Folks, it is my first post here, and most likely I will be committing something inappropriate, so please have mercy :). Besides, I am a plane dumb user; have this in mind when replying…
OK, I have openSuSE 11.0 installed 4 years ago on desktop Dell Optiplex 745. Yesterday, Comcast people installed a new modem to boost up the internet speed, and when they left, my computer crushed first time in 4 years. It keep happening even after I disconnected the modem and router. I don’t know how to call it properly – both of my monitors (I have two big ones with 21" diagonal each) go monocolor (all the windows and icons disappeared) 5 minutes after I get into my account, and then in a minute both of them go completely dark, with a msg “going into power saving mode” or something like that flashing periodically. To shut it down then I have to disconnect the power.
Now, I tried a lot of thing at the loading stage, and one of them worked, sort of, – when I got into “FailSafe Mode”, I was able to login into my account, and it would not crash. But then I have both screens/monitors acting as exact copies of each other, with all the X-windows sitting on the top of each other, and all the icons, windows, and fonts being overblown – so I cannot do my regular work (computations, GNU-plots, Latex, groff, etc). However, I can at least go into internet and cry on your shoulder…:X – the connection works!
I have a (non-expert!) suspicion that a vpnclient_init command is doing something wrong – at least I can see it being “Failed” on that running checking list both on login and logout stages.
Please, any idea!? Can I go back to my old-shoe mode of operation?!!! Any help will be greatly appreciated!
On 2012-08-20 04:06, alkap wrote:
>
> Folks, it is my first post here, and most likely I will be committing
> something inappropriate, so please have mercy :). Besides, I am a plane
> dumb user; have this in mind when replying…
The first thing that anybody will tell you is that 11.0 is too old and out of maintenance. It
will surely have security holes that put you in danger when you connect to internet.
About your current problem… sorry, no idea at present.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Same as from Carlos. Apart from eventual security risks (which, depending on the environment the system is running in can be bad or negligable), such a system will be verry stable for years to come until the moment that you change something. Then you will find that the system as it is, does not have the support for a piece of new hardware and that the sources of the software running on it have vanished or changed to incompatible versions, etc. Also almost nobody here will have such a system anymore to reconstruct what you have or look into the configuration files as they were years ago. And the memories of people here will have forgotten the peculiarities of long ago.
At the moment 11.4 and 12.1 are the supported versions and 12.2 will be there in a few monthes.
I also want to encourage you to upgrade. In your case I would even go
for a fresh install, skipping 3 or 4 versions at once will probably lead
to long winded reconfiguration and trouble shooting on the resulting
system. I would not even keep the old configurations in the old /home
(but do a backup of it first it may contain your emails depending on
what mail client you use and other user data you want to keep).
If you do not want to upgrade often install 11.4 it will be the next
Evergreen, read that if you are interested
Dear Martin,
thanks for suggestion to upgrade/install more recent release (same goes to the rest of people replied); especially for Evergreen version. Most likely, I will do it but not right away (as a non-expert I would expect with high probability to run into zillion of troubles while doing that, which may be much worse than what I am having right now – remember, I am a plain user, and have no sysadmin experience…). For that I’d rather wait till I find somebody on our campus to help me out, but this could realistically be done only in September. Meanwhile, I would rather stick to my specific problem and try to deal with it first, especially since my success with FAILSAFE MODE indicates that the problem may be not too unsurmountable. Thanks again!
Am 20.08.2012 15:26, schrieb alkap:
> since my success with FAILSAFE MODE indicates that the problem may be
> not too unsurmountable
What graphics card do you have and which driver is in use?
Martin,
Yes Sir!!! (Gosh, what a relief to hear the voice of an expert…)
OK, the (shortened) reply to /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard is
08: PCI 100.1: 0380 Display controller
[Created at pci.310]
UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1002_71a3
Reading your first post again, we maybe do not even need anything from
that. You seem to have a problem with the powersave settings, in that
case it can be easy if you are lucky.
Which desktop environment are you using? KDE or Gnome or something else?
If you have the default KDE desktop can you run (I am not sure if that
is the right one for 11.0) in your
system settings -> advanced -> power management
this can have somewhat different names (maybe system settings is desktop
settings or personal settings this changed over the years).
If you find that disable every setting you find which sends your machine
to sleep).
If you cannot find that report back.
–
PC: oS 12.2 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.8.4 | GeForce GT 420
ThinkPad E320: oS 12.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.8.5 | HD 3000
eCAFE 800: oS 12.1 i586 | AMD Geode LX 800@500MHz | 512MB | KDE 3.5.10
Am 20.08.2012 18:46, schrieb alkap:
> reply to “cat /proc/cmdline” in REGULAR mode:
>
> root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2500JS-75_WD-WCANKA111333-part6
> resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent vga=0x317
I am almost sure your problem will simply disappear when you add a
“acpi=off” to the kernel boot line.
To do that you run
yast -> system -> boot loader -> select the boot entry which is not
failsafe and then edit.
In the field where you see the splash=silent add the acpi=off at the end
and press ok, then reboot.
–
PC: oS 12.2 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.8.4 | GeForce GT 420
ThinkPad E320: oS 12.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.8.5 | HD 3000
eCAFE 800: oS 12.1 i586 | AMD Geode LX 800@500MHz | 512MB | KDE 3.5.10
Martin, thanks for staying with me. I’ve just started doing what you suggested in YaST, and at the moment it is being slowly loading. Meanwhile, let me report on your previous suggestion. I know there is KDE controls of course in my system, but was unable to create icon or control window for it (being that stupid…); so instead I found from “ps -e |grep power” that the root is running “/usr/sbin/powersaved -d -v 3” and killed it (from the root). It didn’t help. Right now I am trying what you proposed in Boot Loader Setting; will report in a few minutes…
I hope the acpi=off does the trick, this will disable power management
on a really low level, deeper than killing powersaved.
There is also another switch in addition (but I do not know your
hardware good enough) which might have an effect apm=off which turns off
advanced power management (which s actually something older than acpi if
I remember correctly).
So if acpi=off alone does not do it, try to add apm=off also.
If nothing helps you need to find out what the Comcast people actually
did with your system. For example did they do a BIOS update or changed
some setting in the BIOS which could affect the behavior of your system,
something like that sounds not completely unlikely to me.
–
PC: oS 12.2 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.8.4 | GeForce GT 420
ThinkPad E320: oS 12.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.8.5 | HD 3000
eCAFE 800: oS 12.1 i586 | AMD Geode LX 800@500MHz | 512MB | KDE 3.5.10
> To do that you run yast -> system -> boot loader -> select the boot entry which is not
failsafe and then edit. In the field where you see the splash=silent add the acpi=off at the end
and press ok, then reboot.
Well, I am not in luck today…:-), I did it and it didn’t work… But I’ll be blindly trying now to put in
all those options apm=off, edd=off, etc., in a hope that one of them does the job…
Martin,
thanks again for all your thoughts. With a lot of experimentation, I figured by now that most likely, the powersave is NOT a reason of my trouble. Indeed, after I tried all the relevant options (by putting in aspi=off, apm=off, and even edd=off (dont even know what this one is for:-), I’ve got no tangible change, The only thing that enabled me to keep the system from shutting down itself, was when after removing all those three options above from Boot Loading in YaST, I put in an option x11failsafe – and yes, it save me from trouble of system self-shutting, yet it gave me the expected results – the same as FAILSAVE option : doubled screen, blown-out elements, etc. So I ended up in nowhere by now… But I’ve lerned a lot from your advices, so thanks again. I guess, I’ll leave that stuff for now, and try to figure out something else. If you got any other idea, let me know!
> for:-), I’ve got no tangible change, The only thing that enabled me to
> keep the system from shutting down itself, was when after removing all
> those three options above from Boot Loading in YaST, I put in an option
> x11failsafe –
That option is the same as starting X with the “/etc/X11/xorg.conf.install” file instead of
“/etc/X11/xorg.conf”. There is an option in the xorg.conf file that breaks. Check first the
dates of both files, then compare and change the “/etc/X11/xorg.conf” file.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Am 21.08.2012 00:43, schrieb Carlos E. R.:
> That option is the same as starting X with the “/etc/X11/xorg.conf.install” file instead of
> “/etc/X11/xorg.conf”. There is an option in the xorg.conf file that breaks. Check first the
> dates of both files, then compare and change the “/etc/X11/xorg.conf” file.
Good point. 11.0 still had sax2, maybe easier to use that.
–
PC: oS 12.2 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.8.4 | GeForce GT 420
ThinkPad E320: oS 12.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.8.5 | HD 3000
eCAFE 800: oS 12.1 i586 | AMD Geode LX 800@500MHz | 512MB | KDE 3.5.10
Am 21.08.2012 01:13, schrieb Carlos E. R.:
> On 2012-08-21 00:47, Martin Helm wrote:
>
>> Good point. 11.0 still had sax2, maybe easier to use that.
>
> However when I first read the problem description I thought: “hardware problem”. I’m still unsure.
>
I have also the slight feeling that the hardware was damaged since I
cannot imagine what on earth service technicians for a modem/router
would mess with the settings of a Linux system which probably none of
them know even how to do anything with it, but who knows.
Maybe worth running an up to date live cd to see how that behaves.
–
PC: oS 12.2 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.8.4 | GeForce GT 420
ThinkPad E320: oS 12.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.8.5 | HD 3000
eCAFE 800: oS 12.1 i586 | AMD Geode LX 800@500MHz | 512MB | KDE 3.5.10
On 2012-08-21 01:20, Martin Helm wrote:
> Am 21.08.2012 01:13, schrieb Carlos E. R.:
>> On 2012-08-21 00:47, Martin Helm wrote:
>>
>>> Good point. 11.0 still had sax2, maybe easier to use that.
>>
>> However when I first read the problem description I thought: “hardware problem”. I’m still unsure.
>>
> I have also the slight feeling that the hardware was damaged since I
> cannot imagine what on earth service technicians for a modem/router
> would mess with the settings of a Linux system which probably none of
> them know even how to do anything with it, but who knows.
Another thing is possible, that happens with systems never rebooted - I don’t know if that’s
the case here - that changes done time ago are not applied till the reboot.
> Maybe worth running an up to date live cd to see how that behaves.
Yes, that would be interesting.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Carlos, thanks; I’ve looked at them, the xorg.conf.install is the latest one.
but what this would do for me? Just another way to run my desktop and X11 in a failsafe mode? But I can do it by simply choosing such a mode at the booting… And it is not that I want to work with it; it is only the way for me to do some elementary stuff, and to get into my mail…
Besides, it remains unclear to me what to change in xorg.conf.install ? Those two files are completely different… You said “check the dates” – OK; but under which conditions about those dates should I attempt to do anything?
