Re: kernel 2.0.30

Chel van Gennip (linux@vangennip.nl)
Fri, 2 May 1997 12:53:57 +0100 (WETDST)

Andreas Degert wrote:
>I also suspect there is at least one bug lurking in 2.0 kernels that
>is causing memory corruption. Some time ago on one of our servers the
>init-process suddenly had a ppid of 1 (instead of 0). Everything else
>seemed to be ok. I thought it was some sort of hardware fault till
>someone else sent a mail to linux-kernel with exactly the same problem
>report.
>
>Another point is that I had some ocurrences of filesystem corruption
>(nothing dramatic, just a directory that suddenly was a file with
>strange attributes or so) and and some other strange things that made
>me reboot the system.
>
>I don't think it's hardware-problems, because it's with several
>machines and the worked very solid with previous linux versions. I had
>these problems with 2.0.29, 2.0.27 etc. These problems are showing up
>very seldom.
>
>So, maybe these things are happening more often with 2.0.30 (i haven't
>installed it). That wouldn't be bad because then we get a change to
>hunt it down.

A problem occuring only once a month is horrible.

I think it is too early to exclude hardware problems.

I once had some problems when I enabled CONFIG_PCI_OPTIMIZE. This can
generate memory problems on some configurations.

There has been some rumours about hardware problems on some motherboards
lately. According to these rumours some vendors use not enough capacitors
or poor quality capacitors for the power management resulting in faults
under extreme conditions. (source Bob Dobkin of Linear Technology in Milpitas.)

I think not all 2.0 kernels suffer from a strange bug. Until now I
have not encountered such a problem. One machine is running 2.0.0
since july 1996 without problems. At this moment it is up for more
than 3 months (we had to move the box some months ago)
We also have a large number of systems on 2.0.14 without reported problems.

lizzy:~# w
1:00pm up 146 days, 18:04, 1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00
User tty login@ idle JCPU PCPU what
root ttyp0 1:00pm w
lizzy:~# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.0.0 (root@lizzy) (gcc version 2.7.2) #5 Tue Jul 30 13:55:55 MET DST 1996

Chel