vfat share partitions. It boots up with both mounted. Go figure. Heh! Let's see what Gutsy does. I'll get back to it early next week and then report back on these issues. Edited October 28, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 I'll get back to it early next week and then report back on these issues. Great !! . . . . Anyway, before changing fstab next time give us a shout Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted October 28, 2007 Author Share Posted October 28, 2007 Great !! . . . . Anyway, before changing fstab next time give us a shout BrunoYep, you bet! I will, and thanks, Bruno. BTW, FWIW, It was already long since broken before I started fiddling with fstab. Heh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 and you didn't tell us ? I think it happened to all of us in the past and maybe even more than once ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 3, 2007 Author Share Posted November 3, 2007 (edited) My P4 1.6GHz box with Dapper on it has been freezing recently- no doubt due to my having tried a couple of the stock Ubuntu screen savers. I've now set the screensaver for "blank screen" (all black) for now. If it keeps acting up, I will just disable screensavers altogether, once again.I just wanted to comment, however, that I finally got to see Bruno's 'RSEIUB' tip ("Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring") actually work. It failed to work for me a couple of times in the past. I think I wasn't allowing enough time for each step to be carried out. The HD activity light did ocasionally flash a little after each key combination, and that helped to guess when it wasn't busy. When I hit that last combination, ALT + SysReq + B, the HD light lit up solid bright and the computer rebooted. So the trick does really work. (Thanks, Bruno) :thumbsup:I'm just wondering, why THIS IS THE VERY LAST SAVE YOUR BUTT PROCEDURE ! ONLY IF ALL ELSE FAILS ! What is the downside of killing off processes and rebooting in this manner?Also, if it is a last resort, why is it preferable to just hitting the Reset button. That's supposed to be real bad on Linux systems. Also, why is it bad to just press and hold the Power button? Compared to these two last ditch actions, 'RSEIUB' isn't nearly as bad, right? Edited November 3, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 3, 2007 Share Posted November 3, 2007 Oh . . for sure using the skinny elephants is much much better then the reset button ( or power-button )The difference is that with the reset button you corrupt the filesystem and it will have to recover either from the journal or with fsck. This always means damage, even if with the recovering of the journal the damage is only light.With the skinny elephants ( if you give it time ) you first sync the disk, kill all processes, remount file-systems read only ( so they can not get damaged ) and only then reboot the system.In case of a crash however, the first thing I try is pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 . . . and if that changes the screen to a text-terminal with a login I log in as root and type "reboot" ( or in case of Ubuntu you log in as user and type "sudo reboot" ) . . . this is the absolute safest way and your very first rescue attempt . . However if that fails, you can try the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart the Xserver and see if that helps ( it usually is the GUI that crashes, not the program itsself ) . . . and if even that fails ( "if all else fails" ) the Skinny Elephants come in. Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted November 3, 2007 Author Share Posted November 3, 2007 (edited) In case of a crash however, the first thing I try is pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 . . . and if that changes the screen to a text-terminal with a login I log in as root and type "reboot" ( or in case of Ubuntu you log in as user and type "sudo reboot" ) . . . this is the absolute safest way and your very first rescue attempt . . However if that fails, you can try the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart the Xserver and see if that helps ( it usually is the GUI that crashes, not the program itsself ) . . . and if even that fails ( "if all else fails" ) the Skinny Elephants come in. BrunoGreat! Thanks, Bruno. I have not yet ever seen 'restarting the Xserver' work for me. I will remember CTRL + ALT + F2 and then trying sudo reboot That sounds like the missing information I was looking for, then. I'll try that next time before 'Skinny Elephants'. :thumbsup:Oh BTW you say I log in as user. So I'm assuming you mean that the text terminal (if it does pop up) is going to present me with an obvious prompt for ID and password, right? In the past I have seen Terminal prompts for password at times (related to software download/ installation), but not, so far, for my ID. If I get as far as the Terminal, I guess it will be pretty obvious what it wants...As I learn more about Linux OS's, I am 'reforming' my sloppy practices from the Windows era. I have used a hard Reset or holding in the Power switch many times over the years (in Windows 98). And I have to admit that I did that a few times with Ubuntu installs. Oops! Well, here's the thing- in my 3 P4 boxes that I have Ubuntu on, including Cluttermaster 2007, it so happens that I have ATI video cards in 2 of them. I have seen both ATI boxes act a little squirrelly at times, both with screensavers and when running certain live CD distros 'live'. There have been a few occasions where I felt 'forced' to do the 'forced reboot' thing. Oops! Well, now I know some better ways.It helps a lot that I have finally developed a feel for how Skinny Elephants works, a sense of the timing involved. That was not intuitively obvious to me at first, and my first few attempts did not work in the past. You might want to consider making your writeup comments about Skinny Elephants in bold face when you mention about waiting between keystrokes. Really, it is not all that obvious whether or not it is having any effect on a frozen OS. The HD light gives only a poor indication of whether anything is happening, and whether or not it is OK to go on to the next step.So looking back at my Cluttermaster adventure last week, where I had to reinstall over a trashed OS, I have to wonder- was it the overly aggressive re-partitioning I did all around my root and home partitions, or was it my sad history of 'hard reboots' finally catching up with me? Heh! I never laid a hand on those root and home partitions when I redid the others. I guess I'll never know for sure. BTW I also have yet 2 more P4 boxes that have nVidia cards, and only 98SE on them so far. I'm going to be putting Ethernet PCI cards in both of them and setting them up to dual boot 98SE + some Linux OS's. After a while, I will form an impression of whether these other 2 nVidia boxes are better behaved under Linux than the 2 ATI's I am running right now.Meanwhie, I've added 3 new tools to my personal Linux knowledge, so hopefully the 'hard reboots' will become much less frequent events. Edited November 3, 2007 by Cluttermagnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted November 3, 2007 Share Posted November 3, 2007 Oh BTW you say I log in as user. So I'm assuming you mean that the text terminal (if it does pop up) is going to present me with an obvious prompt for ID and password, right? In the past I have seen Terminal prompts for password at times (related to software download/ installation), but not, so far, for my ID. If I get as far as the Terminal, I guess it will be pretty obvious what it wants... Just try it Clutter . . . . you have 7 tty's . . . F1, F2 up to F7 . . . . X runs on Alt+F7 . . . . you can use the other 6 for dirty terminal work . . . press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and start a command that takes a long time . . . then do Ctrl+Alt+F2 and you can log in again and do another job . . . or you can return to Alt+F7 to see your X desktop . . . . and then go back to Ctrl+Alt+F1 to see if the job is finished.See what I mean . . get the picture ???So . . . when tty7 is crashed you go to one of the other 6 tty's ( does not have to be F2 . . can be any of them ) . . . and log in to give the reboot command . . . simple and effective. Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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