Closed Balderick closed 10 years ago
Toetje583
commented
10 years ago As the filesystem is used to control how information is stored and retrieved. You can rely on it, however you could install smartmontools from the deb found at http://packages.debian.org. Can you post some of the error logs?
Because those errors can easly come from USB harddrive or even thumbstick.
Balderick
commented
10 years ago Did not have any external drives connected when these errors occurred the only usb device connected being xbox360 controller which appears to have an issue using xpad. I posted a separate issue for that.
The root filesystem appears to be unstable on this machine and i can not rely on it. This is now my third or fourth install and am using BIOS machine so am dependent on unofficial installers.
Will try and get /var/log/syslog compressed and uploaded as it does mention some of the errors i mention. Have also found fsck log files confirming /home and /boot/recovery partitions as healthy and clean. Should be able to easily pastebin that small file.
Looking in /etc/default/grub confirms the linux recovery options have been disabled by default preventing the option to fsck from recovery command prompt. I do not understand why this is so therefor have not changed this. It is an assumption this is due to the provision of clonezilla and image in /boot/recovery partitions but see these as two different tools (grub recovery and clonezilla) for many different jobs.
Did mention looks like the disk is healthy from MHDD results but would like to confirm fsck sees the root filesystem as healthy also.
Some other relative details regarding my concerns/issue can be found https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/95#issuecomment-32091903
Does Disk Utility in gnome desktop use the smartmontools you mention? I have SMART disabled. Looking at SMART info in Disk Utility indicates no bad blocks and disk is healthy. I searched apt for smartctl and smartd which are not installed but assume these tools provide the same information as what is indicated with Disk Utility with the graphical version of smartctl gsmartcontrol also being available. Disk Utility uses palimpsest to query SMART information and attributes.
Toetje583
commented
10 years ago Are you able to test a other disk drive?, and also make sure the bios settings are correct and that the drives are in ACHI mode, btw there is no reason to disable SMART.
Also unplug any other devices and see if the errors presist.
Maybe a RAM test aswell?
Balderick
commented
10 years ago Will double check BIOS settings and memtest.
I reinstalled due to these errors i refer to. I felt the need to reinstall due to the errors locking/freezing system; tty was flooded with errors which i did not understand but understood as more than critical/severe. On reinstalling the only time have been aware of anything going on that shouldn't was when clonezilla was creating image for /boot/recovery when running post_logon.sh. I have found a post_install.log which has no text - it is an empty file. Due to my lack of ninja prowess and no gksu in desktop am struggling to work out how to cp log files to desktop and compress for uploading. Managed to chown and chmod my cp'd files but they are too large for pastebin and don't want to spam out here to. (i appreciate a user like me should not be posting here so don't want to annoy further).
Due to using a non UEFI system only have RAID or non-RAID as SATA operation mode in BIOS settings. I have only one disk drive connected so am using non-RAID.
I have no working knowledge of RAID or LVM as i am a home user and have not used such a configuration. However can see that SteamOS has installed to an extended partition which makes it a logical partition which may explain the installed LVM packages.
I can see references to RAID in the syslog/messages log files i am trying to get uploaded here. Which may be reason for concern due to BIOS set to non-RAID and also SMART is disabled there to which is another example of SteamOS over riding BIOS settings; that is with reference to my last post mentioning SMART settings.
I thought BIOS tells system/OS what to do and not vice versa!.
All the information in this thread is in relation to using a custom installer which for some reason would not result in a bootable usb when following the instructions for that installer. (Those instructions have now been updated since and the original instructions acknowledged some issues) I had to swap out a PATA drive to allow installation of optical drive to the only available IDE connector on motherboard and use a SATA drive in order to use DVD media for installation of SteamOS. Disconnecting DVD and reconnecting PATA drive which has SteamOS installed using a different custom installer (provision of grub-pc files only) may indeed provide some interesting comparisons when looking in log files and comparing installed packages.
Regardless of all; the ability to check root filesystem is a sore miss also there is no verify game cache option which an other SteamOS user has highlighted here but it is easy enough to fsck /home partition. I have seen SteamOS do a verification of installation at boot time so it appears there is some kind of filesystem checking going on.
Toetje583
commented
10 years ago As for now your on non EUFI however, i'm willing to help you, Can you tell me what Steam install Image you are using and how did you Install Steam OS?.
These instructions assume your USB pen drive is on D: – Adjust where relevant
My approach is this:
DEFAULT linux
TIMEOUT 50
LABEL linux
kernel install.amd/vmlinuz
append initrd=install.amd/gtk/initrd.gz preseed/file=/cdrom/default.preseed DEBCONF_DEBUG=developer desktop=steamos auto=true priority=critical video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=788 -- quiet
chroot /target /bin/bash
apt-get install grub-common grub2-common
dpkg -i /media/cdrom/grub/grub-pc-bin_1.99-27+deb7u1+steamos3+bsos1_amd64.deb
dpkg -i /media/cdrom/grub/grub-pc_1.99-27+deb7u1+steamos3+bsos1_amd64.deb
Step 14: Once that’s complete, Hold Ctrl+Alt then hit F5 to return to the UI
Step 15: Hit ‘Continue’ to try grub again, this time it should run properly, say ‘Yes’ to installing to the MBR and the installation will complete.
Step 16: Once installation is complete, go trough the post login part:
After installation is complete, log onto the resulting system (using the Gnome session) with the predefined "steam" account. The password is "steam". Run steam, accept the EULA, and let it bootstrap. Logoff the steam account Log on with the "desktop" account. The password is "desktop" From a terminal window, run ~/post_logon.sh. This will prompt for a password - enter "desktop". This script will perform the post-install customizations, delete itself, then reboot into the recovery partition capture utility. Confirm "y" to continue and the recovery partition will be created. When it is finished, reboot into your freshly installed SteamOS.
When reboot make sure to select "fast" the top OS in the grub menu.
Balderick
commented
10 years ago Thank you for the guidance Toetje583. Can confirm RAM is healthy at least with three passes of memtest and will also disconnect optical drive.
I used an unofficial installer that uses the SteamOS custom installation image which allows burning to DVD. SteamOS was installed using DVD media.
I did try to raise the concerns with the maintainer of Ye Olde installer but due to it being weekend and time consuming potential of troubleshooting my issue appreciate these may be some of the possible reasons why @directhex have not given feedback. The link in post # 3 of this thread goes some way to confirm this. In fairness and hindsight realise i should have posted on Ye Olde GitHub page which i will do if i can confirm issue which following your instruction may reveal.
There are couple of additional things that your instruction will need extra steps which Ye Olde does fix.
The only other thing that leaves me to try and work out is the emulation of keyboard and mouse to get xbox360 controller working for any game in Steam linux library. Installing xboxdrv is the solution to that when used with an appropriate configuration file for each game and may also be the answer to another issue https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/111 by side stepping xpad issue but i do not understand how keyboard and mouse emulation works for Steam Controller so have been holding back on installing xboxdrv until some light can be shed on the subject. The topic is up for discussion at http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/0/864980153266081891/?tscn=1389350846
Toetje583
commented
10 years ago The directhex versions, can't be discussed here they are unofficial, and i don't support it either, simply because in linux you can fix anything without the need of custom builds, I effort his work trough, however issues relating Ye Olde installer should be discussed elsewhere, however my suggestion is try the method above, and see if you ecnounter the same issues. Note official the above instructions are not supported aswell, btw just forget the recovery partition for now.
But this will clearly give you a unmodified Steam OS
Ye Olde installer maintainer could however add suggestions to github, as he already did some.
Balderick
commented
10 years ago I appreciate having access to SteamOS is a privilege and just need to be patient for those updates. Maybe this is opportunity for me to try and create my own custom installer. You and directhex have shown me what is needed i just need to put the pieces together!
Balderick
commented
10 years ago touch /forcefsck can be used to check / partition for errors.
fsck log file location http://askubuntu.com/a/140745
force-fsck-on-the-next-reboot http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-force-fsck-on-the-next-reboot-or-boot-sequence/
Having I/O, Emask and ata errors and issues revealed there is no way provided in steamos to check integrity of drive or run fsck on root filesystem.
Is it acceptable to rely on another distros live session or third party application to allow checking of filesystem for errors?
Defeats purpose of restore recovery partition if there are hardware issues.
Using MHDD suggests healthy drive so maybe there is an underlying issue causing the errors i have been seeing. Never have used an OS that does not provide it's own filesystem checker.