Is my os already corrupt?

I don’t know if these things are common irritations or signs of corruption. The log in manager won’t show anyone other than root. Phonon keeps crashing, or rather just going away. 3 strange icons showed up on the plasma desktop for no reason. When dragged off and checked, they appeared to be icons of the desktop. (desktop.ico) This is mostly trivial but there’s enough of it to worry me. Should I be worried?

My ram, by the way, is brand new.

root does not show as a login option
Or have you already logged in as root before?

If you edit out root in the user login field and put your username in and then password, what happens

On 03/07/2011 05:06 AM, mlmack wrote:
>
> Should I be worried?

yes, your system is sick…what you see is not common…can you tell
us, was your system as you describe it from the very first boot after
install? or could you log in as yourself a while and then suddenly
things changed?

did you do this before install: http://tinyurl.com/2ebcf27

if you did not do that before, boot from the install media you
installed from and do it NOW…if there are any errors reported you
will need to replace that install disk with one which does pass the
check…

do NOT install from corrupt media: Garbage in, garbage out.

and, since you also question the usefulness of your RAM, you should
also select the “Memory Test” option directly under the media
test…(do the media test first! make SURE you have good media first)…

let the memory test run overnight, at least…at least 12 hours…

then let us know how things are going…


DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11

In the log in manager, root is shown on the list, along with two users. The only user on the log in screen is root. I got rid of it by unchecking ‘show list’. Will do the other tests in a little while. Removing root is not given as an option.

Another annoyance: the volumn control now covers the whole systray. It took quite a while to find the exact point to close it so I could open it on the desktop.

I should mention that there were a number of change made to enable audio and video. See ‘bizarre sound’ to see them all.

In the log in manager, root is shown on the list, along with two users. The only user on the log in screen is root. I got rid of it by unchecking ‘show list’. Will do the other tests in a little while. Removing root is not given as an option.

Another annoyance: the volumn control now covers the whole systray. It took quite a while to find the exact point to close it so I could open it on the desktop.

I should mention that there were a number of change made to enable audio and video. See ‘bizarre sound’ to see them all.

I think the easiest way to solve your problems is to reinstall from scratch and do everything carefully step by step from the beginning. It’s a great way to learn by the way :slight_smile:

Best regards,
Greg

After the bizarre sound problem, I think this is a major one.:slight_smile:

Did you try adding a new user to see if it will show in the login screen?

The cd is supposed to be ok. Before running a 12 hour teswt, I thought I’d run the firmware test. It failed in 4 categories and gave warnings in 3. I think I’d better call a tech.

Note supposed to be is not the same as IS. Running media check is the only way to be sure. Failing firmware tests may or may not be a problem depending on what is failing. It is saying that things are not standard on this machine not that they are broken. There are work arounds for many that will be automatically applied. But do run media and memory test.

I raised a sceptical grin at this one.

Never. Did I say Never! Oh yes…

Become one

The cd passed the test. I said ‘supposed to be’ because I wonder about testing a cd’s status with software contained in it. OK. I’ll hold it off and run memtest tonight.

For the record; as best as I could copy it down, the failed tests were:
1. Firmware not implementing hw coordination cleanly.
2. HPET configuration - failed to locate base.
3. Memory has hole between 15 meg and 16 meg (That sounds ominous)
4. EDD boot disc hinting. Device 0x80 doesn’t support EDD

I don’t want to ‘just’ reinstall because the sound problem and others lasted through several careful, clean reinstalls.

And about calling techs. I asked two different techs if they thought I should bring the machine in. Neither seemed to have a clue.

On 2011-03-08 18:36, mlmack wrote:
> 3. Memory has hole between 15 meg and 16 meg (That sounds
> ominous)

Bios setting. Old thing.
IIRC.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

3 is not ominous Happens all the time
4 is ok too more unless a warning

1 and 2 don’t know them

“techs” generally don’t know all the much. Basically they work at a level of changing light bulbs and really don’t know how they work or why they fail they just know if something seems broken change it. Also few know anything about Linux.

I thought your problems were graphics related??

Generally we can get sound working but it may require a few adjustments. Also graphics depending on what card and drivers are in use.

You might want to check if there is a BIOS update for your mother board.

Not graphics problem, more like programs not responding properly; i.e. su panel inconsistant, log in manager wonky, etc.

memtest86 v4.00 OK walltime 12:06:21
cache 0n
ECC off
test std
pass 15
errors 0

Should I run smartctl? If so, what options?

Nervous and ignorant about updating bios. If available. Should add that fsck / is ok.

The only other thing left is the mother board. How to test?

On 03/09/2011 07:06 PM, mlmack wrote:
>
> su panel inconsistant

what does that mean, precisely and exactly.
that is:

  1. what is an “su panel”?
  2. it is inconsistant with what?

> log in manager wonky, etc.

in what way is the long in manager ‘wonky’?
precisely!
that is:

  1. what do you see which you don’t expect, or
  2. what do you not see that you do expect?

>
> memtest86 v4.00 OK walltime 12:06:21
> cache 0n
> ECC off
> test std
> pass 15
> errors 0

if you made 15 passes of memtest in the 12 hours minimum which i
prescribed, them you must have abour 300 GB of ram…is this a
supercomputer you have with that much RAM??

> Should I run smartctl? If so, what options?

has anyone here recommended that to you?
do you anticipate you have a drive problem?

>
> Nervous and ignorant about updating bios. If available. Should add that
> fsck / is ok.

who asked for an fsck check?

if you want our help you need to answer the questions we ask, and
perform the test we ask you to…so far that has not been the case…

> The only other thing left is the mother board. How to test?

no, there are lots of things other than the motherboard…personally
i think it a lot more likely an administration problem…

what happens if you boot from the live CD? do things appear ‘normal’
then…if so, you do probably do not have a motherboard or hardware
problem…

tell, me: how many times have you logged into KDE or Gnome as root?
and what did you do are root then?

and answer this question which i asked before: “was your system as you
describe it from the very first boot after install? or could you log
in as yourself a while and then suddenly things changed?”

oh, and is this a dual boot machine? what other system is on it?


DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11

There are 2 gigs of RAM.

On some reboots, the system rejects one of my drives. It always fscks clean. The error message says / is not corrupted. Shouldn’t one fsck periodically?

When you log in to yast the password panel is labeled su. I never check ‘remember password’ but it checked itself. Nevertheless I get asked for the root password about half the time; with ‘remember password’ checked.

Log in manager: Log in screen will only display root. The only way to get it off is to uncheck ‘list users’. There are 2 users.

I would prefer to use Konqueror as a file manager except that profile changes will not save. Save profile as file manager locked it into KHTML view.

Kmixer volume control icon covers entire systray. To use it I have to put it on a desktop.

The only live cd available is Mint. I tried it before the sound problem was fixed. Didn’t look too deeply. It couldn’t see half my drives and couldn’t play the mp3 that was included.

To see what sound problems I had, check the ‘Bizarre sound’ thread.

The sound problem was the same in 3 clean, careful installs.

Satisfied? I’m no hotshot but I’m not a total idiot.

Use this to start Konqueror:

konqueror --profile filemanagement

Note the password is only remembered for a short period of time. That is normal. The idea is to allow you to not have to retype it if you are jumping in and out of a root app but not to exist forever because that is a security hole.

Try adding a new user and see if they have the same problem with the Kmix control. If so is is a config file problem in your home.

The problem is that saying it is wonky or broken really does not help anyone help you. It is an opinion not a fact. Since we can not look over your shoulder to see what you see you need to describe the problem.

I’m afraid ‘konqueror --profile filemanagement’ brings up the same window. It never occured to me that there might be a man page. I’ll check it out and see what I can figure out.

You’re quite right about ‘wonky’ Gogolthorp. I’m tired and cranky and so many things are off for a fresh install.

A second user didn’t seem to have any kmixer problems. Can that kind of thing still be fixed by deleting the config file?

If the makers are going to save the root password anyhow, why have a checkbox?

What now?

The problem with Konqueror was my fault. Somehow. I moved the config files to the desktop, uninstaller and reinstalled. That fixed it. Now if I can get it to show / in the navigation panel.