Two computers thrash soon after boot -- how to stop it?
One of these computers is a desktop. From a cold boot it appears to
load the operating system without incident -- as far as I can tell --
right to the kdm login manager. Once a user name and password are
entered it loads KDE in about 5-10 seconds.
However, soon after I load the first application, Iceweasel or Icedove
for instance, the computer exhibits the usual symptoms of thrashing:
sluggish response to keyboard or mouse generated commands and continuous
flicker of the hard drive light.
The only way I have found to stop the thrashing is to do a warm re-boot
as soon as possible after the thrashing starts. After I do so the
computer regains its stability.
The mainboard of this computer is a Foxconn 45CM with an Intel E2160
dual-core CPU and one 1GB memory module.
This computer has etch-and-a-half installed, after upgrade from etch.
It uses the XFS file system and consequently LILO rather than GRUB. The
df command returns the following:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/SOL-root 3.0G 219M 2.8G 8% /
tmpfs 502M 0 502M 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10M 56K 10M 1% /dev
tmpfs 502M 0 502M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 60M 25M 35M 43% /boot
/dev/mapper/SOL-home_crypt
208G 55G 153G 27% /home
/dev/mapper/SOL-tmp 1014M 4.4M 1010M 1% /tmp
/dev/mapper/SOL-usr 15G 2.5G 13G 17% /usr
/dev/mapper/SOL-var 3.0G 1.1G 2.0G 35% /var
BDS:/home/martin/docs
50G 37G 11G 78% /home/martin/docs
BDS:/home/martin/ice 50G 37G 11G 78% /home/martin/ice
BDS:/home/martin/images-elph
50G 37G 11G 78% /home/martin/images-elph
BDS:/home/martin/images-m
50G 37G 11G 78% /home/martin/images-m
The df command does not return information about the swap partition; its
size is 2 GB. Both it and the home partition are encrypted, the former
with a random passphrase, the latter with one which is entered every
time the system is booted. The syslog indicates some swapping out of
memory to make space for other processes, but not -- it seems --
excessively.
The other computer is a Lenovo ThinkPad R61 laptop. It also seems to
load the operating system as it should, as far as the kdm login manager.
From this point on, its performance differs from the desktop.
After a user name and password are entered, it takes on average 90
seconds to load Xorg and KDE. During this time the hard drive indicator
light flashes continuously. I would surmise that it needs those 90
seconds because of the length of time needed to respond to the Xorg and
KDE setup commands.
This computer sometimes will function properly once Xorg and KDE are
running. When it does not, one warm re-boot will usually work;
otherwise if the laptop hangs I will have to switch it off, do a cold
boot, and later a warm re-boot.
The laptop also has a dual-core Intel CPU and a 1 GB memory module. The
operating system is Lenny, a new installation using the Lenny beta2
installer. The XFS file system is also used, and consequently LILO
rather than GRUB. For the laptop the df command returns the following:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 1.9G 156M 1.8G 9% /
tmpfs 502M 0 502M 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10M 128K 9.9M 2% /dev
tmpfs 502M 6.1M 496M 2% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 51M 21M 30M 41% /boot
/dev/mapper/sda9_crypt
282G 1.7G 280G 1% /home
/dev/sda5 953M 4.4M 948M 1% /tmp
/dev/sda7 9.4G 2.2G 7.2G 24% /usr
/dev/sda6 2.8G 899M 2.0G 32% /var
The swap space is also 2 GB. The swap and home partitions are also both
encrypted, the former with a random pass phrase, the later with one I
created. The desktop uses LVM2 for most partitions; whereas the laptop
does not. While syslog records some swapping out of memery, it does not
seem to me untoward.
It appears that in both computers there is enough memory and swap space
to obviate "legitimate" thrashing; so it occurs to me that it may be
caused by a virus or some such. So far only the desktop has clamav
installed. (Are there other anti-virus or spyware packages?)
I would like to install clamav on the laptop, but ran into trouble when,
using aptitude, I tried to upgrade the installed Lenny packages for the
first time, about 33 of them, including a new kernel (2.6.25-2-686 to
replace 2.6.24) and tzdata. The package setup only got as far as
tzdata, when the machine hung. To get the machine going again I had to
turn it off using the on/off button and do a cold boot without a proper
shutdown.
Then, when I ran aptitude again it returned the message that aptitude
had been interrupted, and to get it running again I had to run "dpkg
--reconfigure -a". I tried to do so several times; each time it tried
to set up tzdata, only getting as far as to say what the current time
zone is before hanging up the machine. Is this problem connected with
the thrashing problem?
(I must say that upgrading tzdata has always caused trouble, it is never
set up on the first attempt. On this laptop is the first time I have
been unable to complete an interrupted package upgrade by running "dpkg
--reconfigure -a".)
So now I am in a situation where I can (usually) run both computers
after by brute force I can get them to stop thrashing. I would like
however to be able to stop the thrashing before it starts. I would also
like to be able to upgrade and load new packages on the desktop.
Regards, Ken Heard
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