The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

[MoodyBlues]

i got the entire disk devoted to root. or /. there is no swap space

This isn't good. For many reasons, not the least of which is that by not having separate partitions, you're unable to upgrade in the manner I described earlier.

as i got 4GB of RAM. i never run out of RAM

Having dedicated swap space is a very good idea, regardless of how much RAM you have.

and while it is running it works well. great, in fact. it is specifically how it tries unmounting the system when shut down. or some feature say maybe APM is preventing auto-fsck to work correctly. i found workarounds but no real fixes. nothing else is wrong with it.

could having the file system set to Ext2 vs Ext4 be a problem? honestly i have never noticed a single difference one way or the other in terms of stability or performance

Personally, I've run into problems when using ext4, so I'm still using ext3 on all my computers. As usual, YMMV.

for the record, this bug happens on both laptops. one running Kubuntu, (just got done installing it at home), and my STO computer running Ubuntu w/ Kubutu-desktop. both have auto-fsck failures. both won't unmount the root file system properly on shutdown. so the issue is not with one computer. i installed via two different disks too. when i view the kernel output on shutdown (i prefer verbose, it's fun watching it scroll on the screen) it never even mentions unmounting filesystems. not once. it does have a 'fail' flag on some kernel msg daemon but that is it

both have SATA hard drives, perhaps i got them configured for IDE or something?

I don't know. But I do know that if I were you, even though it would be a hassle given how your drive ISN'T partitioned, I'd take the plunge and do a clean reinstall, this time making sure I did it the preferred way. Back up everything important, then wipe the drive and do a clean reinstall, that's what I'd do!

 

[nickdalzell]

i am NOT wiping it clean. it would take FOREVER to get it back the way i had it. and all for a little bug regarding the fsck itself, not worth it. as i said when i am using the system it is perfectly stable and works just fine. i can live with a boot-time glitch....

as i said once before it happened out of box. possibly something about my laptop it does not properly support. i've dealt with much worse in my older days using Linux (some computers only ran in VESA mode, others would not even load X) so i am able to take some glitches. i don't use swap space because i don't like wearing my hard disk out if it starts using hard disk for swap memory (which almost always sends a hard disk a chattering). i got plenty of RAM and never run out, and swap space was always recommended for low-RAM computers. i suppose i could have made a separate root and home but it seemed redundant. i could alway resize and move it but really, all for an fsck glitch which is present on TWO computers, both of them laptops?

for the record, weren't you the one who was telling me that i could not do anything to Linux to make it unfixable without reinstalling?

i DO know i can resize the partitions w/ a rescue disk or live CD and make a swap partition and possibly a new /Home and move my stuff there and just tell fstab or whatever where it is.

 

[mikedt]

i am NOT wiping it clean. it would take FOREVER to get it back the way i had it. and all for a little bug regarding the fsck itself, not worth it. as i said when i am using the system it is perfectly stable and works just fine. i can live with a boot-time glitch....

as i said once before it happened out of box. possibly something about my laptop it does not properly support. i've dealt with much worse in my older days using Linux (some computers only ran in VESA mode, others would not even load X)

Isn't that about 10-15 years ago? Or you didn't install the appropriate graphics driver? Windows does the same if it doesn't have the correct driver. These days with something like Ubuntu, you just tick "Use proprietary drivers", and that's it graphics will work properly.

so i am able to take some glitches. i don't use swap space because i don't like wearing my hard disk out if it starts using hard disk for swap memory (which almost always sends a hard disk a chattering).

I've only ever had that with Windows, especially Vista. Like it loves to chatter the HDD for no apparent reason. Very often Windows is busy with unknown HDD activity.

i got plenty of RAM and never run out,

Yes, and the Titanic was "unsinkable". How do you know you'll never run out?

and swap space was always recommended for low-RAM computers. i suppose i could have made a separate root and home but it seemed redundant. i could alway resize and move it but really, all for an fsck glitch which is present on TWO computers, both of them laptops?

Do you run Windows without a swap file?

 

[nickdalzell]

Actually it was when you had to build X yourself. download every 'tarball' and in those days given my limited hardware (Trident SVGA card and a 486 w/ 8MB RAM) i was only able to get X to fire up with standard 16-color VGA, and even then it was a lesson of pure luck. often i got 'fatal error no screens found' no matter what. ended up having to upgrade the video card to get it to work in ugly 16-color 640x480

yes, the hard disk used to chatter if used for swap memory on a copy of Puppy Linux as well as VectorLinux 6.x. again, on limited memory systems (this time a PIII 650 w/ 256MB RAM) and i'd pull up top on the terminal and as soon as the swap memory got 25% or more used up, the hard disk was going all over the place, and it slowed the system down. this was only happening while viewing flash video on Youtube too.

My computer has 4GB of RAM. given Linux's superior memory management, and lack of memory leaks (although there is one in Firefox which i close out when i am done browsing the web to avoid it) there is little to no chance of running out of RAM. i can be playing STO and Youtube at once without a single slowdown or error

Yes, i ran Windows without swap if i had 3GB or more of RAM. even Windows 8. Swap memory slows the system down and almost always kicks in when i still got plenty of physical RAM remaining. it causes undue wear on hard drives.

 

[MoodyBlues]

i am NOT wiping it clean. it would take FOREVER to get it back the way i had it. and all for a little bug regarding the fsck itself, not worth it. as i said when i am using the system it is perfectly stable and works just fine. i can live with a boot-time glitch....

To each their own. Personally, I'd just re-do it now, before I've spent months or years adding stuff, and be happy I ended up with a correctly partitioned disk AND [most likely] got rid of whatever the problem(s) may have been.

i don't use swap space because i don't like wearing my hard disk out if it starts using hard disk for swap memory (which almost always sends a hard disk a chattering).

Really? Not in my world. In fact I can't recall the last time I saw/heard a hard disk chattering...oh, yes, I can--it was on my mom's windows box...the one I wiped and put Kubuntu on...and it's never done that again!

i got plenty of RAM and never run out

May I borrow your crystal ball? Please?

When I allocated swap space on this laptop, I had no idea I'd be working with multi-hundred MB image files [in the GIMP], but I am, and I sure am glad there's plenty of swap space available if/when needed.

and swap space was always recommended for low-RAM computers.

It's good practice, period.

i suppose i could have made a separate root and home but it seemed redundant.

Because you aren't understanding and/or you aren't familiar enough with *nix file systems to see WHY it's the preferred method. There's nothing redundant about it. What it does is keep the OS separate from user files and data; this is a very good thing! As I've said it allows you to reinstall/upgrade the OS, including formatting the root partition, without losing anything, such as your desktop settings or spreadsheets or pictures.

i could alway resize and move it but really, all for an fsck glitch which is present on TWO computers, both of them laptops?

I have no idea. Right now I can't recall ever seeing this particular issue, let alone on two computers simultaneously.

for the record, weren't you the one who was telling me that i could not do anything to Linux to make it unfixable without reinstalling?

Kindly quote where I've contradicted that, okay?

i DO know i can resize the partitions w/ a rescue disk or live CD and make a swap partition and possibly a new /Home and move my stuff there and just tell fstab or whatever where it is.

Again, to each their own. I'd do it the other way around, but that's me.

 

[Speed Daemon]

It's good practice, period.

Not only a good practice. In many cases a paging file or partition is necessary for the OS to work properly. It's mandatory as far as I'm concerned. I'm a firm believer in presuming that those who design OS virtual memory subsystems know more than I do on the topic, so when they say "always have a 'swap' partition", I don't try to second guess them.

 

[Dngrsone]

Not only a good practice. In many cases a paging file or partition is necessary for the OS to work properly. It's mandatory as far as I'm concerned. I'm a firm believer in presuming that those who design OS virtual memory subsystems know more than I do on the topic, so when they say "always have a 'swap' partition", I don't try to second guess them.

I know for a fact that Windows up to XP absolutely needs swap. Ubuntu apparently does not, however, if you hibernate, it pushes the contents of RAM to swap, as I recall.

With the size of hard drives nowadays, devoting a small piece the size of your RAM is not that big a deal.

... though it would be nice to have a drive partitioning system that did not limit one to only four primary partitions-- that's downright archaic.

 

[Speed Daemon]

I know for a fact that Windows up to XP absolutely needs swap. Ubuntu apparently does not, however, if you hibernate, it pushes the contents of RAM to swap, as I recall.

Hibernation is a completely different topic. But you're correct, Windows absolutely needs a pagefile, and will not run without one. But just because Linux will run for a while without one doesn't mean that having no 'swap' partition can't possibly be why a malfunctioning Linux system is having problems.

With the size of hard drives nowadays, devoting a small piece the size of your RAM is not that big a deal.

Yep. If you have a small SSD, like my eeePC with 1 GiB of RAM and 4GiB of onboard storage like I do, that's a reasonable exception. But if you have a recent PC with a terabyte HD, it's a small price to pay for stability.

... though it would be nice to have a drive partitioning system that did not limit one to only four primary partitions-- that's downright archaic.

The Linux kernel has supported UUID/GUID partition tables for a while now. And software like gdisk allows Linux users to create and modify them.

 

[Dngrsone]

The Linux kernel has supported UUID/GUID partition tables for a while now. And software like gdisk allows Linux users to create and modify them.

Hrm... can Windows handle that? I dual-boot so I can work with my phone...

 

[Speed Daemon]

According to the web page that I linked to, Windows needs a UEFI motherboard in order to take full advantage of GPT partitions.

 

[Dngrsone]

According to the web page that I linked to, Windows needs a UEFI motherboard in order to take full advantage of GPT partitions.

Huh. Guess that means I won't be changing things on my laptop.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Huh. Guess that means I won't be changing things on my laptop.

You're in good company. UEFI has been way too slow in coming.

 

[nickdalzell]

BTW despite this laptop having the same fsck glitch as the Toshiba i did a list of partitions and this one DOES have swap. at least 4.3GiB of it. and it has the same bug

it also has this weird bug where it always forgets my wifi password if i disconnect and reconnect, as well as the gmail plasmoid telling me it has an empty account password. the other computer does not have that bug. but as i said, nothing about me and Linux has been bug free. there always tends to be some random glitch somewhere

 

[Dngrsone]

BTW despite this laptop having the same fsck glitch as the Toshiba i did a list of partitions and this one DOES have swap. at least 4.3GiB of it. and it has the same bug

it also has this weird bug where it always forgets my wifi password if i disconnect and reconnect, as well as the gmail plasmoid telling me it has an empty account password. the other computer does not have that bug. but as i said, nothing about me and Linux has been bug free. there always tends to be some random glitch somewhere

That sounds like a permissions issue-- make sure your user name is authorized write privileges for the wifi and gmail thing.

 

[nickdalzell]

why wouldn't i have that out of box? i shouldn't have to sudo to do that? it does keep popping up an annoying 'kdewallet' prompt, but even entering my password there it still forgets. if it is an open unsecured network works fine. but if it has WPA/PSK it will forget both the network and password.

another weird glitch. it took a total of 24 hours AFTER i installed flash player before Firefox got the message

 

[MoodyBlues]

another weird glitch. it took a total of 24 hours AFTER i installed flash player before Firefox got the message

How on earth did you install it? I've never seen it take more than, oh, 3 seconds! However long it takes after placing its file in the correct directory and restarting my browser.

 

[nickdalzell]

oddest glitch i have seen honestly. i installed it via the software centre. then while i was in a terminal tonight (one day later) doing an install of wine, only THEN did it finally get the message and installed flash plugin, and then Firefox could use Youtube or other Flash deals like Facebook games

 

[MoodyBlues]

oddest glitch i have seen honestly. i installed it via the software centre. then while i was in a terminal tonight (one day later) doing an install of wine, only THEN did it finally get the message and installed flash plugin, and then Firefox could use Youtube or other Flash deals like Facebook games

Okay, so its installation stopped for some unknown reason. I've never installed Flash via the software center, I always do it the old-fashioned way, and it works instantly [after restarting the browser].

 

[nickdalzell]

that's just it---i never restarted Firefox either. it just started working. i did try the sudo apt-get method but did not know the exact package name

 

[MoodyBlues]

i did try the sudo apt-get method but did not know the exact package name

I've always downloaded the tar ball from Adobe and installed it manually.

 

[nickdalzell]

that would have been my last resort had nothing else worked

 

[palmtree5]

So, I've been reading the other posts in this thread and seeing a lot of stuff about how the hard drive should be partitioned. I got to thinking that maybe I'm missing something.

Here's the partition scheme:

[HIGH]
/dev/sda1: Windows boot partition, 350 MB
/dev/sda2: Windows system partition, 192.75 GB
/dev/sda3: Archlinux, 105 GB
[/HIGH]

The drive is 320 GB. Should I attempt to repartition to create swap space and get my home directory onto its own partition? I have 4 GB of RAM and haven't had problems so far

 

[nickdalzell]

this is what i found on how to move your /home from any partition to another. it's not a hard thing to do if that is your way...and does not require reinstalling your OS to work:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving

for swap space it's just a simple matter of resizing any partition and using the difference in space to make a new swap partition. this can easily be done in Gparted

 

[Frisco]

I found that creating swap at the end or beginning of the partition order, rather than between any other two partitions, made things a bit faster. It has been noticeable, no matter the distro.

 

[Speed Daemon]

So, I've been reading the other posts in this thread and seeing a lot of stuff about how the hard drive should be partitioned. I got to thinking that maybe I'm missing something.

Here's the partition scheme:

[HIGH]
/dev/sda1: Windows boot partition, 350 MB
/dev/sda2: Windows system partition, 192.75 GB
/dev/sda3: Archlinux, 105 GB
[/HIGH]The drive is 320 GB. Should I attempt to repartition to create swap space and get my home directory onto its own partition? I have 4 GB of RAM and haven't had problems so far

Does it actually say that? Because in MS-speak, the partition that contains the boot files is called the system partition, and the partition with the system files is called the boot partition.

I'd shrink /dev/sda2 and/or /dev/sda3 (and move if necessary) to create space for a type 82 /dev/sda4 partition for swap. You don't need a separate /home partition, but you'll need to be careful and back up before installing a version update.