Subject: Problems with a Pismo
From: Ferwerda Darren (app3dxf) (app3dxf@ups.com)
Date: Wed Jan 09 2002 - 07:56:57 MST
Hello,
I have been pulling my hair out with my Pismo. To give some
history. This machine was picked up specifically to be a Linux box. It
started out as LinuxPPC, but since someone at my local lug (NYLUG) let me
install YDL 2.0, I was HOOKED. I have had problems with the ram on the
machine since the beginning. To explain. When I have more than 128 megs of
ram in the machine, E comes to a grinding halt. I mean when you left click
on the desktop and bring up the menu, as you are moving down the entries in
the menu, the box cursor that usually follows the arrow trails behind really
far. This seemed odd, but I brought it back down to 128 megs, and it was
fine. This happened in both LinuxPPC and YDL. I tried updating the OF to
4.1.8, but to no avail. The Tech Notes state that the machine can handle up
to a Gig of ram, but, I have not had good results with over 128. I
originally picked up 1 256M module with the hope of getting half a Gig of
ram on the machine, but after returning the ram to crucial a couple of
times, I went back to 128. That is problem A. Let's move on to problem B.
I was using the machine about a week ago, after I had gotten
everything installed from source that I needed, (isn't this how it always
goes) when the power cut out on me. I figured that the worst thing I would
have to deal with was a fsck, and go on with life. When it came back up, it
said that the disk was too messed up to check, so it dropped me into system
maintenance mode. Ok, I ran fsck manually, and it said it fixed a whole
bunch of problems. Fine. Gnome panel would not load. I figured the binary
was corrupted, so I reinstalled 2.1. I wiped the partition, and recreated
it (actually, it was installed with 4 partitions, bootstrap, swap, / ,
/home. I wiped them all). Now, the same problem is happening, panel is not
loading up, and on vt1 I get a weird message about a Gnome error. I booted
onto the install disc, and it dropped me into rescue mode. As I said
before, I wiped the partitions, and since, have run fsck.ext2 -vc and just
about everything else on the drive that I could think of. I figured it was
a head crash, and that something would show up in fsck.ext2 -c. I am in a
quandary about both problems. I have plowed through both the LinuxPPC and
YDL lists. I have not found anything like this. If I have missed something
in the lists, please let me know with a link, so I can go read up. If you
need more information, here it is. I did run the Apple diagnostic cd that
came with the PowerBook, and it recognized everything, and said everything
was working properly. The diagnostic cd does nothing about the HDD though.
YDL 2.1 Retail
Pismo (400)
128 (1x128 in the bottom bank, not the top)
10 Gig HDD /dev/hda8 MacOS 9.2 2Gig
/dev/hda9 swap 256M
/dev/hda10 / 2 Gig
/dev/hda11 /home remaining ~ 5Gig
Airport
Gnome error
-------------------------
Gnome-ERROR **: file gnome-dentry.c: line 148
(gnome_desktop_entry_load_flags_conditional): assertion failed: (file !=
NULL)
aborting...
-------------------------
This error keeps scrolling on vt1, as long as I let it. Panel does not come
up. Apparently, panel keeps respawning, because my processor is stuck at
100%, and the PID of panel keeps changing.
I know this was long, but I wanted to provide as much information as
possible. Thank you for reading this far. If anyone could help me or
provide any leads, on where I could look, I would appreciate it greatly.
Right now, I am looking at an unusable system. Since the panel will not
load, I can't do a thing. Maybe the removable processor daughter card is
hosed. That would be a very bad thing, and why would a simple power failure
do that?
Darren Ferwerda
United Parcel Service
Infrastructure QA
Co-Op
201-828-3012 Externally
or
Ext. 3012 Internally
C-506
640 Winters Ave.
Paramus, N.J.
07652-3904
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Wed Jan 09 2002 - 08:12:25 MST