Ubuntu versions

[Scott Ehrlich]

Hi to all:

Here'a a refresher - I have an Ubuntu laptop I'm treating as a server and 
the hard drive keeps spinning down, making it an island.

I had installed a cron job to keep network and the hard drive going, but 
then list members suggested I install a server kernel which would likely 
have the power management functions disabled.   To balance the server 
kernel, I also opted to disable the cron job and see what the kernel was 
capable of.   So for the last 10 or so days, it has been running without a 
cron job but with a server kernel.

Latest - Last night I tried to ssh in from a family member's Mac, did so 
successfully, but then the system started to give me delayed responses. I 
was able to perform some functions from the ssh connection, such as using 
apt-get.  But apt-get hung.  Ps auwx showed dpkg running, then the session 
hung and kill -9 wouldn't work.  Subsequent ssh connections started to 
hang at the password prompt, too.   I was so tired I just went to sleep as 
soon as I got home.

This morning I found the hard drive spun down.  SShing from my Ubuntu 
desktop hung at the password prompt.  I pressed Shift and on the laptop 
and it came back up and I finally logged in.

So, it looks like the server kernel couldn't keep the drive spinning, but 
it did at least keep the network port going.   But I wonder why I had some 
activity going (apt-get) but then it stopped responding...

Anyway, I re-activated the cron jobs - ntpdate to a reliable time server 
and updatedb, 1100 and 2300 hours each daily.

I learn so much from this group.   I thought I'd give a little bit back.

Thanks to all.

Scott

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Kristian Hermansen wrote:

> On 6/20/07, Scott Ehrlich <scott-3s7WtUTddSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> scott at scott-laptop:~$ laptop-detect
>> scott at scott-laptop:~$ echo $?
>> 1
>
> So, you don't have laptop-mode package installed, and your
> laptop-detect seems to think you DO NOT have a laptop.  Are you sure
> the power management is due to being a laptop?  It could just be
> standard power management settings for desktops.  Wonder why it didn't
> detect a laptop.  You can see what laptop-mode does for yourself, it
> is just a shell script...
>
>> ls /etc/default
>
> Right.  The config file is not there since you don't have that package
> installed.
>
>> As for /etc/acpi, I chmod 000'd all the scripts.
>> 
>> Any other ideas?  It would be nice to not have to use cron to keep the
>> system in server mode vs laptop mode.
>
> OK, chmodding them may work.  However, did you try using a -server
> kernel rather than a -generic?
>
> $ sudo aptitude install linux-server
> -- 
> Kristian Hermansen
>

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