On Tue, Jun 27, 2000 at 06:29:15PM +0300, M. Tavasti wrote: > "I. Tura" <seasidefront@yahoo.fr> writes: > > > Due to the fact that I don't know if the hardware still runs well, is it a > > good idea to run a floppy kernel ten times consecutively, for example, to > > take an initial (or decent) idea of the health of the hardware? > > Maybe that's not telling you much, but how about booting it up with > some floppy-linux, and running badblocks? I missed the initial post. For hardware testing, it depends on what (you think) is wrong with the hardware (that is -- what is wrong, *or* what you suspect). If you want to know if the system will boot, try booting it. For memory, there are a number of memory testers out there, try searching Freshmeat. For disk, badblocks. The destructive "write" test should be reasonably thorough, and it's always viscerally satisfying to me to know that I'm running a destructive test.... For CPU -- build a kernel. I've been known to get a system I know is flaky, but that I don't know *how* it's flaky, and run an infinite loop of kernel builds for a day or so. Figure that's as good a smoke test as anything: while :; do make bzimage; done ...though if you've got a smokin' hot system, you may want to build something larger. The KDE build was a fun one for me. You can also use the -j (jobs) option to "make" to run multiple processes simultaneously. Of course, if you really want to stress a system, try the following magic phrase: Rent's due, you're going to be fired tomorrow, girlfriend ran off with your best buddy, dog got hit by a truck, and the IRS is knocking at your door. ...if it can take that, it can take anything. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc. http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0
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