When Linux slows down

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

while back I had a problem with my Linux Mint.

Programmes took an age to shut down, sometimes taking several minutes. It wasn’t confined to one programme. Any programme seemed to be affected. Also I would occasionally get a screen full of code on shut down [or boot, I can’t remember!] that flew past too quickly to read.

Then I started getting messages that my disk was full. This was worrying as I have a 1Tb HDD with windows/Linux dual boot. The Linux root partition was 50Gb and the home partition was 500Gb, both being big enough to avoid problems. Or so I thought. It was the root partition that was nearly full.

A quick check with Disk Usage Analyzer showed that the problem was log files. Tons of ’em. I deleted them [carefully].

Next I took a photo of the scrolling text. That at least allowed me to read some of it.

I selected a likely looking piece from one of the lines – “PCIe bus error severity=corrected” – and did a search on the web. I quickly found a solution.

Edit the file “/etc/default/grub” as Root user [making a backup of it first, of course].

Change the line

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash pci=noaer”

Save it and run update-grub.

Everything now loads and shuts down smoothly and quickly.

Firefox broken again

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

The latest update to Firefox broke the display once more by moving Tabs to the top.

I searched and eventually found a fix on Mac’s site – The Foggy Mirror.

After a couple of failed attempts I eventually found how to do it.

  1. Copy the code provided in Mac’s link’
  2. Type about:profiles in the address bar.
  3. At “Preofile: default -> Root directory” click on “Open Directory”.
  4. Enter folder “chrome” or create it if it doesn’t exist.
  5. Save the copied content as a file “userChrome.css” or replace an existing file.
  6. Restart Firefox.

This fixed the Tabs location but I wanted the Toolbar on top. I found the fix for that on Mac’s link too.

  1. Copy the code provided here.
  2. Paste the code at the end of the userChrome.css file [as above]
  3. Restart Firefox.

I did try the second block of code on its own but that broke the site again. With the two blocks together my Firefox is back to its original appearance.

Updating Linux Mint 21.1 Beta

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I have been using Linux Mint 21.1 Beta since it was released.

Everything ran very smoothly and I certainly had no problems or complaints.

However, the production release of 21.1 came out today. According the the Mint blog, all I had to do was run the Update Manager. That sounded easy enough? But the Update Manager failed to work. It repeatedly hung up on me even after a reboot.

I tried an update to the manager via the terminal. That didn’t work. I tried a few other suggestions that I discovered on the Web. Still no go. I decided the simplest solution was to reinstall 21.1 from the new ISO. I downloaded it and stuck it on a USB key.

Before booting into the key I went to backup my software selection. The Backup Tool didn’t work either. It just didn’t list any software. I resigned myself to a system reload. But before I started I thought I’d test Software Manager. That seemed to work so as a last resort (just for the devilment) I installed Gnome Update Manager. That worked, though it was a different program from the normal! It suggested a load of updates but I just selected Update Manager and Backup Tool. That worked.

In my Administration Menu I now had Software Updater and Software Manager. I tried the latter again.

It worked perfectly this time, as did Backup Tool. I applied all the updates.

It took somewhat less time than a total reload!

Failed to mount Windows share

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I run a small network here with several remote drives.

For a while I have been having problems accessing those drives and getting various error messages, the most common being –

Failed to mount Windows share

Sometimes I would connect but I was then told that the target drive “contains no files” (where I knew it did).

This was frustrating as I had to physically move the remote drive and plug it directly into this machine via USB.

Eventually I found the fix. I edited my /etc/samba/smb.conf file and added two lines in the [global] block after the Workgroup entry –

force user = plex
client min protocol = CORE

That seems to have fixed it!

Dell Inspiron 3000 intermittent boot problem

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I recently acquired a Dell Inspiron 17 3000.

I was very happy with it and straight away went about installing Linux Mint as a dual boot.

That’s when the problems started.

Windows 10 works perfectly (I use the word in the sense that it did what it was supposed to do albeit very slowly) as did Mint. I had split the main 1Tb disk in two and all was fine except for the boot process.

Switching on from a cold start was generally fine. Mint (my default, of course) ran perfectly. The problem would arise on a reboot. The boot loader would fail and I would either get a blank screen with a GRUB curser – “C:grub>” – or the bootloader showing the two operating systems but neither choice would work and just display an “error: command failed”. A soft reboot (Ctrl+Alt+Del) just brought me the the start of the loop again. A hard reboot (switch off/on) wasn’t much better. Eventually after several soft or hard reboots I would be able to get into either OS.

I tried many things to fix this problem. I had scanned the hard drive from both systems so I knew there were no flaws there. I did a factory restore but that didn’t fix anything. I reloaded Mint. I ran Boot Repair with varying options. I mucked around in the bewildering settings in the Dell Boot Setup. Nothing worked.

I resigned myself to a lot of future frustration but at least I could eventually get into the OS I wanted.

Then I got an email from an old friend in the States – Thanks KirkM – giving a link to the solution.

So, for my own future reference –

sudo cp /etc/grub.d/40_custom /etc/grub.d/06_notpm
sudo bash -c 'echo "rmmod tpm" >> /etc/grub.d/06_notpm'
sudo update-grub

I’m naturally wary of code like this just copied off the Web but frustration got the better of me. I tried it.

It works!