Tonight I was reminded of why I got rid of linux the last time (and the time before that, and the time before that...). I used linux just fine since I installed it this time around, switching back and forth between linux and windows on the same machine. No problems. Then I switch back into linux a few minutes ago, and now all hell has broken loose. Half of the OKs are FAILED now, can''t bring up the internet, can''t startx, bunch of other error messages that I don''t know the meaning of, and no clue how any of it happened. All I''ve been doing is writing some scripts, and now this happens. It isn''t the first time either. At least in Windows when you reboot everything works again.

You weren''t working as root right?
Try to avoid it as much as possible. I''ve already screwed up two of my installs because I was root and deleted "out of curiosity" the glibc package trying to upgrade it.
Did you delete something? or maybe you renamed some files/directories? Are your modules loaded successfully? are the init scripts allright? It''s very unlikely that linux screwed itself up, so search for possible causes. Look at your command history in bash.

Click NOW!

Come to think of it, I did mount a partition and forget to unmount it. Well, I didn''t "forget". I was working in console mode and I tried to ftp something, and it started spitting crap to the console and I couldn''t get it back, so I had to reboot. Could that be the problem? I don''t see how it could be. The partition was drive D in windows, didn''t have anything on it, and I was only planning on using it as a place to store data that I wanted to share between windows and linux.

I installed video drivers from nvidia (which didn''t help). That''s something else I''ve never been able to accomplish. Getting the screen size to go past 800x600. I look at screenshots of people using linux and they''ve got these monster resolutions and kick ass desktops, and mine is like what you get when you first install windows, and I have a geforce 4 128MB graphics card. Usually after following the instructions, I either end up with nothing changing, or I can''t get into a GUI at all.

This seems to be a recurring theme. I read the instructions, do what it says, and most things still don''t work. I like linux when it works, and it''s not like I don''t try, but Windows sure sounds good right about now.

quote: I was working in console mode and I tried to ftp something, and it started spitting crap to the console and I couldn't get it back, so I had to reboot.

I bet you know you can switch between virtual consoles with alt-f1, alt-f2, alt-f3, etc...

quote: Could that be the problem? I don't see how it could be. The partition was drive D in windows, didn't have anything on it, and I was only planning on using it as a place to store data that I wanted to share between windows and linux.

Basically it's a bad idea to press the reboot button with linux running. The mounted filesystems might get screwed if they are not unmounted properly, including your boot/root partition ofcourse. But nowadays most distros use journaling filesystems like ext3 or reiserfs, so it's quite unlikely that just the reboot made it go crazy. Did the boot process check the filesystem when you rebooted? It should have done it.

quote: I installed video drivers from nvidia (which didn't help). That's something else I've never been able to accomplish. Getting the screen size to go past 800x600. I look at screenshots of people using linux and they've got these monster resolutions and kick ass desktops, and mine is like what you get when you first install windows, and I have a geforce 4 128MB graphics card. Usually after following the instructions, I either end up with nothing changing, or I can't get into a GUI at all.

mmm, never had problems with nvidia drivers. The installer did the job. Make sure you read enough documentation about setting up X and about the XF86Config file (in /etc/X11R6/)
(changing resolutions/refresh rates = editing the config file)
Good luck.


Click NOW!

[edited by - SwSh on June 19, 2003 3:43:18 AM]

Thanks for the virtual console tip. I didn''t know about that.

I checked the errors again, and there''s one regarding something about USB, one about eth0, and one about iptables. And can''t get into a GUI of course, even after I use the backup XF86Config that used to work (and the other one didn''t appear to be changed). Who knows.

Just a tip for next time you install, try a journalled filesystem. Ever since I moved to XFS I have never had any problems after an unclean shutdown and the time to scan the HD for errors is in the less than a second range.

Is your system trying to boot into a single user mode?
If it''s because of a hard restart (baaad you if it is) have you tried using fsck to fix the partitions? (Specifically your linux partitions...)
What distro are you using? The choice of distro''s can make a big difference.

That''s very odd. I''ve never heard of stuff like that happening before...

That kind of thing happens for me when the filesystem is full... Try using
df -h
to check the size of the mounted partitions, then
cd /
du -hs *
to see what directory is taking up all the space, enter it and repeat until you manage to locate the problem area. (If this is in fact the problem) Happened to me once with a device file since the tape drive wasn''t working, heh, and once when I download several ISOs, since my linux partition is a wee bit small.

Hope this helps.

quote: Just a tip for next time you install, try a journalled filesystem

Is ext3 a journalled file system? I think that''s what I selected during install (it was the default).

quote: Is your system trying to boot into a single user mode?
If it''s because of a hard restart (baaad you if it is) have you tried using fsck to fix the partitions? (Specifically your linux partitions...)
What distro are you using? The choice of distro''s can make a big difference.

Single user mode...I dunno. I don''t think so, but I''m not sure. I''m using Redhat 9.

quote: That kind of thing happens for me when the filesystem is full

I don''t think the partition is full. I split my 40 GB drive into 15 GB for Windows 2000, 10 GB for linux, 10 GB as a shared partition for data, and the rest is unused at the moment. I''ve only installed Redhat (maybe 2.5GB?), and a few small things like video drivers, so I don''t think the drive is full.

I must have done something wrong at some point, because this has happened several times now, with different distros. I boot up and multiple things that had worked fine ever since I installed linux just stop working. Maybe I need to read the directions more carefully or something. I dunno.