[SOLVED] Experiencing freezing up to 5 seconds every 10 seconds, could these be the problem?

Switch7 · 11-15-2009, 08:08 PM

(I just wrote this entire thing on my desktop with slackware and was about to submit it but it finally stopped working so I had to retype it on my laptop)

It wasn't as bad as before when it froze every 3 seconds. It freezes for 1~3 and even up to 5 seconds every 10 seconds now. I'm trying to figure out this cause. There is nothing wrong with the DVD because I bought it from slackware store and it's in perfect shape.

There isn't anything wrong with my hard drive because I reinstalled windows and I never experienced any trouble.

All I do on my desktop computer is use fluxbox as my wm, browse the Internet, use mplayer, xpdf, gimp, openoffice.org, torrent, irssi and I want to get involved with programming once I get used to linux. I didn't compile anything from source this time and went everything that's on slackbuilds. I removed things I didn't need which was (I know there's other things I didn't need but I just removed what I actually knew it was absolutely safe removing):

Code:

REMOVE:
[A]: 
floppy
pcmcia

[AP]:
amp
gphoto2
jed
joe
jove
mpg321
radeontool
workbone

[x window system]
compiz
twm
Every video driver: xf86-video- because I installed the nvidia driver
xf86- penmount
x   - synaptics
xmodmap

[x applications]
blackbox
fvwm
gnuchess
rxvt
seamonkey
thunar-volman
windowmaker
xchat
xfce
xfce4
xgames

I didn't touch any scripts besides doing chmod -x on wireless and SSH.
I did a full install before and that was when I was getting freezing every 3 seconds so I don't think removing those was my problem, or maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe compiling a kernel from source is really the only option left since I'm using hardwares that was released this year. I wanted to avoid this since I managed to get kernel panic on every try even though I was sure I did it right following Alien BOB's tutorial. I didn't customize it and just went with all default. I was hoping I might be able to tweak some script instead of compiling a kernel but maybe I'm out of options. Is there other option I could possibly do?

MS3FGX · 11-15-2009, 08:11 PM

From the description my first guess would be that it is indeed some kernel issue. Buggy driver or some other incompatibility, it is possible if you have very new hardware. Are there any unusual messages in the kernel logs? I would assume something that is failing that badly would be logging whatever problem it was having.

Easiest way to test would be to run a few live CDs and see if the problem pops up in any other distribution or kernel release. If it does it in multiple distributions, then you can bet it is almost certainly a kernel issue.

Switch7 · 11-15-2009, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS3FGX

From the description my first guess would be that it is indeed some kernel issue. Buggy driver or some other incompatibility, it is possible if you have very new hardware. Are there any unusual messages in the kernel logs? I would assume something that is failing that badly would be logging whatever problem it was having.

Easiest way to test would be to run a few live CDs and see if the problem pops up in any other distribution or kernel release. If it does it in multiple distributions, then you can bet it is almost certainly a kernel issue.

I don't have any issues with freezing when I tried out other distro with newer kernel. I know it's not slackware's fault, just probably because very new hardware with older kernel.

But it's getting difficult compiling a kernel from source with these freezing and it's starting to completely freeze and with kernel panic as well after compiling new kernel. Alien BOB's tutorial should work perfectly with 2.6.31.6 as well correct? I had a feeling it didn't work with the newest stable kernel or maybe because I'm using x86_64 (maybe different commands?) or I'm just simply messing up.

MS3FGX · 11-15-2009, 08:36 PM

This is Slackware 13, correct? Are you using the SMP or "huge" kernel? I am going to guess that the installer worked well enough, as you got Slackware onto the box, so I am going to assume you are on SMP (as the installer uses huge).

You could try replacing the current kernel with the huge kernel which is on the install disc under /slackware/a. Since you are saying the machine is difficult to use now, you might have to do it through the install disc.

Boot to the install disc and at the "boot:" prompt tell it to mount the installed system with the huge kernel (there will be a message on the screen that says the specific command to type). What this does is boot the install operating system with the kernel that the install disc runs, this way you can boot a system where the kernel might be having a problem (which sounds a lot like your current situation). If the system runs OK when it boots up this way, then the default SMP kernel is to blame. In that case you can replace the SMP kernel packages with the huge ones, and then reboot into the huge kernel.

This would get the machine running, but it would be a better idea in the long term to compile a newer kernel release for your machine and use that. The huge kernels are not really designed for everyday use, they are intended for maximum hardware support (rather than speed or even stability).

Switch7 · 11-15-2009, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS3FGX

This is Slackware 13, correct? Are you using the SMP or "huge" kernel? I am going to guess that the installer worked well enough, as you got Slackware onto the box, so I am going to assume you are on SMP (as the installer uses huge).

You could try replacing the current kernel with the huge kernel which is on the install disc under /slackware/a. Since you are saying the machine is difficult to use now, you might have to do it through the install disc.

Boot to the install disc and at the "boot:" prompt tell it to mount the installed system with the huge kernel (there will be a message on the screen that says the specific command to type). What this does is boot the install operating system with the kernel that the install disc runs, this way you can boot a system where the kernel might be having a problem (which sounds a lot like your current situation). If the system runs OK when it boots up this way, then the default SMP kernel is to blame. In that case you can replace the SMP kernel packages with the huge ones, and then reboot into the huge kernel.

This would get the machine running, but it would be a better idea in the long term to compile a newer kernel release for your machine and use that. The huge kernels are not really designed for everyday use, they are intended for maximum hardware support (rather than speed or even stability).

Alright, thank you, I'll try and compile the kernel again. I know it's probably not a good idea to ask this but, I'll take a log and how I did it (which is same as Alien BOB's way but I'm somehow getting a kernel panic) and would it be okay if I could get some help on where I went wrong? I only been using linux for 2-3 months so it's a frustrating experience.

Edit: Yes, slackware 13 x86_64 and SMP.

windtalker10 · 11-15-2009, 11:09 PM

The other live cd/dvd's you tried that worked fine, were they 32 bit or 64 bit?
It might also be a lack of ram also.
How much ram do you have and did you use swap?

Switch7 · 11-15-2009, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by windtalker10

The other live cd/dvd's you tried that worked fine, were they 32 bit or 64 bit?
It might also be a lack of ram also.
How much ram do you have and did you use swap?

I have 12GB DDR3 ram and 251MB swap, which is too much ram. The other distro with newer kernel is 64 bit and it worked fine.

Switch7 · 11-16-2009, 12:58 AM

I just successfully compiled the kernel from source and slackware is booting up in about same time as my previous distro which was arch linux. The boot speed got much faster now.

I'm getting

Code:

Welcome to Linux 2.6.31.6 (tty1)

myhostname login:

I can boot normally into my account but my mouse and keyboard no longer works.

Maybe I made mistake at the "Building your kernel" on alien bob's tutorial. I did:

Code:

make
cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-custom-2.6.31.6  # copy the new kernel file
cp System.map /boot/System.map-custom-2.6.31.6           # copy the System.map (optional)
cp .config /boot/config-custom-2.6.31.6                  # backup copy of your kernel config
cd /boot
rm System.map                                            # delete the old link
ln -s System.map-custom-2.6.31.6 System.map              # create a new link

Was I supposed to include the module? Which would look something like:

Code:

make
make modules_install            # installs the modules to /lib/modules/<kernelversion>
cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-custom-2.6.31.6  # copy the new kernel file
cp System.map /boot/System.map-custom-2.6.31.6           # copy the System.map (optional)
cp .config /boot/config-custom-2.6.31.6                  # backup copy of your kernel config
cd /boot
rm System.map                                            # delete the old link
ln -s System.map-custom-2.6.31.6 System.map              # create a new link

Edit: nevermind, "make modules_install" was necessary.
My mouse and keyboard works now. One thing I'm worried about is when slackware is booting, I see that it's running rc.modules-2.6.29.6
I'm using 2.6.31.6 kernel now so maybe I messed up again.

On Alien bob's tutorial, it says

Quote:

Most certainly you will have installed one or more packages containing kernel modules that are not part of the default kernel. Slackware installs the “svgalib-helper” package for instance, and if you installed any wireless driver, these are basically kernel modules too.
Be aware that by installing and booting into your new kernel, you will no longer have these out-of-kernel modules available. You have to recompile their sources so that the resulting kernel modules match the version of your new kernel.
You can get an overview of all packages that have installed a kernel module for your current kernel by running this command (note that you must run this command while still running your old kernel):

Quote:

All the listed packages will need a recompile if you want to have their modules available for your new kernel as well.

Are all these mandatory to do? I thought after the make, make modules_install, etc. and lilo configuration, everything was over.

Other than that, I have new 8 tux image when booting up instead of the 6 tux imposters(tuz?) and boot time is very fast. Doing a "uname -a" gives me "2.6.31.6 #1 SMP"

ljb643 · 11-16-2009, 04:10 PM

The info on recompiling is for kernel modules which are not part of the kernel source. He mentions svgahelper, but that is no longer part of Slackware ("won't build on 2.6.28+ kernels"). If you have no add-on kernel modules (maybe think of them as "third party modules") you are good.

The rc.modules* version is probably OK. You are likely not loading much from rc.modules* - most everything is automatic now. And the contents of rc.modules* is not really kernel version dependent.

MS3FGX · 11-16-2009, 04:27 PM

Yeah, the out of kernel modules are things like binary video drivers, WLAN drivers that haven't made it into the stable kernel, vendor-supplied driver modules, etc, etc.

I can't think of any packages in recent Slackware releases that are kernel-dependent and would need a rebuild. Certainly I have never had to rebuild any of the stock packages when building my own kernel, though I never do a full install either.

Switch7 · 11-16-2009, 04:36 PM

Thank you for the reply.

It looks like I'm all set now. I'm posting this from slackware 13 x86_64 with the new kernel 2.6.31.6. So far, I'm not having any freezing and everything seems to be working great.

For the rc.modules, I just did:

Code:

cd /etc/rc.d
cp -a rc.modules-2.6.29.6 rc.modules-2.6.31.6
rm rc.modules
ln -s /etc/rc.d/rc.modules-2.6.31.6 /etc/rc.d/rc.modules

I'll just test it around for few more days before moving all my backup in and using it as my primary desktop. I still have the strange feeling that I messed up but I guess it's normal since this is my first time compiling a kernel.