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Re: Installed for the first time, strange problems



>>>> I just installed Debian for the first time on my Power Mac 6500.
>>>> I put on a few packages, including the 2.4.28-powerpc woody kernel image.
>>>> But now the strangest things are happening.
>>>> Sometimes when I am in enlightenment it will just freeze up.  Moving the 
>>>> mouse and pressing keys does nothing.  The transmit light on the ethernet 
>>>> card flashes every so often, but pinging the machine from the other one 
>>>> (two machine ethernet using crossover cable) does not work.
>>>> And other times I get an "Oops" message for no apparent reason.  This 
>>>> happens often during the shutdown process.
>>>> Upon occasion after I type my login and password into xdm, the little 
>>>> "opening session for user storm" will appear on the xconsole, and then 
>>>> one of two strange things will happen.  Sometimes it will almost 
>>>> instantly print the closing session for user storm message.  Other times 
>>>> it won't seem to do anything.  The really strange part is that the "xdm" 
>>>> processes owned by storm refuse to die, even with kill -9 from a root 
>>>> login on tty1.  Even with a "shutdown now" and then hitting control-D to 
>>>> start things up again.
>>>> And, most recently, I started up, logged in, opened an Eterm, and tried 
>>>> to use netcat.  It died with an illegal instruction.  Then I tried ssh.  
>>>> Same.  Neither seemed to do anything before printing "Illegal 
>>>> Instruction".
>>>> What's going on?  What can I do?

>>> Sounds like either a kernel or a hardware problem. The fact that most
>>> other people don't seem to experience the same problems with the same
>>> kernel points towards the hardware I'm afraid - might be faulty RAM or
>>> something. Anything interesting in the kernel output?

[snippy snippy]

>> [as I said, I have 96MB of memory, and it just happens to be a 64MB 
>> module and a 32MB module, ...]

> So can you try running with one module at a time and see if the problems
> persist?

Today I tried taking out the 32MB, and everything was fine for a while, 
but then I got an "Oops" message during shutdown.
Then I tried putting the 32MB back in and taking out the 64MB, and 
everything was fine (other than really slow) for a while, but then I got 
an "Oops" message.
The really strange problems are rare, so it probably doesn't mean much 
that they didn't happen during the brief periods I was running with only 
one module.

Can assume it is not the RAM and move on to investigating other causes?

Have we gotten to the point where I should copy all the "Oops" messages 
from the logs and paste them into an email?

There is something else, sound and modem don't work.  It may be unrelated 
and I can worry about it later.  I thought maybe I should mention it 
though.



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