Hi everyone,

I just installed Linux Mandrake 9.1 It installs just fine but it freezes a lot. Also, when downloading something (it did this on both Konquerer and Mozilla) the download would just stop. To add to that, the computer at times would become very slow and it would take it several minutes for it to start working. At first I thought this was a configuration issue so I re-installed it, and to no avail. Here are my hardware specs:

Intel Pentium 4 2.5GHz 533MHz FSB
Intel mother board (I forgot the model number)
512mb pc800 RDRAM
ATI Radeon 8500
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM hard drive (This is the hard drive running Mandrake)
I also have a New Maxtor 40GB 5400 RPM hard drive.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

If you're turning it off every night, there are cron jobs scheculed for early in the AM that don't get done. A few minutes after bootup, these jobs will run.

One of these jobs is updatedb which scans your disk and builds a database of all the files on your hard drive for the locate command. This causes a lot of disk activity which will make your computer sluggish until it completes.

Perhaps that is your problem. Try leaving it on overnight.

Hi,

Thanks for that. Would that also explain why it freezes? Another small problem I'm having is downloads like to just stop. I was using Konquerer to get a program and the speed went from around 100kb/s to "Stalled" in a matter of seconds. What can be done to stop this? Could it be the way my network is setup to connect to the internet? I can't figure out how to set everything up properly just yet (I just started with it yesterday, I'll get there eventually) so I set it to "Automatic Detect IP" and such. Thanks for the help!

Perhaps you could give a better or fuller description of what you mean by "it freezes" would give me a hint.

Have you examined your log for any hints?

/var/log/messages

I have no idea of how you connect to the internet from your posts, so I can't help without lots more info.

Well I wouldn't rule out a faulty network setup as a cause, but I get the same things with different servers and different browsers now and again. Busy servers are common on the net.

Is that for all downloads?

Have you tried Mozilla or galeon? They are both on Mandrake 9.1. I'm not saying you should change browsers if you do happen to like Konqueror (personally I'm an Opera fan)...but what I'm trying to get at is when this happens in Konqueror, fire up another browser and see if the same thing happens.

If it happens in all browsers at all times, then its certainly a network problem

By "freezing" I mean just that, everything freezes completely. I can't move the mouse, nothing on the keyboard works -- the entire system just locks up. No, I haven't checked the log files. All the posts in this thread came from elsewhere. The first post was from my Windows XP hard drive, and the rest from me are from another computer in the house using dial up.

The downloads stall when using Konquerer or Mozilla (I haven't tried Galeon. So if it's a network issue then I suppose I need to learn how to setup the network properly. Thanks.

So for the download issue, its only when you download files? Surfing works ok?

Hmmmm weird...

As for the freeze, fancypiper has the right idea...first place to look is in the logs...

When it locks up what were you doing last?

If it locks up if you haven't been doing anything for a while, try exiting your x session and staying in console. See if it locks up then. If it doesn't, that would point to possible X or xscreensaver problems. Try disabling the xscreensaver, examining the X logs, etc to pinpoint.

Main causes of lockups I have found:
1. bad memory
2. bad/flakey hard drives
3. bad/flakey video cards
4. The AMD - AGP bug.

I would run memtest86 overnight to start.

For downloads, I always use the commandline tool wget.

I open an x terminal, cd to my download directory, then command:
wget <url-of-file>

If it breaks, I resume with:
wget -c <url-of-file>

Thanks for that. How do I find out what version of XFree I'm running?

X -showconfig

Handy bash commands for finding out stuff in Linux:
# Find CPU specifications
cat /proc/cpuinfo

# What pci cards are installed and what irq/port is used
cat /proc/pci

# Memory and swap information
free
An article: Tips for Optimizing Linux Memory

# How is the hard drive partitioned
fdisk /dev/hd<X> -l

# How much free drive space
df -h

# Show disk usage by current directory and all subdirectories
du | less

# Find running kernel version
uname -r

# Find X server version
X -showconfig

# What is the distribution
cat /etc/.product
cat /etc/.issue
cat /etc/issue
cat /etc/issue.net
sysinfo

# For finding or locating files
find
locate
which
whereis

# Use dmesg to view the kernel ring buffer (error messages)
dmesg | less

# Watch error messages as they happen (sysklog needed)
as root, tail -f /var/log/messages (shows last 10 lines, use a number in front of f for more lines)

# What processes are running
ps -A

# Find a process by name
ps -ef | grep -i <plain text>
For example, XCDroast
ps -ef | grep -i xcdroast
# See current environment list, or pipe to file
env | more
env > environmentvariablelist.txt

# Show current userid and assigned groups
id

# See all command aliases for the current user
alias

# See rpms installed on current system
rpmquery --all | more
rpmquery --all > <filename>
rpmquery --all | grep -i <plaintext>

# What directory am I using
pwd

# What takes up so much space on your box
# Run from the directory in question and the largest chunk shows up last
find $1 -type d | xargs du -sm | sort -g

Look at man <command> or info <command> for the flags I used and for other options you can use for bash commands.

Thanks for that, I appreciate it and it will come in handy!

Hi,

What am I looking for in the log files? I found /var/log/messages but it asks me what I want to open it with, and I have no clue, nor do I know what I'm looking for. Thanks.

As reported in another post, I had some strange problems when I had my mouse plugged in via USB after changing sockets, and even when I changed it back to PS2 but did not reset the BIOS changes I had made for the USB mouse.

Though it normally froze during startup on "module dependencies" it did sometimes get as far as X starting.

You seem to be well into your linux session before anything happens, so I am not saying this will help, but have you considered the BIOS settings or a hardware fault? My incorrect BIOS settings did not affect Windows!

I also had another problem a while back caused by either a faulty/inadequate power supply or faulty memory chips, I don't know which it was because the supplier of both diagnosed the fault over the phone and just swapped them both out for me and everything worked afterwards. This did affect Windows also. If your computer locks up after a similar period of time, then gives you less time on startup until you have allowed it to cool down, then it could be a hardware fault. It would also affect any other operating system on your computer if you have one.

DAVE

Well to open, use any text edittor. Personally I use Vim.

Mandrake installs vi as it's default command line editor, I think.

vi cheat sheet

You might prefer something easier to use to begin with.

Is mc (Midnight Commander) installed? It is a great file browser/editor + lots of other tools.

Try the command

mc

If you get command not found, try urpmi mc or use your gui software manager to install it.

Another simple, easy to understand/use command line editor is nano, the GNU clone of pico.

Nano basics

You are looking for any error messages that would pertain to your lockups. The file is pretty large as it contains around a month's worth of info before it is rotated. I would look for error messages pertaining to things that would lock up the system.

Another possibility I forgot was you might have a full hard drive partition. That would freeze it up, I would think.