Minor Boot-up Issues (Resolved)

[bilyo]

Hi,
I recently loaded PCLOS on my Lenovo 550 laptop. All is generally working working well.  I only need help with some minor configuration issues.  The one I'll deal with in this post has to do with a long pause during boot-up (actually it is only about 30 seconds but it seems longer).  In verbose mode, I see that the pause occurs just after lines that say something like "squashfs-lzma Already installed" and "Waiting for network to be up - Failed".  Earlier in the process there are lines that say something like "Error for wireless request, Set encode (8BZA), Set failed on eth1: Invalid argument".  These may not be worded exactly correctly.  If someone can tell me where this information is logged (if it is) I'll be glad to copy and post the pertinent lines (tried to find last night without success). Regarding these messages: I don't use eth1 and don't have a connection set up for it. I have tried to find a way to turn off the ethernet port without success.  My internet connection is wireless and the router is usually on when I boot-up.  Regardless of the "waiting for network" and "wireless request" messages, the internet connection is up and ready very quickly after log-in.  Is there anything here that needs to be corrected and can pause be eliminated or reduced?
Thanks,
bilyo

[Old-Polack]

Hi,
I recently loaded PCLOS on my Lenovo 550 laptop. All is generally working working well.  I only need help with some minor configuration issues.  The one I'll deal with in this post has to do with a long pause during boot-up (actually it is only about 30 seconds but it seems longer).  In verbose mode, I see that the pause occurs just after lines that say something like "squashfs-lzma Already installed" and "Waiting for network to be up - Failed".  Earlier in the process there are lines that say something like "Error for wireless request, Set encode (8BZA), Set failed on eth1: Invalid argument".  These may not be worded exactly correctly.  If someone can tell me where this information is logged (if it is) I'll be glad to copy and post the pertinent lines (tried to find last night without success). Regarding these messages: I don't use eth1 and don't have a connection set up for it. I have tried to find a way to turn off the ethernet port without success.  My internet connection is wireless and the router is usually on when I boot-up.  Regardless of the "waiting for network" and "wireless request" messages, the internet connection is up and ready very quickly after log-in.  Is there anything here that needs to be corrected and can pause be eliminated or reduced?
Thanks,
bilyo

What, exactly, did you install?

[bilyo]

Hi old-polack,
I installed the latest ver of PCLOS (2009.2) with KDE. The only apps I've installed are Thunderbird and Open Office.  PCLOS dual boots with Win7 which came on the machine. I hardly ever go there (Win7) but didn't want to remove it just yet. PCLOS is using about half of the 250GB HD (root = 12GB, home = 128GB, swap is about 8GB I think).
Hope this is enough info.
bilyo

[menotu]

Have you considered using the latest PCLinuxOS 2010 version(s) ?

[Old-Polack]

Hi old-polack,
I installed the latest ver of PCLOS (2009.2) with KDE. The only apps I've installed are Thunderbird and Open Office.  PCLOS dual boots with Win7 which came on the machine. I hardly ever go there (Win7) but didn't want to remove it just yet. PCLOS is using about half of the 250GB HD (root = 12GB, home = 128GB, swap is about 8GB I think).
Hope this is enough info.
bilyo

What menotu said. 2009.2 is an old and no longer supported system. There are 2010 releases for KDE, MiniMe (KDE minimal DE), Gnome, Gnome ZenMini, LXDE, LXDE-mini, XFCE (Phoenix), E17 (Enlightenment), and Openbox soon to come. I have the Openbox release installed already, for testing purposes.

Any of these present a better choice, as they will have full support, with upgrades available for years to come. Information about each, as well as downloads, can be gotten from the upper right hand box of the main PCLinuxOS page.

http://pclinuxos.com/

[bilyo]

old-polack,
I just read the announcement that ver 2010 is available for download.  I assume that I need to download, create a new liveCD, and reinstall from scratch (no update from 2009 to 2010?).  I also assume that during the new install the root partition will get reformated. Will the home partition be affected? I'll backup what little I have there anyway. From what I've read so far, 2010 is pretty good.  I look forward to it.
Thanks,
bilyo

[Old-Polack]

old-polack,
I just read the announcement that ver 2010 is available for download.  I assume that I need to download, create a new liveCD, and reinstall from scratch (no update from 2009 to 2010?).  I also assume that during the new install the root partition will get reformated. Will the home partition be affected? I'll backup what little I have there anyway. From what I've read so far, 2010 is pretty good.  I look forward to it.
Thanks,
bilyo

As it's a fresh install, I wouldn't try to save the /home partition. Just get your personal data off and let the /home partition be reformatted too. Use the ext4 file system for the format. It's working extremely well. The configuration of the KDE4 desktop is so much different saving the /home/bilyo directory would more likely do more harm than good.

[bilyo]

old-polack,
Will do. I'll let you know if there are any problems.
bilyo

[menotu]

100% agree with everything old-polack says.

Its one of the main causes of problems when installing the 2010 version(s) and keeping the old /home in place, especially when an older 2009 KDE3.5 or KDE4 /home is used.

[bilyo]

menotu and old-polack,
Thanks for all the help.  One more question please.  Do I need to do anything with GRUB or will the new install take care of it?
bilyo

[Old-Polack]

menotu and old-polack,
Thanks for all the help.  One more question please.  Do I need to do anything with GRUB or will the new install take care of it?
bilyo

You will have a grub installation from the new install. You'll need it as the old second stage from the first installation will be gone.

[bilyo]

Hi,
I now have ver 2010 installed and working well.  It is very impressive how all hardware is properly detected and configured. I did have one problem during installation that was probably due to newbie ignorance.  The partitions I had were OK but since I needed to change the type to ext4, I selected "custom" which required setting mount point, type, etc., and then formatting each partition. To keep this short I'll just say that it took 3 tries and a reboot in order to get the partitions successfully formatted.  It appears that my mistake was in typing in the mount point names rather than selecting from the pull -down list; even though they were the same name.  If this is the case, it would have worked better for me if the pull-down list was the only option and type-in names were not allowed.  Just a newbies observation.
I have some questions about firewall setup and networking but I'll put those in separate postings.
Thanks for the help,
bilyo