On Wednesday 14 April 2004 14:02, Vickram Crishna wrote:
Hello
I am a new user, and new to this list too, although I was here a couple of years back too.
I am running Red Hat 9.0 on my home PC, and the installation (which was a simple straightforward home selection from the install choice menu) has some troubling behaviour - namely the computer hangs from time to time. The hardware is an old Compaq Celeron, with 128 MB. It lacks a reset button, and in fact lacks an off switch.
It is well known that lack of power and reset switch is a major cause of maniac depression and suicidal tendencies when using some OSes. But it can also produce the same effect when using GNU/Linux. Since Psychotherapy software is not what it should be, Please get a technician to FIX the reset switch.
When the machine hangs I have no choice but to pull the plug from the mains. It has an On switch, but pressing this twice will not restart the machine. In fact, once the switch is pressed on, it no longer has any function. When the machine hangs I lose control of both the mouse and the keyboard. This happens at least once a week (the machine is usually on).
Check the bios settings. Your system may be programmed to "powersave" , without startup "on any key". Also keeping the power switch pressed for several seconds shuts down the machine. After which it wont turn on with the same switch - switch off /on mains. Ingenous security feature. On several machines it is the internal battery which is the cause of this behaviour.
So far so good - or not so good.
Use the reiserfs file system. It is very robust and has worked extremely well for me. No fs corruption even with repeated power cycling without umount.
Right now, although it allows me to start up under the registered login identities (including root) the GUI has been disturbed, with the standard icons and the wallpaper missing. I logged in as root and found the files missing from the /home/[username] folder were visible, but greyed out. The Find command says the files do not exist.
Check lost & found.
Compaq pressario had numerous hardware problems. Please google. Afaik idedma was a problem.
And by the way, if u use a commercial distro, use the ones which have support, and utilise the support. Otherwise stick to Debian stable.