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Re: Dell Ispiron with Etch netinst 17092006



Hey Shuanghe,

a laptop freezing is often caused by either the video card driver, 
or some kernel incompatibility (often ACPI related). That means 
you should provide any error message taken from 2 logfiles, 
/var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/kern.log.
A third chance is network access, so you should also lookup 
/var/log/syslog and /var/log/daemon.log for error messages.
Other information you need to provide include the kernel version 
and usually also the output of lspci -v.
Here is an example.
Enter a shell ('bash') and type:

su root (+enter the root password then)
cd /tmp
script log1
uname -a
lspci -v
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
tail -n 500 /var/log/kern.log

then type Ctrl+d to exit the script recording
(Ctrl+d means pressing Ctrl and d the same time)

chmod a+rw log1
exit

The session is recorded in the file "/tmp/log1" now, you should
open that in a text editor, save it into your home-folder, and tune 
it a little bit, to make it easier to read. For example, the tail command 
cuts the last 500 lines of the kern.log, but only the last boot -> shutdown 
sequence is needed, try to cut it exactly.
Then attach the file to any further support requests.
(more comments below)

> Intel Pentium M 780 2.26GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB
> 
> 2048 MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 1024)
> 
> NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 256MB PCI-Express
> 
> 100GB 7200rpm IDE Hard Drive

nice  :)


> 8X SONY DVD +/- RW
> 
> Intel ProWireless 2200 802.11b/g Mini PCI Wireless LAN Card
> 
> 17" UltraSharp Wide Screen WUXGA 1900 x 1200 with TrueLife
> 
> BlueTooth

> For the hard disk partition I have
> 
> C:\ 50GB with Windows XP professional NTF
> 
> D:\ 30GB Debian EXT3
> 
> E:\15GB FAT32 (intended to share this place with windows)
> 
> F:\1GB SWAP


I suggest to repartition the last two and make it 
E:\ 13,5GB FAT32
F:\ 2,5GB SWAP
The reason is, if you activate hibernation under linux, it will save the RAM 
into the swap area, so you should provide the same size as your RAM is.

> tried to mount /dev/sda5 in BASH shell but was told it was already mounted. 

That's just the way it should be. It's ok.

> <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
> proc              /proc               proc      defaults      0          0
> /dev/sda5       /         ext3        defaults, error=remount-ro     0    1
> /dev/sda7      none    swap        sw               0         0

so drive E: should be /dev/sda6 here.

> /dev/scd0      /nedia/cdrom0       udf,iso9660 user, noauto      0  0

There's a typoo, it has to be /media/cdrom0 (m instead of n)

The /dev/fstab file is somewhat strange, there's no entry 
for the windows partitions, and none for your 'E' drive.
Normally, the debian installer writes it more completely.

> so I "umount /dev/sda5", several times, and all I had is two lines repeated
> "umount : / : device is busy".

That's again totally ok. You can not umount (that is: detach) 
the root filesystem (let's say that is your running linux) from the 
same running system. Of course it is busy :)
There's no reason to do any mount command at this point.

> how should I do to solve this problem?

Post the logs.

> Also, I have E: partition 15GB, FAT32 file system, intended to used it for
> data backup but I could mount it. How should I do?

Easiest way is. add a line like this to /etc/fstab: 
/dev/sca6 	/home/exchange 	vfat 	noauto,user 0  0
then create the directory /home/exchange. Like this (shell):
su root
mkdir /home/exchange
exit

This is a freely chosen example, you can locate the mountpoint 
anywhere else, for example in your home directory. 
The launch a nautilus, in gnome, and look if it gets automounted.
If not, try the right-mouse-click context menu.

However, i suggest to configure exchange to be already mounted 
automatically far earlier, at bootup.

Like this: Enter a shell and type: id
That will tell your uid and gid (user and group ID). 
You need to insert the two numbers in the /etc/fstab line, like this:

/dev/sca6 	/home/exchange 	vfat 	auto,user,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=0007 	 0  0

This will 'own' the mounted partition to your user account.
The umask says anything is read-, write-, and executable.
There's no way to avoid the executable flag, to have access to subdirectories, AFAIK.
 
> Last problem: when I click to shutdown the system, it froze and I was force
> to push power button to shut it down. 
I think it was frozen anyway.

You should know you can enter a text-console shell login
by typing the key combination Ctrl+Alt+F1
'Alt' is the key left from the spacebar, maybe it's called different
on your keyboard. F1 should be on top row left.
You can access more shell logins with the same but F2 ... F6.
You can re-enter the running X-session with Ctrl+Alt+F7. 


> BTW, I was still able to boot windows XP after all this.

You're a lucky man

> Thanks.
> Shuanghe

Good luck,

mi


 m°



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