Fsck gggggrub2 and LVM

Linux Ubuntu. I had some kernel problems about 2 months ago which I repaired by replacing the memory. Before I replaced the memory, however, I tried very hard to find the problem. I installed old versions of Linux which I had on hand. I even tried to install the old Windows XP which came with the computer 8 years ago. Nothing worked until the second time I did a memory test (first test worked fine) and I encountered the errors.

While trying to find this problem, I ended up with some corrupted filesystems. One of them had an LVM on it. Unfortunately, grub2 kept trying to clean it up every time I tried to boot. Keep in mind that I did not know that this was the reason for which I was having difficulty booting. I had to repair the disk that had the unsuccessful Windows XP install. I could never be sure whether the booting was failing because I had updated the kernel or for some other reason. I pursued the idea that the SATA disks were at fault because the boot-repair software asked me about them while repairing the boot.

I tried Linux Mint 12.10, Lubuntu 10.10, Ubuntu Studio 12.04 and my main OS Ubuntu 12.04. I did not connect the boot problems with my mounting the LVMs. I started poring over the system error logs.

The solution was provided by NetFibre Unix Administrator. The key was that the LVMs had to be activated (vgchange -ay) but the partitions should not be mounted. I was able to to the cleanup (e2fsck -f /dev/mapper...) because the LVMs were on their own partitions and I did not have to mount them.

Willeskop

20121027_114132, a photo by RMD Observations on Flickr.

Birds on lake.

Via Flickr:
Willeskop Natuur Gebied

Equisetum - Scouring Rush Is The Oldest Extant Genus Of Land Plant?

This plant is a weed in my garden. 


Equisetum - Scouring Rush Is The Oldest Extant Genus Of Land Plant?

Return to Ubuntu

I have switched back to Ubuntu with Unity 2. It is a larger distribution and I am getting accustomed to the left menu system.

SolusOS in place of Ubuntu

Alas, I could not get used to Ubuntu 12.04 Unity and did not want to go backwards to an old gnome Desktop. Therefore I have installed SolusOS on my old Windows 7 partition. Yes, you heard that right. I removed the Windows 7 OS completely from my computer. All that is left is an NTFS partition containing data which I shared between the 2 OS's.

SolusOS is also a Debian-type Linux OS. It installed nicely. I  put its boot record on the root partition rather than the MBR.  Up to now, I have replaced the Cardapio menu with Mintmenu. Someone on the Facebook Linux group suggested it. Mintmenu is also a bit slow and I might go back to the Gnome menu. I was quite surprised that I was able to do this.

The real problem with Unity, for my machine, was the use of icons on the Desktop. It slowed things down and was not organized in  a way in which I work.

Ubuntu 12 Install (Part 2)

I have lost count of how many times I have re-installed Ubuntu 12 (well, about 4). The problem with my machine is that I have 2 hard disks that are SATA. openSUSE, with grub-legacy, was able to create a boot screen for itself, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12. The Ubuntu 12choice did not work and gave me the error 15 (and then 13 at some point, and then 17 when I started randomly changing things at the grub command line).

The odd thing is, when I changed the boot order in the BIOS, Ubuntu loaded. So, I decided this morning to install the boot loader in the first hard disk and not the one on which Ubuntu 12 was located.  This created a functioning boot menu! I believe that the openSUSE boot menu is still on the second disk, but it is not being reached once the first boot order is found.

Now, I want to make it look pretty.

Ubuntu 12 Install

Installed Ubuntu 12 today. I spent all last week cleaning up 12 years of backups to make space on my backup drive. After the install and reboot, I got the dreaded Error 15 File not Found. So, I rebooted and tried the openSUSE OS. That failed also because it was trying to fsck the new Ubuntu partition (with a new, as yet unknown to opensuse uuid number). I get frustrated when the software can't just skip over these little snags and let me into the workspace where I am better able to deal with it.

So, after some searching led me to the old grub vs. grub2 problem, I decided to just re-install openSUSE and let it find the UBUNTU partition. It did not find the partition and I had to use YAST to look for it. Note that when adding Ubuntu to the list, it asks me if I want to run the file checker. I did not. I checked the menu.lst afterwards and rebooted. After being sent to an ugly text screen (old grub-like menu) I was able to enter the new Ubuntu desktop.

Well, maybe I should try and understand grub2 again, but I cannot find anything about booting the system in the System Settings. I would like a nice screen and not have to go through two menus.

$ grub-install -v
 grub-install (GRUB) 1.99-21ubuntu3
 

$sudo update-grub

Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic-pae
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic-pae
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1
Found openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) on /dev/sdb8
done