Subj : Slimmed down Debian To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Fri Sep 13 2019 08:56:00 Hi Ky! > KM> Might have been a side effect of that system having some bad RAM > KM> that was locked out by guessing the address until it stopped > KM> crashing. > No necessarily bad, just not fully compatible. My 486 had some RAM KM> No, this was bad; it had all identical RAM (chips on board, not KM> SIMMs), tho it tested okay. Might have been a trace on the KM> motherboard rather than the chip, but the effect was the same -- KM> whenever anything used that address range, it crashed. Locked out KM> that range, never crashed again (and that 286 routinely had KM> uptimes in excess of two years). I'm impressed! :) The longest continuous run-time I've had is just under ten months. As for the address range, yes, if the chip is bad or the connection to the chip is faulty the effect is the same: doesn't work. > which worked-but-didn't. Tested fine; swapped with the guy who built > the system for me and he never had any problems. KM> Seen that... then again, it might be bad for real and one machine KM> has more tolerance for errors. I think that's what happened with KM> Silver (quad core that's presently the everyday) -- was gifted KM> some RAM marked "bad". Worked fine far as I could tell, for a KM> long time. Eventually developed a habit of every time RAM usage KM> climbed above 2GB, that application crashed. (Usually meaning the KM> browser.) Swapped out RAM, no more crashes. Yes, we had discussed the possibility of his machine being more tolerant, my machine being less tolerant -- is there an 'etc.'? Swapped RAM; I was happy, he was happy. No idea what the problem was other than exchanging fixed it. KM> In the Closet is a really crappy Amptron board, P4 2.8GHz so not KM> nearly as ancient as it cold be, but has some weird habits re KM> RAM. Supposed to take up to 2GB as two sticks. In reality, I've KM> only gotten it to accept a 512mb and a 256mb, and then only if KM> they're different speeds. (Plug in random sticks til it finally KM> agrees to boot. Go through entire pile before finding a couple it KM> likes.) Not like any of it is high-value so if that's what it KM> wants... would make a nice fast platform for that very rare need KM> for Win9x, but is otherwise useless. Could create a virtual machine on your mega-toy you were gifted -- the one with the three multi-terabyte hard drives. Unfortunately VMs don't quite work the same as a real machine, or at least in my extremely limited experience: overall a slight sluggishness. May be something to do with me not knowing how to configure fully properly. > > If I were to troubleshoot Mint being based on Ubuntu would be a starting > > point. As for bullet- an bombproof, should be, but nothing is. > KM> You'd think. But Mint is basically Ubuntu Lite -- only loads > KM> about 25% as much Stuff. (And runs WAY faster on the same > KM> hardware. Mint will run perfectly fine on a PC where Ubuntu won't > KM> even load.) So the problem might actually have been something > KM> that was omitted. Except I vaguely recall hearing that Ubuntu 17 > KM> had the same problem, except with a different trigger. Which > KM> still doesn't eliminate "something omitted". > The "something omitted" seems to make sense, especially with the loads > faster (because some stuff isn't being loaded!). FWIW came across a KM> Yeah. I did an actual count via some monitor util, and it was KM> something like 105 services loaded for Ubuntu, vs 25 for Mint. KM> Well, no wonder Mint is that much faster! Only a quarter as many! Of course that doesn't account for how long it takes to load, but just the three-quarters as many would still speed things up. > command that may have been useful: "system-analyze blame". Lists the > time it takes to load a boot process from longest to quickest. KM> Oh, that's interesting... It's a systemd command, KM> and PCLinuxOS doesn't use systemd. (I suppose you've heard the KM> giant debate about systemd vs how-we've-always-done-it. I have no KM> religion either way, but am annoyed by binary logs.) But most KM> distros do use systemd, so useful to know. I'm sort of going the 'semi-technical hobbyist' route: I'll let the programmers and developers creating the stuff figure out the details on "what is best" as I certainly don't have the education. They're (the programmers and developers) aren't always right but I don't know how to build so going with their advisements. ..Doesn't mean I won't try something! KM> And it has many functions: KM> https://www.tecmint.com/systemd-analyze-monitor-linux-bootup-perfo KM> rmance/ KM> Oh, a much handier list of some of the same free books it links KM> to: KM> https://www.prophethacker.com/2016/09/10-useful-free-linux-ebooks. KM> html Thanks! > KM> Of course if you want Ubuntu Really Lite and Really Fast, there's > KM> Puppy, which is based on U. but is only about 10% as big. > I've been cheating and pulling some of the old hard drives out, > replacing them with SSDs. One had a 20 GB HDD in it! Actually the hard > drive was fine, just took forever to load -- good thing was 7200 RPM and > not 5400! KM> The old WDs are pretty fast -- almost as fast as the slower SSDs. KM> Seagates, tho.. slugs. It seems just about all of the refurbished systems I've purchased and lately tearing apart have Seagate hard drives. I've been purchasing Western Digital since my XT days because of some super-good customer service they gave me when I was upgrading. As for hard drive speed vs. slow SSD, my limited experience still has SSDs as sooo much faster: HDD would take close to two minutes while the SSD is taking 20-30 seconds. A slightly uneven playing field: part of the reason for the storage upgrade was to upgrade the OS, so also went from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, but I haven't read where Bionic Beaver is significantly faster. (Now if 19.04 was slower maybe nickname it 'Catatonic Cat'?!) > KM> That, BTW, was one of my ongoing gripes with older linux: why on > KM> earth does the average user need to load every daemon every > KM> written? Apache webserver, running for no reason on a desktop > KM> machine, WTF?? No wonder performance was so awful. Most of 'em > KM> seem to have stopped loading that sort of stuff, having finally > KM> noticed that server and desktop are not contiguous functions. > Um, just in case? No, no reason to load something if it isn't being > used. LIS in another message, I've seen 'error messages' because it > tests for something that isn't there, so I get an message essentially > meaning "error loading because it's not there". A little KM> Seen a few of those. Also something like "Error loading error". Nothing like having a problem because there are no problems! > sloppy but suppose has to be tested for that piece of hardware at boot. > (Thinking of Bluetooth, which I don't have on this machine.) KM> Yeah, see, there's the problem with amateur OSs... usually KM> testing is "what do you mean, it nuked your system? You must have KM> messed up." It's easier to blame someone else! > Pretty much here too. My Big Issue when building the last two large > machines here was not being familiar with UEFI, IOMMI, and a bad RAM KM> Not familiar with UEFI myself. Turn it on, turn it off. I know KM> that much. :) I also had a problem with "IOMMU" - Input Output Memory Management Unit - which to me implies it does something different but if it was set to default (off I think - forgotten) during the OS installation (from DVD) the USB 2.0 ports were killed. Mouse doesn't function, keyboard doesn't function - thanks! Did accidentally find USB 3.0 was working so used them. LIS in an earlier thread on the build of the first computer using an UEFI motherboard things were overly complicated by me not knowing about UEFI, a bad RAM stick, and multiple bad installation attempts until I found the bad RAM and learned about what switches to flip during installation. (It's not complicated, just not simple.) > Yes. I have run into the hard drive size where internal drives have a > maximum limit but that external drives can be a heck of a lot larger. KM> Because the external drive does its own translation. Right. It's sometimes kind of 'funny' to look at the Properties and the information displayed isn't the same as what the hard drive is, due to that little translation process going on in-between. > And not sure if this is accurate but the Raspberry Pi 3 takes > significantly longer to start up with a large SD card. IIRC 8- and > 16-GB cards load in a few seconds but a 64 GB card takes a couple of > minutes. KM> Dunno what you're running on it, but with Winders... remember to KM> limit the swapfile to something like 2GB, because otherwise it'll KM> be the same size as RAM, which is stupid if you have more than KM> 2GB of RAM. And slow to write. Linux swap is getting recommended KM> downsized too, after all the idea is to use fast RAM, not slow KM> HD! Initially I want to say it's running whatever version of Raspbian was current a year, year-and-a-half ago but then in this particular instance the utility installs its own OS and I'm not sure what it is. Have read no problems supporting 64 GB and much-much larger SD cards but I have not seen boot times. As for altering SWAP size, etc., in this instance no way to alter: overlays a boot partition, maybe a swap, a partition for the utility and the rest is for the data. KM> Clever trix dept: Use an SSD for the OS, and an SD card for swap. KM> Even cleverer trix: use a RAMdisk for swap, for stupid programs KM> that won't run if they don't see a swapfile. KM> (*cough*photoshop*cough) Since my "new" Win7 box has 32GB, why KM> not? something needs to use all that RAM!! When I started using Windows XP on a Virtual Machine I had to move my RAM Disk back to the (virtual) hard drive because I didn't have enough RAM to properly run the Ubuntu and the Virtual Machine with only 3 GB of (physical) RAM. As for the current Ubuntu machines, this one has 32 GB of RAM and 32 GB of Swap -- I don't recall who set the swap size, probably the installation disk. I haven't seen this machine use more than 7 GB of RAM and I tend to have multiple windows open concurrently; have monitored usage during what I think would RAM-intensive but doesn't spike. CPU usage, yes. Same for the other system I'm using as the MythTV Backend: 'only' 16 GB of RAM in it, think uses not quite half (5 GB?). IIRC that system installed a 2 GB Swap. ...I'm sort of using hybrid storage here: converting over to SSD, at least for the boot drive. Any machine which is being used for a lot of data also has hard drive -- old information where SSDs failed so a little gun-shy. There are some machines now with just a SSD. All have the same 'base': Ubuntu 18.04 with MythTV v. 30 (except the one I'm one currently as is my work machine and I don't watch TV up here except rarely. > KM> It has 8 3TB HDs. It had 4 480GB SSDs, which got filched to > KM> upgrade other stuff. Did I mention how I accidentally made a USB > KM> bootable Win7?? :) > Not yet! KM> Decided to swap slow Seagate for faster SSD. Hung SSD off USB KM> port using an adapter gadget. Used Partition Wizard Free (they KM> used to offer a bootable ISO version) to clone system to SSD. On KM> a whim, rebooted and selected USB as boot device. And up came KM> Win7... slowly since via USB, but it ran fine! Woo-hoo!! :) As long as you don't have to boot it too often that slow boot should be acceptable. Now to see about using the SSD and a faster communications channel! > KM> Supported OSs, handy in a Dell notice today: > KM> PowerEdge R510 > KM> Operating System: > KM> Novell SuSE Linux ES 11, > KM> Windows Server 2008 x64, > KM> Windows Server 2012, > KM> Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, > KM> Windows Server 2012 R2, > KM> Windows Server 2008 x86, > KM> Windows Server 2003 x64, > KM> Suse Linux ES 10 > KM> It can also run ESXi (Bare Metal Hypervisor, VMware). There > KM> exists a free version which I've fetched but haven't looked at > KM> yet. > Waiting until get snow-bound and so no interuptions?! KM> Hahaha then I'll be shoveling snow... probably do it in the brief KM> respite between summer yard and garden and working on rental KM> house (painting is finally done) and the extra work of moving KM> snow around. Sounds a bit like some of the But Firsts around here! > KM> I haven't seen a linux server edition since Novell switched to > KM> SuSE some 15 years ago (that was also their last seminar), so > KM> pretty clueless there! Its big selling point was really good > KM> remote management. > And IIRC you are able to get that, for a year or two anyway. KM> If you attended their seminars, they gave you copies of Netware. KM> I know I have 5.0 and 5.5 but don't recall if they also sent out KM> 6.0 which IIRC was when they switched to SuSE. Perhaps https://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=dpIR3H1ymhk~ ¯ ® ¯ Barry_Martin_3@ ® ¯ @Q.COM ® ¯ ® .... Computer Cooking: DATA: Sort-a like-a fig-a --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.47 þ wcECHO 4.2 ÷ ILink: The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .