Small problems after system update

kotokomauri · 2008-02-06 02:14:45

I have a couple of problems which appeared after a recent pacman update. A lot of stuff was updated, including the kernel and xorg.

1) Shutdown stalls at "Save system clock".

2) Ctl-Alt-F(1-6) doesn't get me out of X11. Actually, this works sometimes, but usually not.

I could fix these, if I knew where to start. Can anyone help me with some diagnostics? I have a pretty simple setup, no desktop, just ratpoison and the apps I need for work, mail, web.

Can I redo an update, and if so, how? Is there (ever) any point in doing that?

jbromley · 2008-02-06 08:51:05

Have you checked for any *.pacnew configuration files in your /etc directory. Perhaps you're seeing the results of configuration files that need to be updated.

Good luck.
j

kotokomauri · 2008-02-06 12:54:20

jbromley wrote:

Have you checked for any *.pacnew configuration files in your /etc directory. Perhaps you're seeing the results of configuration files that need to be updated.
Good luck.
j

Thanks for your reply j. I'd already checked this one out, so I guess that's not the problem.

Can I do some kind of trace, to see exactly what's stalling the shutdown?

codemac · 2008-02-06 23:50:56

From /etc/rc.shutdown:

stat_busy "Saving System Clock"
if [ "$TIMEZONE" != "" -a -e /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TIMEZONE ]; then
    /bin/rm -f /etc/localtime
    /bin/cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TIMEZONE /etc/localtime
fi
if [ "$HARDWARECLOCK" = "UTC" ]; then
    /sbin/hwclock --directisa --utc --systohc
else
    /sbin/hwclock --directisa --localtime --systohc
fi
stat_done

I'm not sure what your configurations are kotokomauri, but one of these is your culprit. Please take some time and check out the /etc/rc.* scripts if you want to figure out more about arch's boot/halt procedure.

kotokomauri · 2008-02-09 07:10:30

From /etc/rc.shutdown:

...
    /sbin/hwclock --directisa --utc --systohc
...

Thanks for your advice codemac. Removing the --directisa option from the line above fixes the shutdown problem, but leaves me not much the wiser. Any further ideas would be welcome.

dell 640m, hardware clock set to utc.

[Edit:] It seems to me that the following result indicates that the shutdown hang is a permission problem...

$ hwclock --directisa --show
hwclock is unable to get I/O port access: the iopl(3) call failed.
Probably you need root privileges.

Last edited by kotokomauri (2008-02-09 14:43:30)

codemac · 2008-02-11 05:09:38

man hwclock:
--directisa
is meaningful only on an ISA machine or an Alpha (which implements enough of ISA to be, roughly speaking,
an ISA machine for hwclock's purposes). For other machines, it has no effect. This option tells hwclock
to use explicit I/O instructions to access the Hardware Clock. Without this option, hwclock will try to use the
/dev/rtc device (which it assumes to be driven by the rtc device driver). If it is unable to open the device (for
read), it will use the explicit I/O instructions anyway.

The rtc device driver was new in Linux Release 2.

So as you can see, directisa is something that SHOULDN'T do anything on your system, but for some reason it is failing. I'm guessing it is very specific to your hardware, though I've never heard of this happening.

Last edited by codemac (2008-02-11 05:13:04)

kotokomauri · 2008-02-21 14:45:45

Thanks everyone. The problem shutdown problem resolved itself after the latest system update.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-06 02:14:45

Small problems after system update

#2 2008-02-06 08:51:05

Re: Small problems after system update

#3 2008-02-06 12:54:20

Re: Small problems after system update

#4 2008-02-06 23:50:56

Re: Small problems after system update

#5 2008-02-09 07:10:30

Re: Small problems after system update

#6 2008-02-11 05:09:38

Re: Small problems after system update

#7 2008-02-21 14:45:45

Re: Small problems after system update

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