Prev: techradar says win7 has killed the linux desktop
Next: Throw out my parallel port flatbed scanner?
From: Ohmster on 25 Jun 2010 11:29
I have a home server with Fedora 12 on it. Old hardware:
Pentium III, 800Mhz Coppermine,
1.5Gb SDRAM
GeForce 6800
400Gb IDE hard drive
FQDN on Comcast cable Internet

It really works great as a server and my desktop is gnome and I like it a
lot. I installed compiz-fusion as one of my first tweaks, loved it,
worked great, everything rocked. I did the updates as they came along and
by maybe the 3rd update, compiz was now broken and I have not been able
to remove or repair it ever since. The desktop has gone from a usable and
very useful tool to a curiosity that is unusable.

glxgrears is running great in a term window now, 2390 frames in 5.0
seconds =477.977 FPS. Anything I do that uses compiz will lock up the
computer for about 10-20 seconds until it "recovers" and is then useless
but working again. Spin the cube, drag a window, anything and I see the
"CPU Fire" applet on the taskbar freeze and I know it is game over. I can
"term in" with putty from my Win7 box and run top to see what is going on
when this happens. Here is a snapshot of the top 4 lines in top during a
freeze by attempting to spin the desktop cube.


1725 root 20 0 86988 26m 10m R 39.9 1.8 3:01.98 X
1942 ohmster 20 0 68028 30m 7412 R 30.0 2.0 3:01.09 compiz
2439 ohmster 20 0 36624 7972 2360 R 28.4 0.5 5:31.43 glxgears
2623 ohmster 20 0 2564 1120 828 R 1.3 0.1 0:00.28 top

Word wrap is terrible, I am sorry.

CPU% Process
39.9 X
30.0 compiz
28.4 glxgears

I was going to show top with only glxgears now with system lock, but when
I tried to move cube, computer is now locked up for good. A hard reset is
all that will work now. Yep, my putty term window is frozen as well.
....you get the idea. The desktop is now useless and has been since a
month after I installed Fedora 12.

No one knows how to fix this, nothingI have tried works. The forums for
compiz, fedora, yield no answers, and the best reply I got was "Send a
bug report to Fedora". I tried and if something is not quite right about
the report, you cannot send it. I just did a "sudo yum update" and
everything updated, must be 200 updates including the kernel, kmod-
nvidia, and Xorg, I think. Still my desktop is broken.

I now have the Fedora 13 DVD, will an upgrade install fix this? If so,
will it just break again at my first system update? I dread a clean
install as all of my servers, httpd.conf, FTP, alias, mail settings,
dovecot, etc. will all have to be done over again. What is the best way
out of this? Can or should I just shitcan compiz as not ready for prime
time and give it up? How can I get rid of it? I tried to uninstall it
with yum and thought I was successful but the problem remains and compiz
is still here.

Sorry for the "wordy" post. Please help.
--
~Ohmster | ohmster59 /a/t/ gmail dot com
Put "messageforohmster" in message body
(That is Message Body, not Subject!)
to pass my spam filter.
From: Aragorn on 25 Jun 2010 15:09
On Friday 25 June 2010 17:29 in alt.os.linux, somebody identifying as
Ohmster wrote...

> I have a home server with Fedora 12 on it. Old hardware:
> Pentium III, 800Mhz Coppermine,
> 1.5Gb SDRAM
> GeForce 6800
> 400Gb IDE hard drive
> FQDN on Comcast cable Internet

Technically, although it may be /old/ in terms of how fast everything
evolves, if the hardware doesn't have any flaws, then I don't see why
you wouldn't hold on to it. After all, most x86-32 GNU/Linux
distributions I know of will run more than happily on such hardware. I
can't think of any that wouldn't, actually. ;-)

> It really works great as a server and my desktop is gnome and I like
> it a lot.

Just for the record, it is generally advised not to run X11 if you
intend to use the machine as a server, the exception being an LTSP
server of course.

> I installed compiz-fusion as one of my first tweaks, loved
> it, worked great, everything rocked. I did the updates as they came
> along and by maybe the 3rd update, compiz was now broken and I have
> not been able to remove or repair it ever since. The desktop has gone
> from a usable and very useful tool to a curiosity that is unusable.

Hmm... Are you sure that it's Compiz that's broken? My bet would be on
another component - see farther down.

> glxgrears is running great in a term window now, 2390 frames in 5.0
> seconds =477.977 FPS. Anything I do that uses compiz will lock up the
> computer for about 10-20 seconds until it "recovers" and is then
> useless but working again.

Please define "useless but working again"...? If it's useless, then it
cannot be "working again", can it?

> Spin the cube, drag a window, anything and I see the "CPU Fire" applet
> on the taskbar freeze and I know it is game over. I can "term in" with
> putty from my Win7 box and run top to see what is going on when this
> happens.

Which means that the system itself hasn't frozen, albeit that your X11
session may have. And there could be many reasons for that, but,
again, see farther down.

> Here is a snapshot of the top 4 lines in top during a freeze by
> attempting to spin the desktop cube.
>
> 1725 root 20 0 86988 26m 10m R 39.9 1.8 3:01.98 X
> 1942 ohmster 20 0 68028 30m 7412 R 30.0 2.0 3:01.09 compiz
> 2439 ohmster 20 0 36624 7972 2360 R 28.4 0.5 5:31.43 glxgears
> 2623 ohmster 20 0 2564 1120 828 R 1.3 0.1 0:00.28 top
>
> Word wrap is terrible, I am sorry.
>
> CPU% Process
> 39.9 X
> 30.0 compiz
> 28.4 glxgears

Those are high percentages of CPU time, but not abnormally high.

> I was going to show top with only glxgears now with system lock, but
> when I tried to move cube, computer is now locked up for good. A hard
> reset is all that will work now. Yep, my putty term window is frozen
> as well. ...you get the idea.

Always attempt to use the "magic SysRq keys" before pressing the reset
button if you have access to the machine's local console. Userspace
may be locked up, but System Requests are sent straight to the kernel,
and so you may still be able to shut down the machine cleanly.

> The desktop is now useless and has been since a month after I
> installed Fedora 12.
>
> No one knows how to fix this, nothingI have tried works. The forums
> for compiz, fedora, yield no answers, and the best reply I got was
> "Send a bug report to Fedora". I tried and if something is not quite
> right about the report, you cannot send it. I just did a "sudo yum
> update" and everything updated, must be 200 updates including the
> kernel, kmod- nvidia, and Xorg, I think. Still my desktop is broken.

That may be the result of the unclean shutdown. Sometimes this leaves
certain configuration files in an incoherent state, even if you have a
journaled filesystem.

I presume you're using ext3 as the filesystem type on this machine -
given that Fedora does not allow you to use any of the other
filesystems - and ext3 has both data and metadata journaling, but the
data journaling is disabled by default. This means that in the event
of an unclean shutdown, the metadata journal will be played back, but
there is still a chance that the crash happened in the middle of a
non-atomic write and that the data itself has gotten corrupted.

> I now have the Fedora 13 DVD, will an upgrade install fix this?

I don't really know, because I always prefer doing a clean install
myself.

> If so, will it just break again at my first system update?

This is always possible, albeit that I don't think this would be the
case. I'm also a faithful believer in "If it isn't broken, don't try
to fix it". Some updates may contain bugfixes and security patches
which you might need, but you surely don't need any fixes for software
you never use. Also bear in mind that updates and upgrades often fix
known bugs by replacing them with unknown ones. ;-)

> I dread a clean install as all of my servers, httpd.conf, FTP, alias,
> mail settings, dovecot, etc. will all have to be done over again.

Not if you back them up. And if you have an FTP repository, then having
that on a separate partition allows you to save it across
reinstallations, as you don't have to format that partition if you
don't want to.

> What is the best way out of this?

I would recommend backing up all your important data - which you should
always do anyway - and doing a fresh install with Fedora 13.

> Can or should I just shitcan compiz as not ready for prime time and
> give it up?

Compiz *is* ready for prime time. The problem however may be (and
usually is) the proprietary video driver. I strongly suspect that to
be the case.

> How can I get rid of it? I tried to uninstall it with yum and thought
> I was successful but the problem remains and compiz is still here.

Probably because something else relied upon it, according to your RPM
database. I don't use Fedora myself, but you should check the "man
page" on "yum" for options on how to check for dependencies.

> Sorry for the "wordy" post. Please help.

For what it's worth... ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
From: John Hasler on 25 Jun 2010 16:06
Aragorn writes:
> Just for the record, it is generally advised not to run X11 if you
> intend to use the machine as a server, the exception being an LTSP
> server of course.

No need for an xserver their either: just xlib.
--
John Hasler
jhasler(a)newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA
From: Ohmster on 25 Jun 2010 20:09
John Hasler <jhasler(a)newsguy.com> wrote in
news:87bpayvpv6.fsf(a)thumper.dhh.gt.org:

>> Just for the record, it is generally advised not to run X11 if you
>> intend to use the machine as a server, the exception being an LTSP
>> server of course.
>
> No need for an xserver their either: just xlib.

Have to explain what this computer is for, then you will understand. Answer
in long reply above. Short answer is this is my server/desktop/hobby/study
and learning computer. The servers are are real with real domain names but
since it is on a cablemodem IP address, I get blocked from mail servers and
many browsers like IE will turn the address bar red because they say there
is something wrong with the security cert on the site.

--
~Ohmster | ohmster59 /a/t/ gmail dot com
Put "messageforohmster" in message body
(That is Message Body, not Subject!)
to pass my spam filter.
From: Aragorn on 26 Jun 2010 01:44
On Saturday 26 June 2010 06:11 in alt.os.linux, somebody identifying as
Ohmster wrote...

> (Off topic, but is there anyway to pause the top screen so I can
> examine or capture it then allow it to resume again?)

Not for an actual undetermined pause length, but you can change the
refresh rate of the output using "d" or "s". Another useful feature is
that you can use it in non-interactive batch mode - see the man page -
which allows you to redirect the output to a file.

>>> I was going to show top with only glxgears now with system lock, but
>>> when I tried to move cube, computer is now locked up for good. A
>>> hard reset is all that will work now. Yep, my putty term window is
>>> frozen as well. ...you get the idea.
>>
>> Always attempt to use the "magic SysRq keys" before pressing the
>> reset button if you have access to the machine's local console.
>> Userspace may be locked up, but System Requests are sent straight to
>> the kernel, and so you may still be able to shut down the machine
>> cleanly.
>
> What is "magic SysRq keys"? You mean Alt-Ctl-Delete or
> Alt-Ctl-Backspace? They have no effect at all.

No, those are userspace-interpreted key combinations, both of which
should "log you out of X" - the latter being rather brutal.

The "magic SysRq keys" are sent straight to the kernel instead. You
Press and hold the "Alt" key and the "PrtSc|SysRq" key together, and
while holding them, type the following sequence of keys, with about two
seconds in between each keypress: "R", "S", "E", "I", "U", "B" - a
useful mnemonic for them is to use the first character of each word in
the phrase "Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring". ;-)

If the kernel is still healthily alive, the the above key sequence will
cleanly shut down and reboot your system.

You can learn more about the various System Requests from the file...

/path/to/kernel/sources/<kernel_version>/Documentation/sysrq.txt

>>> The desktop is now useless and has been since a month after I
>>> installed Fedora 12.
>>>
>>> No one knows how to fix this, nothingI have tried works. The forums
>>> for compiz, fedora, yield no answers, and the best reply I got was
>>> "Send a bug report to Fedora". I tried and if something is not quite
>>> right about the report, you cannot send it. I just did a "sudo yum
>>> update" and everything updated, must be 200 updates including the
>>> kernel, kmod- nvidia, and Xorg, I think. Still my desktop is broken.
>>
>> That may be the result of the unclean shutdown. Sometimes this
>> leaves certain configuration files in an incoherent state, even if
>> you have a journaled filesystem.
>
> File system is 83 ext3 for boot, 8e Linux LVM for rest of drive on
> /dev/sda. I have my old drive mounted so I can pick stuff from it as
> /dev/sdb, same setup, 83 ext3 for boot, 8e Linux LVM for rest of
> drive, although I no longer boot from that 200Gb drive. I now boot
> from the 400Gb drive first mentioned. Both IDE drives mounted as LVM
> by way of Fedora install.

LVM is not a filesystem; it's an additional layer on top of the physical
partitioning layout in which you create logical volumes, which you then
must format with a filesystem type. ;-)

But anyway, as Fedora, RedHat and CentOS are quite pedantic in not
letting you install the system on anything other than ext2 or ext3 (and
now possibly ext4) - which is one of the reasons why I hate these three
distros - you probably have ext3 on those logical volumes as well.

>>> I now have the Fedora 13 DVD, will an upgrade install fix this?
>>
>> I don't really know, because I always prefer doing a clean install
>> myself.
>
> I could not agree more, but the configs you see. I am job hunting and
> it is HELL. I just do not have the time to redo Linux all over again
> with everything I have done to it from scratch.

That's why you have to make backups of all important data. ;-) Backup
your "/home", your "/var" and your "/etc". You can sort out what to
restore later on from the storage device containing the backups.

>>> If so, will it just break again at my first system update?
>>
>> This is always possible, albeit that I don't think this would be the
>> case. I'm also a faithful believer in "If it isn't broken, don't try
>> to fix it". Some updates may contain bugfixes and security patches
>> which you might need, but you surely don't need any fixes for
>> software you never use. Also bear in mind that updates and upgrades
>> often fix known bugs by replacing them with unknown ones. ;-)
>
> I hear ya, dude. I long for an Enterprise version of Linux where I can
> just "set it and forget it" like Ron Popiel, [...

I don't even know who that is. ;-)

> ...] but I think Fedora is not the distro for that sort of thing [...

No, it isn't. It's the testbed for the next RedHat/CentOS, and it's
pretty "cutting edge". If you want stability, then I'd recommend
either RHEL or CentOS - to stay with the recipe - or perhaps Debian
stable or Slackware.

> ...] and I am hooked on it because I like yum handling all of the
> dependencies and updates. No more tarballs please!

Most distributions do without tarballs, but Debian is probably the
distro with the largest software repositories. It does however not
use .rpm packages or "yum", but instead it has .deb packages
and "apt-get", which has for a long time already been offering that
which "yum" only started offering a few years ago.

That said, again, if you want to stick to "yum", then there's RedHat or
CentOS. The latter is a freely downloadable version of RedHat from
which some (but not all) of the proprietary stuff was removed.

>>> I dread a clean install as all of my servers, httpd.conf, FTP,
>>> alias, mail settings, dovecot, etc. will all have to be done over
>>> again.
>>
>> Not if you back them up. And if you have an FTP repository, then
>> having that on a separate partition allows you to save it across
>> reinstallations, as you don't have to format that partition if you
>> don't want to.
>
> I have two drives in the box, I can always back up stuff but where to
> begin backing up all configs?

The safest thing would be to back up the entire "/etc", yes -
plus "/var" and "/home" - and then after the clean install of the newer
distro, you can sort out which old configuration files to restore.

> Unless you mean backup the entire disk, with what, ghost?

No, backing up the entire disk isn't necessary, and by all means, stay
away from Norton Ghost. I've seen it mess up badly. It may be a
useful thing in Windows - I don't really know, because I don't do
Windows - but don't touch a GNU/Linux hard disk with a Windows tool.

Just for future reference, GNU/Linux has much better tools for copying
an entire disk sector by sector...: Read the man page on "dd", for
instance... ;-)

>>> What is the best way out of this?
>>
>> I would recommend backing up all your important data - which you
>> should always do anyway - and doing a fresh install with Fedora 13.
>
> Yeah, sigh. I will backup with ghost I guess, try the upgrade to see
> what happens, and then probably go clean. Dam.

No, no, no. Stay away from Norton Ghost.

>>> Can or should I just shitcan compiz as not ready for prime time and
>>> give it up?
>>
>> Compiz *is* ready for prime time. The problem however may be (and
>> usually is) the proprietary video driver. I strongly suspect that to
>> be the case.
>
> I just installed the latest nvidia driver right from nvidia. Found
> that if I put a symling in /usr/src/ I can now run the nvidia
> installer instead of depending on kmod-nvidia rpm releases. The driver
> made no difference and I thought it really would, too.

Okay, so then it's something else that's broken. Possibly X.Org or
Compiz itself.

>>> How can I get rid of it? I tried to uninstall it with yum and
>>> thought I was successful but the problem remains and compiz is still
>>> here.
>>
>> Probably because something else relied upon it, according to your RPM
>> database. I don't use Fedora myself, but you should check the "man
>> page" on "yum" for options on how to check for dependencies.
>
> Yeah, I will have to put a little more time into it. Problem is, I
> really do not *want* to give up compiz because it is so f*cking cool.

Just for the record, KDE 4's native window manager (Kwin) has all the
effects Compiz Fusion has. You might want to check out KDE some
day. ;-)

>>> Sorry for the "wordy" post. Please help.
>>
>> For what it's worth... ;-)
>
> It was worth plenty. Thank you very, very much. Will update you when I
> try new things if interested. Thank you again for your very helpful
> reply.

You're welcome. ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2 3 4
Prev: techradar says win7 has killed the linux desktop
Next: Throw out my parallel port flatbed scanner?