From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jan 31 15:12:03 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA23050 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:12:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA23027 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:11:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA29352; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:41:35 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id JAA24468; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:41:21 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980201094121.24187@lemis.com> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 09:41:21 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Malte Lance Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: system unstable, how to make it stable again ? References: <3.0.32.19980131104820.00696760@cyclone.degnet.baynet.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980131104820.00696760@cyclone.degnet.baynet.de>; from Malte Lance on Sat, Jan 31, 1998 at 10:56:22AM -0100 Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG X-To-Unsubscribe: mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org "unsubscribe questions" On Sat, Jan 31, 1998 at 10:56:22AM -0100, Malte Lance wrote: > At 08:05 31.01.98 +1030, you wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 30, 1998 at 02:21:34PM -0100, Malte Lance wrote: >>> At 09:12 30.01.98 +1030, you wrote: >>> FreeBSD-2.1.5 (nooo, dont tell me to upgrade) >> Why not? It could be part of the problem. > > Hm, after running for months without any problems ? Sure, why not? > I have disklabeled / and /usr with disktab-entries that are parially wrong. > That never caused any problems so i was always too lazy to correct it. > And now i hesitate to update a broken system. I am considering a fresh > install to be the better way to go. On the other hand i have installed > many ports and configured the machine to be mail-hub, NS, www, caching-proxy > and firewall. It would take many days of configuration-work to get a fresh > install to the same point. Not really. Just read in the backup. >> You've got a lot of peripherals on this machine. Can you see any >> connection between peripheral activity and the hangups? > > Nope. The funny thing is, when the machine freezes, the harddrives, > when accessed at this moment, dont even have time to switch the lights off. Ah! There's your answer! It's a SCSI bus problem. I thought it might be. Are you sure you didn't add any peripherals recently? >> How are you running the ISDN board? > > Not configured for FreeBSD => not used with FreeBSD. OK >> Do you get any error messages from the SCSI >> system? I seem to recall that there were problems with the 2940 >> driver in 2.1.5, and that's an area where you're less likely to have >> problems with Microsoft, since they don't use the SCSI bus to its full >> potential. > > No errors from the SCSI-system. > A few days ago i replugged the Sony-DAT but did not use it so far, just one > tar-backup on /usr OK. There's your problem (I hadn't read this far when I made my previous comment). I'd suspect termination. >>> At least my question could be reduced to: Is it possible to get a >>> running system without anything else, like bootstrapping a >>> compiler ? >> >> I don't quite understand the question. > > When writing a compiler for an absolute new system, you dont have another > compiler to get it compiled. So you need to write a minimal compiler to > compile your new compiler, that in another turn could compile itself. > So transfering it to my problem i ask, what is the minimal set of properly > working apps and libs needed to get through a make world. This minimal set > could be taken as compiled versions from the CDROM. Then enter make world > and let the system cure itself. Ah. Don't expect a 'make world' to cure problems. I think Doug White has some documentation on updating, but I don't know where. We certainly need a good description, but I don't have time to do anything right now. Greg