Re: Quality of FreeBSD

From: J. Porter Clark (jpc_at_suespammers.org)
Date: 07/26/05

  • Next message: Alex Burke: "Re: FreeBSD 6.0BETA1 - Oddness with install floppies" 
    Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:26:51 -0500
To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org

    On Tue, Jul 26, 2005 at 02:30:49PM +0100, Joao Barros wrote:
    >
    > I dual boot between XP and FreeBSD and even use VMWare to boot FreeBSD
    > with the real partition. Nice having FreeBSD compiling something in
    > the background while using XP :)

    That's pretty cool...

    > That is a keyboard problem (the pointer device in the keyboard) I had
    > one exchanged on this C840 and 2 others on a C610.

    I'll pass that on to the maintenance guy. This is an outsourced
    (i.e., rented) machine. (They'd be appalled to know that it
    runs any non-Microsoft software. Don't nobody tell!!!)

    > I *think* I tested networking and attached storage with firewire.
    > If you care to email me with your problems I can try see if it happens
    > to me too.

    Because the hard drive is "only" 20 GB, I have an external drive
    connected to the IEEE 1394 port. (The USB ports on this laptop
    are unacceptably pokey.) Most of the problems are probably
    related to my attempts at hot-plugging (so to speak) this
    interface. The first time I connect the drive up to the box,
    I get this sort of thing:

      firewire0: New S400 device ID:0090a95000006600
      da0 at sbp0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
      kernel: da0: <WDC FireWire/USB2.0 0417> Fixed Simplified Direct Access SCSI-4 device
      kernel: da0: 50.000MB/s transfers
      kernel: da0: 238475MB (488397168 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 30401C)
      fwohci0: BUS reset
      fwohci0: node_id=0xc000ffc0, gen=2, CYCLEMASTER mode
      kernel: firewire0: 1 nodes, maxhop <= 0, cable IRM = 0 (me)
      kernel: firewire0: bus manager 0 (me)

    I can then mount a partition from the drive:

      mount /dev/da0s2d ~/ext_bsd

    Sometimes I have a problem--and I can't duplicate it right
    now--in that if I umount the drive, then remove the plug, then
    reinsert it, I can't remount it immediately. Attempting to
    mount the drive will block for a few minutes. If I wait several
    minutes, it will remount immediately, or I can speed that up by
    removing and reinserting the plug a second time, which is what I
    usually do.

    The main problem I have is possibly related to an intermittent
    connection...which has been aggravated by the many insertions
    and reinsertions. Sometimes, out of the blue, I'll get an error
    like this:

      kernel: Interrupt storm detected on "irq11: nvidia0 cbb*"; throttling interrupt source
      kernel: fwohci0: BUS reset

    It's usually precipitated by my moving the laptop off my lap
    onto a table or otherwise wiggling the cable, which seems to
    be unpredictably sensitive. (It never happens if there is no
    I/O going on at the time.) I have no idea why it mentions the
    nvidia0 device.

    When this happens, any I/O on the Firewire drive will hang
    indefinitely. I can't fix it at that point; about all I can do
    is reboot. "fwcontrol -r" doesn't help any. If I reboot the
    system, I always have problems syncing it; it complains about
    unwritten buffers or vnodes, and eventually I have to manually
    reset it. When I come back up, I have fsck problems not only
    with the Firewire partitions but also /usr and others.

    You can say that I created the problem myself by manhandling the
    little plug or by even trying to insert it and remove it "hot."
    (Nobody said I could, nobody said I couldn't.) But I can do
    this with Windows XP with no problems. I also don't have any
    problems caused by wiggling the apparently very sensitive cable
    with XP. I also didn't have the wiggling-cable problem under
    4.X, although it's possible that mechanical degradation since
    that time is at fault. (The hanging mount problem did occur
    under 4.X.) I haven't posted this as a bug report because (a) I
    haven't had much luck with bug reports <sniff> and (b) I'm sure
    the answer would be "fix your hardware." 

    -- 
J. Porter Clark      <jpc@suespammers.org>
_______________________________________________
freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
  • Next message: Alex Burke: "Re: FreeBSD 6.0BETA1 - Oddness with install floppies"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: Shared Partition?
      ... do is create first a primary dos and extend partition using a DOS FDISK ... I currently dual boot Windows XP and FreeBSD 5.2.1. ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: Boot and MBR.
      ... >> I've got my primary drive divided in two partitions, ... you those are the names used by FreeBSD and Windows, respectively, for the ... how to get your dual boot going - ... I think if you do what you've already done in FreeBSD (set the Windows ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Moving paritions around
      ... I set up my laptop to dual boot between W1nd@ws and FreeBSD. ... first set it up I made the partitions the same size, ... change the partition table to make the FreeBSD partition ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • FreeBSD trashed after installing Win98SE in lower partition - what to do?
      ... After running the FreeBSD system for nearly a year, and loving it, ... Win98SE install, and my FreeBSD partition is now unbootable. ... Fail in installing FreeBSD 5.2.1 in the placeholder Windows ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: Moving existing FreeBSD system to a new harddisk...
      ... I have FreeBSD 6.2 installed on a Dell Latitude D400 laptop. ... from the old to the new hard disk. ... occupies the first slice (called primary partition) of each disk. ...
      (freebsd-questions)