Re: Problem with system update or something
On Saturday 03 November 2012 20:14:55 Bret Busby wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Nov 2012, Bret Busby wrote:
> > Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 13:41:53
> > From: Bret Busby <bret@busby.net>
> > To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> > Subject: Re: Problem with system update or something
> > Resent-Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2012 05:44:11 +0000 (UTC)
> > Resent-From: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> >
> > On Sat, 3 Nov 2012, Bret Busby wrote:
> >> Hello.
> >>
> >> I am running (or, now, kind of running) Debian 6.0.x AMD64 version.
> >>
> >> I have done a system update in the last day or so, and, possibly because
> >> of that, the system has become mostly unusable.
> >>
> >> Upon shutting down konqueror, all of the saved bookmarks were deleted.
> >>
> >> With rebooting, rebooting has been consuming about 200MB of disk space
> >> on each reboot, leaving me now with somewhere around 2-6MB of free disk
> >> space (it changes on each reboot), and, for some strange reason, trying
> >> to run a web browser (not saving anything to disk, just trying to run a
> >> web browser) writes stuff to the disk, or, otherwise uses up free disk
> >> space, so that it runs out of free disk space and crashes the system.
> >>
> >> Now, with an AMD64 system, with 8GB of RAM, and tens of GB of disk
> >> capacity (in the home partition), all that it is usable for, is running
> >> alpine.
> >>
> >> What is happening, that Debian, after the update, is wrecking the
> >> system?
> >>
> >> It is as if Debian 6 has assumed the nature of the "experimental"
> >> version of Debian - tending to break the system.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Bret Busby
> >> Armadale
> >> West Australia
> >> ..............
> >>
> >> "So once you do know what the question actually is,
> >> you'll know what the answer means."
> >> - Deep Thought,
> >> Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
> >> "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
> >> A Trilogy In Four Parts",
> >> written by Douglas Adams,
> >> published by Pan Books, 1992
> >> ....................................................
> >
> > It has occurred to me, that this ivolves multiple problems or symptoms.
> >
> > 1. The operating system and/or the web browsers ignore the swap
> > partition, and simply progressivley consume the RAM, until none is left
> > free to be used, causing system crashes. No known reason is shown for
> > this, and checks have been done, and all of the settings appear to be
> > correct for causing swapping to occur; it simply does not occur, and the
> > system progresively runs out of memory, until it crashes.
> >
> > 2. The web browsers (konqueror and opera) progressively consume available
> > free disk space in the home partition, until that runs out, regardless of
> > whether I am saving any files. The malware javascript is enabled in
> > opera, because I need it for an online application, and it is disabled in
> > konqueror and the other web browsers that I have used (but, that I have
> > not used for some months now, such as iceape and iceweasel and epihphany,
> > due to the overall system instability).
> >
> > 3. When I used the kill button "Click on the application window to cause
> > the application to quit", after rebooting, if that is done to opera
> > and/or konqueror, hundreds of megabytes of disk space in the home
> > directory, are freed.
> >
> > 4. When I last used that to kill opera, on reloading opera, it did not
> > eith restart as the crashed session, or, offer an option to do that
> > (software appears to be erratic in this and other things).
> >
> > 5. When I closed down konqueror, with an orderly closure, it deleted all
> > of my bookmarks within it.
> >
> > 6. After having killed opera as described in 3 above, about 200MB of disk
> > space in the /home partition, was freed, that showed as being free after
> > rebooting the system.
> >
> > 7. However, after rebooting after 6 above, opera was behaving as if it
> > was running in about 640kB of RAM - it was unresponsive, so, the system
> > was rebooted, and the 200MB of free space in the home partrition, was
> > consumed by the reboot.
> >
> > 8. I do not know how to cause space consumed by downloaded files, in a
> > system update, to be automatically freed, by purging either the files
> > downloaded in the system update, and or any files or other disk space
> > consumed by the update process, or, the predecessors of the files
> > downloaded in the sytem update. I assume (but am not sure) that they
> > occupy space within the Downloads directory within the home partition.
> >
> > 9. Thus, the system (Debian 6.0.x AMD64 version) appears to have
> > degenerated to the status of the Debian version that is named "Sid", or,
> > experimental - said to be unreliable, erratic, unstable, and, likely
> > harmful.
> >
> > 9. This AMD64 system with 8GB of RAM and tens of GB in the home
> > partition, is now giving me about the same performance as my XT clone (it
> > has an NEC V22 processor) running DOS (I think it was last DR-DOS 5 or 6,
> > but I am not sure)used to give; all that I can now run on this system, is
> > alpine, and the download speed is about the same, even though, before
> > this trouble, I could get download speeds of about 1MB per second, on
> > this system .I would probably be using my XT clone, but it is kind of
> > buried under other junk, and, the HDD (10MB with a stepper motor) ended
> > up needing to be kickstarted every time that the system was booted.
> >
> > --
> > Bret Busby
> > Armadale
> > West Australia
> > ..............
> >
> > "So once you do know what the question actually is,
> > you'll know what the answer means."
> > - Deep Thought,
> > Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
> > "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
> > A Trilogy In Four Parts",
> > written by Douglas Adams,
> > published by Pan Books, 1992
> > ....................................................
>
> Please "CC" any replies to my gamil account address;
> bret.busby@gmail.com, as this system can no longer run alpine; it shows
> as now having less than 100kB of free disk space.
Have you tested the HDD and RAM? Or, come to that, any of the hardware?
Lisi
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