4.6.2 early report

Fri Apr 8 07:33:30 BST 2011

On Friday, April 08, 2011 02:08:02 AM Duncan did opine:

> gene heskett posted on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:09:52 -0400 as excerpted:
> > I tried that.  The new user also has no top bar of a window
> > decorations.
> > 
> > Wandering around in ~/.kde4, I found a bunch of what look like junk
> > directories in .kde and .kde4 subdirs of .kde4 and nuked those, but
> > what seems odd is that there are a lot of *rc files in .kde4/share
> > that not even root can look at with less, no error when root tries,
> > just no response.
> 
> That sounds VERY MUCH like filesystem damage, perhaps due to failing
> storage hardware!  What filesystem are you using?
> 
> You mentioned amanda virtual tapes, so I assume you have good backups. 
> If not, be worried.
> 
I do.  I also have smartd watching things, but the only thing its 
consistently spamming the logs  with are tempurature changes. a degree up 
and back down, and those are arbitrary, usually in the 33C range.

>, If you're lucky and it's just the filesystem, not the hardware, a good
> fsck should help.  Some of the data that /was/ in those files may end
> up in lost&found, and the files will likely either be deleted or
> truncated to zero size.

Does touching /.autofsck still work?

> If you fsck and it finds and fixes the damage, try another fsck.  If it
> finds more damage, you're probably losing the disk.  If not, try
> rebooting and another fsck.  If that one too comes up clean, at least
> the disk isn't falling down around your ears, but I'd still keep a very
> close watch on it.
> 
> Normally, *rc files shouldn't be in ~/.kde4/share/ itself.  Rather,
> there's normally quite a few in share/config/, but none in share itself.

share/config, yes, that is where they are, and perhaps I miss-typed.  
Ancient fingers don't always keep up with the thoughts driving them.

> If they're in share itself, something strange is definitely going on.
> Again, it could be filesystem or hardware damage, but from my
> experience, they don't just drop left a directory in the tree in that
> case, but drop to the filesystem root or to to lost&found.  But that
> could be filesystem specific.  (FWIW, my experience is mostly with
> reiserfs, which I've used for years and has, barring disk hardware
> issues, been quite dependable since the data=ordered patch to the
> kernel several years ago now (let's not talk about before that), even
> with the stick of bad memory I had for awhile.  But I had disk hardware
> issues due to an AC going out here in the Phoenix summer a few years
> ago too, resulting in disk overheating and a head crash, thus my
> experience both with chaotic shutdown software filesystem issues before
> data=ordered, and with hardware filesystem issues a bit more recently.)

These were all 'xtgz' files IIRC.

Using ext3/4, probably 4 on the /home partition.  We won't talk about our 
experience with reiserfs, it cost us about $1k to recover a drive with 95% 
of our inhouse news graphics on it, yonks ago now and we swore off it in 
favor of a 4 disk raid once we'ed recovered the graphics.

> In addition to the disks I'd check your power supply.  Perhaps the
> problem is that it doesn't have enough power for the disks, or perhaps
> your incoming power simply isn't good.

gkrellm has been watching that, its holding well at plus 2% of nominal.
And the ups, a 1500wa unit, handles the glitches in the power.

> > And my konsoles are AFU again, foreground & background colors are
> > randomized but matched, so one can't see the output till he does a
> > mouse drag over the output to highlight it.
> > 
> > mc seems to be slowly self destructing too.
> > 
> > I may yet have to re-install on a different drive. :-(
> 
> Given the indications, that may well be a good idea!
> 
> Good luck!  It sounds like you might need a bit, right now!

Better health would be a plus right now.  Despite current on pneumonia 
shots, they are treating me as if I have it. 10 pills, $181 & change. And 
at my age, that can be a scary thought.  I may go get a fresh 64 bit pclos 
cd and put it on /dev/sdb tomorrow.  This is a 32 bit install, but I think 
64 has pretty well caught up these days. I even hear flash can be had in 64 
bit now.

I haven't run memtest86 recently either, and its possible I need to reseat 
the sticks, I have had to do that 2x before. A $300 Asus mobo has crappy 
memory sockets!

Thanks & good night.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
<http://tinyurl.com/ddg5bz>
<http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html>
Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...

To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the
light comes on.
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