Hello! Happy New Year
It’s my first post on this forum. I’ve been using GNU/Linux system for about a year, and yesterday decided to switch from Ubuntu to openSUSE Leap 42.2 Xfce. I’m not a very experienced user, but I decided to give Leap a try because it’s considered to be very stable.
So far I feel OK, but I noticed few things I don’t know answers to.
The splash screen doesn’t always load correctly. I guess the correct splash screen contains oS Leap logo with 3 big green dots on green background. But sometimes I see only gray background with 3 tiny green squares. Why does it happen? Should I worry? Leap is the only one distro installed on my laptop.
Every time I reboot the system, I see
watchdog: watchdog0: watchdog did not stop!
reboot: Restarting system
afaik it’s a message from kernel. What is watchdog? Should I worry?
3. Every time I shutdown, I get
reboot: Power down
It’s just an information, nothing to worry about? ;p
4. Sometimes during shutdown I see
There can be a number of splash screens when a system starts up:
your bios/(u)efi might present one
your boot loader might have one (i.e. grub’s graphical boot menu)
your linux boot might have one (i.e plymouth)
if you’re using a display manager to log in, then it’s graphical greeter screen
and, finally, your desktop environment might provide a splash while it loads in the background
It sounds like you describe plymouth. I don’t know what the plymouth theme for Leap is supposed to look like, so I couldn’t tell you if the “Leap logo with 3 big green dots on green background” is that or not, but it sounds like it .lol! The “gray background with 3 tiny green squares” is plymouth … why that happens is that, for some reason, it is unable to utilise the kernel level graphics support (either in way of a legacy framebuffer driver or a newer DRM/KMS framebuffer driver) for your video adapter, and so switches to a text mode presentation instead, and that (3 tiny green squares…) is what you get in that mode.
Should you worry? No. You can try to debug it if you wish, but its not easy and not really worth the time unless you really, really care. plymouth is fickle. A lot of things seem to throw it off quite easily.
Besides that, you can count yourself as one of the many users that sometimes see plymouth, and sometimes don’t. Welcome aboard, we’re a friendly group.
Every time I reboot the system, I see
watchdog: watchdog0: watchdog did not stop!
reboot: Restarting system
afaik it’s a message from kernel. What is watchdog? Should I worry?
It means you dog has been up all night guarding your system and is now tired and needs to go have a nap (reboot) rotfl!
its from the kernel watchdog. Google “kernel watchdog” for more info. Is it important. Beats me.
Every time I shutdown, I get
reboot: Power down
It’s just an information, nothing to worry about? ;p
Looks just like a kernel message that the system is doing just that: powering down. I see nothing to fear
Sometimes during shutdown I see
wl0: link down (eth1)
What does it mean?
I’d hazard a guess that its: wide local area network (index number 0, i.e. your first wlan) … ethernet adapter (indexed number 1) is now disabled … looks like a pretty ordinary part of the shutting down process to me.
why that happens is that, for some reason, it is unable to utilise the kernel level graphics support (either in way of a legacy framebuffer driver or a newer DRM/KMS framebuffer driver) for your video adapter, and so switches to a text mode presentation instead, and that (3 tiny green squares…) is what you get in that mode.
So this “bug” is only about the plymouth not loading correctly and doesn’t affect the performance after logging in? Sounds good.
I googled “watchdog”, but I don’t understand a lot about it However on Arch forum I found this:
This is perfectly normal. When shutting down, systemd sets a watchdog timeout of 10 minutes (see /etc/systemd/system.conf), then closes the watchdog before executing systemd-shutdown (this is a bit simplified, I can't remember the precise mechanics). As systemd did not stop the watchdog, Linux warns you. This has the effect that if shutdown is not completed within 10 minutes, your hardware watchdog will trigger the specified action.
so I assume it’s not a serious thing to worry about.
Regarging “wl0: link down (eth1)”, I can tell you that I’m using WiFi, a cable connection was only used to install Leap. I dunno if it changes your opinion about this message.
Do you see these messages during reboot/shutdown? I think they could’ve been as well on my Ubuntu installation, but hidden behind the plymouth.
So this “bug” is only about the plymouth not loading correctly and doesn’t affect the performance after logging in? Sounds good.
well, to be pedantic, its loading correctly, albeit it has resorted to its text mode fallback because it was unable to utilise a graphics mode … but yes, no repercussions
googled “watchdog”, but I don’t understand a lot about it However on Arch forum I found this:
This is perfectly normal. When shutting down, systemd sets a watchdog timeout of 10 minutes (see /etc/systemd/system.conf), then closes the watchdog before executing systemd-shutdown (this is a bit simplified, I can’t remember the precise mechanics). As systemd did not stop the watchdog, Linux warns you. This has the effect that if shutdown is not completed within 10 minutes, your hardware watchdog will trigger the specified action.
so I assume it’s not a serious thing to worry about.
yeah, looks pretty benign
Regarging “wl0: link down (eth1)”, I can tell you that I’m using WiFi, a cable connection was only used to install Leap. I dunno if it changes your opinion about this message.
No, not really. Your machine obviously has an ethernet adapter, so whether you’re using it or not (and using wifi instead) doesn’t really matter
Do you see these messages during reboot/shutdown? I think they could’ve been as well on my Ubuntu installation, but hidden behind the plymouth.
Do you mean specific to that message about the wl0? No, not that specifically. I do (and would expect to!) have messages for the wlan and adapter in my journal, but they differ … likely would depending upon drivers involved, connection managers etc. Networking stuff is not really my thing. Anyway, you can examine the content of your journal for your last boot to shutdown for that session via “sudo journalctl -b -1 | more” (use the spacebar to move forward one page at a time)
If you meant “do you see messages” more generally, then yes, sometimes … when plymouth is working in graphical mode, then the messages that are written to the virtual console (or VT if you prefer) get (intentionally) obscured and you won’t see them (at boot or later at shutdown/reboot) … but if plymouth is operating in text mode, then yeah, you sometimes glimpse the messages on console when the system does a VT switch. When you’re not using a splash at all, then, yes, you (intentioally) will see the messages.
However on Arch forum I found this: