lospeed Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 I am a newbie who has MDK 9.2 on a dual partition with Win98 as a way of trying out Linux. Now I have a second hard disk and have installed MDK 10.1 on it, while retaining 9.2 and Win98 on the first disk. The 9.2 worked OK but was always slow to boot and slow to open Control Center (MCC). After a some installation problems I now have 10.1 working but it is extremely slow to boot (5 minutes), slow to open MCC (another 5 min) and slow to open some options in MCC. Also, the bootloader only offered me 10.1 and Win98, no 9.2. I followed advice to go to MCC, bootloader, and add a new entry for my 9.2 on hda5. Now I have all three....but now 9.2 is fast to open and 10.1 is still slow! I wonder if the setup of my bootloader is anything to do with the slowness. When I set the bootloader in MCC to also load 9.2 the entry went in with "image" set as: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk. This was all it offered and now 9.2 boots fast compared with its previous slow performance. But when I look at the bootloader setting for my 10.1 the "image" is simply set as: /boot/vmlinuz (although there is the option of the /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk too). Similarly for the entries under "initrd". I know very liitle about Linux so I am loathe to change the setting for 10.2 to /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk unless advised to do so. But I understand that 2.6.8.1-12mdk is the kernel in v.10.1, not v.9.2. Has my bootloader got confused somewhere along the line? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 (edited) i don't think that it has anything to do with your bootloader. could you specify where the system gets slow? at boot-sequence, press f2 in order to see all services starting up. does anyone take extremely long? also take a look at your /var/log folder. are there any "unnormal" entries in your log-files? (error messgages) or in your /home/user folder (like xsession.error)? and: please give us some information on your computer system and the filesystem you selected for your partitions. uh... and what partitions do you have on your system? simply paste the contents of your /etc/fstab file in here. :) edit: i forgot: welcome aboard :D Edited December 30, 2004 by arctic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 please give us some information on your computer system and the filesystem you selected for your partitions. uh... and what partitions do you have on your system? simply paste the contents of your /etc/fstab file in here. Thanks for the quick reply. Here is the contents of the /etc/fstab file. /dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults 1 1 /dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0 none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850 0 0 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb5 swap swap defaults 0 0 There is a file in /home/user called xsessionerrors and has this: startkde: Starting up... QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used ksplash: WARNING: KGenericFactory: instance requested but no instance name passed to the constructor! QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used kbuildsycoca running... ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe kio (KIOConnection): ERROR: Header read failed, errno=104 kio (KIOConnection): ERROR: Header has invalid size (-1) kio (KIOConnection): ERROR: Header read failed, errno=104 kio (KIOConnection): ERROR: Header has invalid size (-1) kio (KLauncher): ERROR: SlavePool: No communication with slave. kmix: ERROR: Alsa mixer cannot be found. Please check that the soundcard is installed and the soundcard driver is loaded. kmix: kmix: ERROR: Alsa mixer cannot be found. Please check that the soundcard is installed and the soundcard driver is loaded. kmix: X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3 Major opcode: 20 Minor opcode: 0 Resource id: 0x100000a ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe klauncher: WARNING: KRun::processDesktopExec: No URLs supplied to single-URL service kwrite %u I will send some more info on my computer and partitions separately. Thanks for the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 And here is the further information (I am working in Windows and had to switch to MDK to look at files). I can tell you which stage the boot problem occurs. It stops for ages at “Searching for new hardware”. Also for a while at “Doing alsactl to restore mixer settings”. It also takes 5 minutes to get into Control Center and another 5 minutes if I then click, for example, on the Boot section. I am using a 2.8 GHz Pentium with 512MB RAM and two 80GB hard disks, Radeon 7000 graphics card. The disk partitioning is as follows. The primary disk has Win98 and MDK 9.2: hda1 windows (55GB), hda5 root (18GB), hda6 swap (580MB) The secondary disk has MDK 10.2: hdb1 root (5.8GB), hdb5 swap (1GB), hdb home (67GB) It is really strange that MDK 9.2 was so slow before but now is fast since I installed 10.1 - yet the 10.1 itself is even slower than 9.2 was! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 okay, there are several things broken on your box as far as i can see. but first of all: why do you have two swap partitions? one is enough. linux systems can (and do) share swap partitions. try the following: go to the control center and disable in the services section "harddrake" and reboot. will it boot faster? in a terminal type as root XFdrake and set up your graphic-environment once again. i hope this removes the gui error message. after this, try to configure your soundcard. there is no module loaded for it to function, thus it will try to fix that as long as harddrake is running. for help on configuring soundcards, check the forum hardware and faq section. there should be some topics that might help you fast. good luck. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 okay, there are several things broken on your box as far as i can see. but first of all: why do you have two swap partitions? one is enough. linux systems can (and do) share swap partitions. I used autoallocate on installing 10.1 and that's how it set up hdb with three partitions, one of them the swap. The 9.2 was already set up with its own swap partition. With so little experience of Linux I didn't want to mess anything up. I will have a look at the othe things you suggest. The reason the sound card is not set up may be to do with the fact that I don't use it - this PC is used for editing documents in my work, so it's rather a quiet machine!. Also, when I installed 10.1 it was a bumpy ride and a number of things didn't work properly. For instance it never offered me the step where you can review your hardware and make changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 uh... have you made sure that the cd's you are using are burned correctly? (check the md5sum!) as you went through a rough ride during the installation, i almost guess you got a bad burn or meybe even a corrupted download. check the md5sum before doing anything else. (i hope you know how to do that, e.g. using k3b) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 It was a Powerpack boxed set direct from Mandrake, although I suppose even those disks could have a problem. I will find out tomorrow how to do the mdsum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 and: please give us some information on your computer system <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2004 and: please give us some information on your computer system <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In my messages above I had given the following: I am using a 2.8 GHz Pentium with 512MB RAM and two 80GB hard disks, Radeon 7000 graphics card. The disk partitioning is as follows. The primary disk has Win98 and MDK 9.2: hda1 windows (55GB), hda5 root (18GB), hda6 swap (580MB) The secondary disk has MDK 10.2: hdb1 root (5.8GB), hdb5 swap (1GB), hdb home (67GB) Please let me know what else you need to know - I'm not very knowledgeable about computers, so not too sure what info is required. It is not a "branded" PC but one built by a small local company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2004 try the following: go to the control center and disable in the services section "harddrake" and reboot. will it boot faster? I can't understand how to do this. If I go to MCC there is no section called "services". There is a list, which includes "hardware". If I go to that I get a set of icons, one of which is again "hardware". Clicking this (and waiting about 5 minutes again) brings up a list of my hardware. But nowhere can I find anything that allows me to "disable harddrake". Can you explain a little more, please. Thanks for being tolerant! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted December 31, 2004 Report Share Posted December 31, 2004 click on "system". then you should see on the very right side in the first line an icon for services. click on it, and uncheck the harddrake service. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2004 click on "system". then you should see on the very right side in the first line an icon for services. click on it, and uncheck the harddrake service. :) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes! After writing that message I went to look into the MCC again and found it was not in the initial list but in the "sublist" under system, just as you say. I unchecked harddrake and re-booted - and the total time to boot has dropped from 5 minutes to about 2.5 minutes. Now most of the lag is at the "Doing alsactl ..." stage. Do I have to re-check harddrake for the software now to run properly? Also, I looked under "hardware" at the sound card settings and the config box said my default is snd-intel8x10. Whe I clicked on "Currently uses.." there was no response even after about 5 minutes. I followed a suggestion there to try /sbin/lsmod and this list showed the snd-intel8x10 as size 30124 and "used by" 1 (with nothing after the 1). I don't know if any of this is a help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted December 31, 2004 Report Share Posted December 31, 2004 you do not need to reactivate harddrake. you will only need it if you plug in new hardware, but as your system is (i guess) already set up and no mayor hardware changes are planned, leave it unchecked. about the soundcard: i am no expert with soundcards and their modules, but i suggest you ask devries. he is the mod for that stuff and knows a lot about sound-card issues. btw.: does your sound work under mdk 9.2? if yes, take a look at the module it is using there. this might help a lot, as you can figure out very fast what settings you have to port from 9.2 to 10.1. good luck and happy new year. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lospeed Posted December 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2004 Thanks for all the help and Happy New Year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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