From fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net Tue Jan 19 10:13:52 2010 From: fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net (Fred James) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:13:52 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] OT OOo font question Message-ID: <4B55DA40.8070506@fredjame.cnc.net> All OOo 2.2.1 Mandriva 2008 ... Oops, never mind, I think just I answered my own question ... Is it true that at some point "Arial" was dropped from the font list? Que? Resulting in old OOo documents still having Arial (although not selectable from the font list) if that is the font that was used originally, but otherwise not? Or have I got that wrong, too? Thanks Regards Fred James From fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net Tue Jan 19 12:31:34 2010 From: fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net (Fred James) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:31:34 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] OT OOo font question In-Reply-To: <4B55DA40.8070506@fredjame.cnc.net> References: <4B55DA40.8070506@fredjame.cnc.net> Message-ID: <4B55FA86.7000002@fredjame.cnc.net> Fred James wrote: > All > OOo 2.2.1 > Mandriva 2008 > ... Oops, never mind, I think just I answered my own question ... > Is it true that at some point "Arial" was dropped from the font list? > Que? > Resulting in old OOo documents still having Arial (although not > selectable from the font list) if that is the font that was used > originally, but otherwise not? Or have I got that wrong, too? > Thanks > Regards > Fred James All ... again, answering my own question(s) ... wikipedia saves the day ... Arial is so bound up with MS - sort of like eating too much cheese ... that seems to answer that, eh? So probably the OOo document with Arial in it, started life on as an MS W doc? Probably. Sigh. Regards Fred James From cjcox at acm.org Tue Jan 19 12:55:11 2010 From: cjcox at acm.org (Chris Cox) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:55:11 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] OT OOo font question In-Reply-To: <4B55DA40.8070506@fredjame.cnc.net> References: <4B55DA40.8070506@fredjame.cnc.net> Message-ID: <1263927311.2586.72.camel@geeko> On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 10:13 -0600, Fred James wrote: > All > OOo 2.2.1 > Mandriva 2008 > ... Oops, never mind, I think just I answered my own question ... > Is it true that at some point "Arial" was dropped from the font list? Que? > Resulting in old OOo documents still having Arial (although not > selectable from the font list) if that is the font that was used > originally, but otherwise not? Or have I got that wrong, too? Or even openSUSE... because openSUSE has long installed the "free" web fonts that Microsoft made available (which includes Arial). Initial install might not include them, but usually the first update will the running of fetchmsttfonts From cjcox at acm.org Wed Jan 20 22:05:05 2010 From: cjcox at acm.org (Chris Cox) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:05:05 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Video showing my homemade pvr Message-ID: <4B57D271.7040701@acm.org> I did a presentation in 2008 on my homemade PVR. But the demo didn't work out to well. So I made a recording of my desktop showing off how it works a bit. Enjoy http://endlessnow.com/ten/Video/pvr.ogv (if you're running a relatively contemporary Ffox, it might even play without anything else) Warning: it's 1920x1200 resolution. Ogg Theora (ogv) From jmforbes at linuxtx.org Thu Jan 21 13:42:36 2010 From: jmforbes at linuxtx.org (Justin M. Forbes) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:42:36 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Giving Up On FEDORA In-Reply-To: <4B40E723.4020000@dearroz.com> References: <4B40E723.4020000@dearroz.com> Message-ID: <20100121194236.GA24650@linuxtx.org> Sorry to revive an old thread, but this needed to be mentioned... On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 12:51:15PM -0600, Dennis Rice wrote: > In Fedora's desire to be on the bleeding edge and only support those > that wish to be developers, I am dropping it. > > I did an upgrade and it has FAILED! What is worse, the previous > revisions have also been corrupted. > > I have a HP Compaq 8710p with three kernels presently installed, > 1. vmlinuz-2.6.31.1-56.fc12.i686.PAE > 2. vmlinuz2.6.32-0.65.rc8.git5.fc13.i686.PAE > 3. vmlinuz.2.6.32.2-15.fc13.i686.PAE > > On upgrading to fc11 and doing an upgrading to 12, 11 was made unusable, > failing at the GRUB. Fortunately 12 did work. Later a I did another > update and 13 Beta was installed (#1 above). This worked generally ok > but the connection to my HP network connected (Jetconnect) failed. > Unfortunately at the same time the printer connection for 12, which > previously worked now failed. This last week I performed another update > and the update to fc13 was installed and 11 was deleted. Now both 12 > and both versions of 13 work to a very limited extent. All three > versions freeze up and the only thing that moves on the screen is the > mouse cursser. The only way I can shut down the system is to do a > physical power off. Applications work for a while and the lock. Open > Office and Firefox have been made unsuable over any extend period of time. There is no Fedora 13 beta yet, in fact we are not even in feature freeze. What you installed was a development tree that may or may not work at any given time. For an idea of where we are in the development cycle, see: F-13 schedule: 2010-01-26 Feature Submission Deadline 2010-02-09 Feature Freeze 2010-02-16 Alpha Freeze 2010-03-23 Beta (Final Development) Freeze 2010-04-29 Compose Release Candidate > > I do not wish to be part of the bug reporting process because to me, as > just an end user, it is too complex of a process. I am not a programmer > or developer, just a basic user that likes the power of freedom of > Linux. My discuss with Fedora is not allowed to be written down. I am > hopeful that someone on the Fedora team is able to read this and learn > that they are orienting the OS to a select group of users and thus > cutting off many other users. If they want the mass user base to keep > using their OS, then they need to make it usable and issue a quality > product. I did not request the upgrade to 13, it was forced upon me and > from that point on the quality of the system deteriorated. I will now > be switching to another distribution. As a basic user who does "not wish to be part of the bug reporting process" I would highly recommend avoiding the rawhide trees all together, but especially before the Alpha release next month, and probably before the Beta release of F13 in March. Rawhide is great for testing and devlopment, I run it on several machines, but I don't move my primary desktop until after Alpha sometime, and don't ever put my laptop on the rawhide tree. Justin From johnaustin1946 at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 12:36:38 2010 From: johnaustin1946 at gmail.com (John Austin) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:36:38 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> It appears that the casual user is out of his league with Fedora. I had a good installation of F10, but since that time none of them worked out of the .iso My interest is to keep up with current trends; however this isn't paying off at all. John Austin a noobee for 10 yrs. On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:00 PM, wrote: > Send Discuss mailing list submissions to > discuss at ntlug.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > discuss-request at ntlug.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > discuss-owner at ntlug.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Discuss digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Giving Up On FEDORA (Justin M. Forbes) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:42:36 -0600 > From: "Justin M. Forbes" > Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Giving Up On FEDORA > To: NTLUG Discussion List > Message-ID: <20100121194236.GA24650 at linuxtx.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Sorry to revive an old thread, but this needed to be mentioned... > > On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 12:51:15PM -0600, Dennis Rice wrote: > > In Fedora's desire to be on the bleeding edge and only support those > > that wish to be developers, I am dropping it. > > > > I did an upgrade and it has FAILED! What is worse, the previous > > revisions have also been corrupted. > > > > I have a HP Compaq 8710p with three kernels presently installed, > > 1. vmlinuz-2.6.31.1-56.fc12.i686.PAE > > 2. vmlinuz2.6.32-0.65.rc8.git5.fc13.i686.PAE > > 3. vmlinuz.2.6.32.2-15.fc13.i686.PAE > > > > On upgrading to fc11 and doing an upgrading to 12, 11 was made unusable, > > failing at the GRUB. Fortunately 12 did work. Later a I did another > > update and 13 Beta was installed (#1 above). This worked generally ok > > but the connection to my HP network connected (Jetconnect) failed. > > Unfortunately at the same time the printer connection for 12, which > > previously worked now failed. This last week I performed another update > > and the update to fc13 was installed and 11 was deleted. Now both 12 > > and both versions of 13 work to a very limited extent. All three > > versions freeze up and the only thing that moves on the screen is the > > mouse cursser. The only way I can shut down the system is to do a > > physical power off. Applications work for a while and the lock. Open > > Office and Firefox have been made unsuable over any extend period of > time. > > There is no Fedora 13 beta yet, in fact we are not even in feature freeze. > What you installed was a development tree that may or may not work at any > given time. For an idea of where we are in the development cycle, see: > > F-13 schedule: > > 2010-01-26 Feature Submission Deadline > 2010-02-09 Feature Freeze > 2010-02-16 Alpha Freeze > 2010-03-23 Beta (Final Development) Freeze > 2010-04-29 Compose Release Candidate > > > > > > I do not wish to be part of the bug reporting process because to me, as > > just an end user, it is too complex of a process. I am not a programmer > > or developer, just a basic user that likes the power of freedom of > > Linux. My discuss with Fedora is not allowed to be written down. I am > > hopeful that someone on the Fedora team is able to read this and learn > > that they are orienting the OS to a select group of users and thus > > cutting off many other users. If they want the mass user base to keep > > using their OS, then they need to make it usable and issue a quality > > product. I did not request the upgrade to 13, it was forced upon me and > > from that point on the quality of the system deteriorated. I will now > > be switching to another distribution. > > As a basic user who does "not wish to be part of the bug reporting process" > I would highly recommend avoiding the rawhide trees all together, but > especially before the Alpha release next month, and probably before the > Beta release of F13 in March. > Rawhide is great for testing and devlopment, I run it on several machines, > but I don't move my primary desktop until after Alpha sometime, and don't > ever put my laptop on the rawhide tree. > > Justin > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at ntlug.org > http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > End of Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 > *************************************** > From cjcox at acm.org Fri Jan 22 13:15:09 2010 From: cjcox at acm.org (Chris Cox) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:15:09 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 In-Reply-To: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1264187709.17999.70.camel@geeko> On Fri, 2010-01-22 at 12:36 -0600, John Austin wrote: > It appears that the casual user is out of his league with Fedora. I had a > good installation of F10, but since that time none of them worked out of the > .iso My interest is to keep up with current trends; however this isn't > paying off at all. > John Austin a noobee for 10 yrs. Yes... this is tough. I mean, you WANT things to advance, you WANT things to improve, so... you really want there to be a distribution that focuses on "new" ideas and concepts. Ubuntu, while they DO a bit of this, if the "usability" by a newbie seems to be broken, they pull it and revert to whatever is "usable". But, Ubuntu also tends to fail miserably if you try to step outside of the boundaries of operation they believe defines a "usable" desktop. It's a tightrope.... and very hard to balance and please everyone. (not sure if there's a good answer today, unless a distro want to maintain TWO distros... Debian style?). From dkaptain at yahoo.com.mx Fri Jan 22 14:34:16 2010 From: dkaptain at yahoo.com.mx (Dennis Kaptain) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:34:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 In-Reply-To: <1264187709.17999.70.camel@geeko> References: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> <1264187709.17999.70.camel@geeko> Message-ID: <718088.80983.qm@web58801.mail.re1.yahoo.com> De: Chris Cox Para: NTLUG Discussion List Enviado: viernes, 22 de enero, 2010 13:15:09 Asunto: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 On Fri, 2010-01-22 at 12:36 -0600, John Austin wrote: > It appears that the casual user is out of his league with Fedora. I had a > good installation of F10, but since that time none of them worked out of the > .iso My interest is to keep up with current trends; however this isn't > paying off at all. > John Austin a noobee for 10 yrs. Yes... this is tough. I mean, you WANT things to advance, you WANT things to improve, so... you really want there to be a distribution that focuses on "new" ideas and concepts. Ubuntu, while they DO a bit of this, if the "usability" by a newbie seems to be broken, they pull it and revert to whatever is "usable". But, Ubuntu also tends to fail miserably if you try to step outside of the boundaries of operation they believe defines a "usable" desktop. It's a tightrope.... and very hard to balance and please everyone. (not sure if there's a good answer today, unless a distro want to maintain TWO distros... Debian style?). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am more of the lurk in the shadows kind of guy but I feel compelled to respond here. I have been a Linux user since I gave up on Windows98. That's before Windows ME came out. I dodged a bullet there! Over the years I have tried several versions of Debian, Slackware, TurboLinux, DSL, Knoppix, Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, and most likely others I have forgotten. I have used Gnome, KDE, and XFCE desktops. I have a RHCT and CompTIA Linux+ Certifications so I am by no means a newbie to Linux. I am currently a hard core Fedora fan boy. I started with FC1 in 2003. I now have F11 installed on 4 machines I have at home. No Chris, I've never tried SUSE. Maybe I should some day. I also (because of my jobs) have used newer versions of Windows so I'm not completely clueless there either. It is my observation that Linux is easier to install than any version of windows if you include the drivers for every device you have and all the applications. Windows is not bullet proof or even stable (although I must say more recently Windows 7 is looking much better). You will have applications crash. You will have data lost. You will have applications that conflict with each other and cause headaches. Updates will break your system and cause things to fail. In Linux (I can speak for Fedora 11) you will have the same kind of problems. I expect in other distributions you will suffer the same ills. I've seen things break with an update. Programs that seg fault on start up and some just plain weird stuff. The thing is, modern day computers and operating systems are very complex systems. Far too complex for any single person to master on their own. That is why there exist teams of developers who make applications, kernels, drivers, and who knows what else. Each person can take care of his or her piece and hopefully when they all come together there won't be too big of a mess. The difference is, in Linux you have a hope of fixing things. In windows... most likely not. Between the various Linux distros. They are created for different purposes and targeted at different audiences. I am a web developer which is what drove me to choose Fedora. Most things I need come with a standard install. Not to mention things are sparkly new. That also means that they will sometimes be flaky. That is something I'm willing to live with for the features that Fedora offers. For people that just want to check email, surf the web, and occasionally edit a document, I'd recommend Ubuntu. I believe they are focusing on the desktop user and ease of use. For a computer science major, maybe they would like Gentoo where you get to compile absolutely everything. So which OS or which distro (if you made the right OS choice) has to be based on your needs and goals. Any user of any computer really needs to learn at least a little about how to run their system or the little things that come up will cripple you very quickly. Use the three finger salute to bring up Process Manager to kill things in windows and learn basic BASH commands so you can get around your Linux system when you need to, even in the absence of a X windows GUI. From there, just know. Things will go wrong. Just know what to do about it when it happens. Dennis Kaptain Encuentra las mejores recetas en Yahoo! Cocina. http://mx.mujer.yahoo.com/cocina/ From cjcox at acm.org Fri Jan 22 14:50:41 2010 From: cjcox at acm.org (Chris Cox) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:50:41 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 In-Reply-To: <718088.80983.qm@web58801.mail.re1.yahoo.com> References: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> <1264187709.17999.70.camel@geeko> <718088.80983.qm@web58801.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1264193441.17999.99.camel@geeko> On Fri, 2010-01-22 at 12:34 -0800, Dennis Kaptain wrote: ...snip... > It is my observation > that Linux is easier to install than any version of windows if you include the drivers for every device you have and > all the applications. Windows is not bullet proof or even stable (although I must say more recently Windows 7 > is looking much better). You will have applications crash. You will have data lost. You will have applications that > conflict with each other and cause headaches. Updates will break your system and cause things to fail. > > In Linux (I can speak for Fedora 11) you will have the same kind of problems. I expect in other distributions you will suffer the same ills. > I've seen things break with an update. Programs that seg fault on start up and some just plain weird stuff. > > The thing is, modern day computers and operating systems are very complex systems. Far too complex for any single > person to master on their own. That is why there exist teams of developers who make applications, kernels, drivers, > and who knows what else. Each person can take care of his or her piece and hopefully when they all come together > there won't be too big of a mess. > > The difference is, in Linux you have a hope of fixing things. In windows... most likely not. Well said. And very true. But there's an expectation level and level of acceptance that Windows users make with regards to their OS. So, Windows gets forgiveness, Linux does not... because it's different. Maybe Linux should put up BSODs? Maybe we should popup dialogs saying something awful happened and ask the user to press the 'Ok' button? :-) You have to be willing to learn something new with GNU/Linux, but as you pointed out... at least there's not an inpenetrable wall in the way. I only get frustrated in Linux for a moment... with Windows... it lasts and lasts and lasts... (but we feel ok, because our Window's friends are all in the same boat). From e2eiod at gmail.com Fri Jan 22 17:21:32 2010 From: e2eiod at gmail.com (Robert Pearson) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:21:32 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 In-Reply-To: <1264193441.17999.99.camel@geeko> References: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> <1264187709.17999.70.camel@geeko> <718088.80983.qm@web58801.mail.re1.yahoo.com> <1264193441.17999.99.camel@geeko> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Chris Cox wrote: > On Fri, 2010-01-22 at 12:34 -0800, Dennis Kaptain wrote: > ...snip... >> It is my observation >> that Linux is easier to install than any version of windows if you include the drivers for every device you have and >> all the applications. Windows is not bullet proof or even stable (although I must say more recently Windows 7 >> is looking much better). You will have applications crash. You will have data lost. You will have applications that >> conflict with each other and cause headaches. Updates will break your system and cause things to fail. >> >> In Linux (I can speak for Fedora 11) you will have the same kind of problems. I expect in other distributions you will suffer the same ills. >> I've seen things break with an update. Programs that seg fault on start up and some just plain weird stuff. >> >> The thing is, modern day computers and operating systems are very complex systems. Far too complex for any single >> person to master on their own. That is why there exist teams of developers who make applications, kernels, drivers, >> and who knows what else. Each person can take care of his or her piece and hopefully when they all come together >> there won't be too big of a mess. >> >> The difference is, in Linux you have a hope of fixing things. In windows... most likely not. > > Well said. ?And very true. ?But there's an expectation level and level > of acceptance that Windows users make with regards to their OS. > So, Windows gets forgiveness, Linux does not... because > it's different. > > Maybe Linux should put up BSODs? ?Maybe we should popup dialogs > saying something awful happened and ask the user to press the > 'Ok' button? :-) > > You have to be willing to learn something new with GNU/Linux, but > as you pointed out... at least there's not an inpenetrable wall > in the way. ?I only get frustrated in Linux for a moment... with > Windows... it lasts and lasts and lasts... (but we feel ok, because > our Window's friends are all in the same boat). > Maybe we could bring back Bryan J. Smith? After my first two installs of Fedora Core (1,2?-3,4?, I don't remember but it was early) I started having update problems. I tracked this down to specific repositories that were giving me code that was incompatible with interdependent code from other repositories. I was tearing my hair out when Bryan J. Smith suddenly started posting on the NTLUG mailing list. Between his NTLUG postings and my personal emails with him, I got the update and repository problems straightened out. He was on top of the problem. The answer was: [Google search string] "Hawaii site:thebs413.blogspot.com" (without the quotes) returns: "BS' Blog: Linux Distributions: Packages v. Ports Probably the most significant repository was the University of Hawaii's Fedora Project, ... The resulting Fedora Project, taking the name from U of Hawaii, ... thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/07/linux-distributions-packages-v-ports.htm" Once the U of Hawaii repository stopped being updated (reason unknown), I never got another decent update or stable install of Fedora and dropped it. In all fairness I had about the same experience later with SuSE and openSuSE, after their purchase, and dropped it. I have a generally low opinion of Update Managers and repositories with the exception of Debian. Ubuntu has done passable well. Mint copies Ubuntu. PCLinuxOS has had problems but they fixed them fairly quickly. Other searches of interest on Bryan's now defunct blog: [Google search string] "repository site:thebs413.blogspot.com" (without the quotes) [Google search string] "Fedora site:thebs413.blogspot.com" (without the quotes) IMHO, YMMV since I have not run Fedora in years (2005?) I currently use Ubuntu 9.04, Linux Mint Gloria (Mint 7) and PCLinuxOS 2009. I am not a cutting edge guy. My needs are simple now. From cjcox at acm.org Fri Jan 22 18:14:49 2010 From: cjcox at acm.org (Chris Cox) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:14:49 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 85, Issue 18 In-Reply-To: References: <5b2ba9a01001221036m12ce163cl18e29d59b4865049@mail.gmail.com> <1264187709.17999.70.camel@geeko> <718088.80983.qm@web58801.mail.re1.yahoo.com> <1264193441.17999.99.camel@geeko> Message-ID: <1264205689.17999.111.camel@geeko> On Fri, 2010-01-22 at 17:21 -0600, Robert Pearson wrote: ... > Maybe we could bring back Bryan J. Smith? Bryan is still out there. You'll see him on other forums. Bryan got called out on something (sort made fun of him a bit)... Bryan doesn't take criticism well (he's always right... etc.. etc...). Anyhow, Bryan is alive and well... just not really participating here anymore (though he might be a lurker... you never know). From leroy_tennison at prodigy.net Sat Jan 23 01:29:57 2010 From: leroy_tennison at prodigy.net (LEROY TENNISON) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:29:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Data corruption Message-ID: <575028.56163.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Borrowing from another thread: "things go wrong".? I think I finally know what hardware is failing after too much data corruption.? Booting from two different hard drives (SuSE 11.2 on a Samsung, Debian Lenny 5.0.3 on a Seagate - used at different times on the same motherboard) I would be working and some event would occur at which point the OS would start acting weird.? As best as I can tell the hard drive simply "went away".? Only solution was to reboot (or try, it never worked).? If the hard disk still had partitions at all they were massively corrupted.? The disks do still work (SuSE was able to find lost partitions and rebuild, e2fsck did repair some of the Debian partitions I tried). I now have lots of questions. Given the symptoms, what of the hardware should I most suspect: CPU, RAM, motherboard, power supply?? If I can salvage anything I'd like to but not at the cost of losing a few weeks worth of data which is where I may be right now. Next question, what's the best possible hope for recovering my data off of the Debian ext3 partition?? e2fsck can't find a superblock and stops there.? SuSE's repair (I know, different distro but both support ext3) says it doesn't have a valid filesystem. Final question, other than doing full backups frequently (which I don't tend to do on my personal computer which is what this is), are there other disaster recovery options like backing up the superblock or some other technique? Thanks for any and all help. From BWeatherall at pdxinc.com Sat Jan 23 02:14:30 2010 From: BWeatherall at pdxinc.com (Ben Weatherall) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:14:30 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Data corruption Message-ID: <65C71525-2962-4B4B-AC73-1309C4961AFD@pdxinc.com> Try booting from a CD/DVD live distro or rescue distro and use ddrescue to recover to another drive (maybe a USB drive formatted ext2). A rescue boot would also let you run some h/w diagnostics that may allow you to pinpoint what is actually failing. Personally, it sort of sounds like a drive controller or memory to me. Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint! ----- Reply message ----- From: "LEROY TENNISON" Date: Sat, Jan 23, 2010 01:52 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Data corruption To: "discuss at ntlug.org" Borrowing from another thread: "things go wrong". I think I finally know what hardware is failing after too much data corruption. Booting from two different hard drives (SuSE 11.2 on a Samsung, Debian Lenny 5.0.3 on a Seagate - used at different times on the same motherboard) I would be working and some event would occur at which point the OS would start acting weird. As best as I can tell the hard drive simply "went away". Only solution was to reboot (or try, it never worked). If the hard disk still had partitions at all they were massively corrupted. The disks do still work (SuSE was able to find lost partitions and rebuild, e2fsck did repair some of the Debian partitions I tried). I now have lots of questions. Given the symptoms, what of the hardware should I most suspect: CPU, RAM, motherboard, power supply? If I can salvage anything I'd like to but not at the cost of losing a few weeks worth of data which is where I may be right now. Next question, what's the best possible hope for recovering my data off of the Debian ext3 partition? e2fsck can't find a superblock and stops there. SuSE's repair (I know, different distro but both support ext3) says it doesn't have a valid filesystem. Final question, other than doing full backups frequently (which I don't tend to do on my personal computer which is what this is), are there other disaster recovery options like backing up the superblock or some other technique? Thanks for any and all help. _______________________________________________ http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss From trryhend at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 06:11:14 2010 From: trryhend at gmail.com (terry) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 06:11:14 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Data corruption In-Reply-To: <575028.56163.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <575028.56163.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 1:29 AM, LEROY TENNISON wrote: > Borrowing from another thread: "things go wrong". I think I finally know what hardware is failing after too much data corruption. Booting from two different hard drives (SuSE 11.2 on a Samsung, Debian Lenny 5.0.3 on a Seagate - used at different times on the same motherboard) I would be working and some event would occur at which point the OS would start acting weird. As best as I can tell the hard drive simply "went away". Only solution was to reboot (or try, it never worked). If the hard disk still had partitions at all they were massively corrupted. The disks do still work (SuSE was able to find lost partitions and rebuild, e2fsck did repair some of the Debian partitions I tried). > > I now have lots of questions. > > Given the symptoms, what of the hardware should I most suspect: CPU, RAM, motherboard, power supply? If I can salvage anything I'd like to but not at the cost of losing a few weeks worth of data which is where I may be right now. > > Next question, what's the best possible hope for recovering my data off of the Debian ext3 partition? e2fsck can't find a superblock and stops there. SuSE's repair (I know, different distro but both support ext3) says it doesn't have a valid filesystem. > > Final question, other than doing full backups frequently (which I don't tend to do on my personal computer which is what this is), are there other disaster recovery options like backing up the superblock or some other technique? > > Thanks for any and all help. > _______________________________________________ > http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > Sounds like you have a couple of bad hard drives. You might try one of these USB devices and plug into another PC and take a look and see what can be done - (I've had one for some time now and consider it essential - very handy accessory to have.): http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-to-SATA-IDE-Hard-Drive-Cable-Adapter-Converter_W0QQitemZ370324276831QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item56390c065f http://www.buy.com/prod/usb-2-0-to-sata-ide-hard-drive-cable-adapter-converter/q/loc/101/213484248.html http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329300&CatId=3770 (buy.com seems to have best price right now) -- <>< From trryhend at gmail.com Sat Jan 23 06:27:53 2010 From: trryhend at gmail.com (terry) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 06:27:53 -0600 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Data corruption In-Reply-To: <575028.56163.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <575028.56163.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I would try some diagnostics on the drives smartct -a /dev/hd? |less hdparm -i /dev/hd? (smartct most importantly) You might also be interested in hdsentinel http://www.hdsentinel.com/hdslin.php On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 1:29 AM, LEROY TENNISON wrote: > Borrowing from another thread: "things go wrong". I think I finally know what hardware is failing after too much data corruption. Booting from two different hard drives (SuSE 11.2 on a Samsung, Debian Lenny 5.0.3 on a Seagate - used at different times on the same motherboard) I would be working and some event would occur at which point the OS would start acting weird. As best as I can tell the hard drive simply "went away". Only solution was to reboot (or try, it never worked). If the hard disk still had partitions at all they were massively corrupted. The disks do still work (SuSE was able to find lost partitions and rebuild, e2fsck did repair some of the Debian partitions I tried). > > I now have lots of questions. > > Given the symptoms, what of the hardware should I most suspect: CPU, RAM, motherboard, power supply? If I can salvage anything I'd like to but not at the cost of losing a few weeks worth of data which is where I may be right now. > > Next question, what's the best possible hope for recovering my data off of the Debian ext3 partition? e2fsck can't find a superblock and stops there. SuSE's repair (I know, different distro but both support ext3) says it doesn't have a valid filesystem. > > Final question, other than doing full backups frequently (which I don't tend to do on my personal computer which is what this is), are there other disaster recovery options like backing up the superblock or some other technique? > > Thanks for any and all help. > _______________________________________________ > http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- <>< From ik04 at isot.com Sat Jan 23 13:04:21 2010 From: ik04 at isot.com (Kevin E. Ivey) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:04:21 -0500 Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Data corruption In-Reply-To: References: <575028.56163.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4B5B4835.1090102@isot.com> terry wrote: > > Sounds like you have a couple of bad hard drives. You might try one > of these USB devices and plug into another PC and take a look and see > what can be done - (I've had one for some time now and consider it > essential - very handy accessory to have.): > http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-to-SATA-IDE-Hard-Drive-Cable-Adapter-Converter_W0QQitemZ370324276831QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item56390c065f After several epic saves with this device I can say it is worth ten times what I paid for it! I have lost data from a bad drive only once in the last five years because I can dd from the bad drive to another computer and then fix the mess with various tools. Once the data is on a good drive, it (almost) always recovers OK. So, yeah, get one. keVIn