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Thu Mar 15 22:22:06 EDT 2007
FreeBSD weirdness linked to bad memory
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2 days ago, I started experiencing some really weird issues with
my FreeBSD 6.2 headless bounce box. First, /bin/sh, my shell be-
gan not respecting the previous histories. When I pressed the
"up" arrow, the text would appear, but the cursor would act like
nothing was there. Then, I found that I could not get X to for-
ward anything to me. The final two bits had fetchmail AND
openssl segfaulting.
I tried to reinstall, but that didn't work. It was then that it
was suggested to me to run memtest on the memory. Sure enough,
there was a bad stick of memory. After replacing the bad stuff
with some that was lying around the office, it was good to go.
I then set FreeBSD back up. I was actually very happy about
starting over again. I guess this thought deserves a post all by
itself, but I find FreeBSD a joy to install and set up. I don't
demand too much, so maybe my opinion doesn't count. Because I
don't demand too much above what a minimal FreeBSD box gives me,
it was pretty quit to get the following things installed:
- screen
- mutt
- sudo
- fetchmail
Once I had fetchmail and mutt installed, I simply scp'd my
.fetchmailrc, .muttrc. and my mbox back up over to my fresh in-
stall, and bam! I was going all ahead full! This got me think-
ing about what people should really want out of their OS. To me,
it is one of the most convenient things in the world to know that
I can reinstall FreeBSD in under 5 minutes, get it how I like it
in another 10, download my files, and trudge ahead like I didn't
skip a beat.
Too many people, I find, treat their computer like some sort of
ancestorial family home that they are supposed to keep around,
nurture, and base their whole lives around. The only problem is
that if the hardware craps out or if they get some sort of virus,
they are screwed. I think it is much more mind easing to know
that your data is backed up somewhere and that you can quickly
and easily recreated an usable environment in under an hour.
Forget spending days to save your data off of a corrupt Windows
installation or cry when your favorite Linux box dies. I say
treat your computer like it is a hostile on your backpacking tip
across Europe, not like the family manor that is supposted to be
the center of your world.
Treat it as a tool to use and work your data (email, pics, docs,
etc), but for heaven's sake know how to recreate your environment
with minimal effort. That said, know how to back up your data -
use the bajillion options you have these days for saving your da-
ta remotely. Data warehousing, simple and cheap hosting plans
with gobs of disk space, etc. Learn subversion, scp, rysnc, etc.
I can imagine going back to the world of windows where your life
can get turned upside down by treating your machine as a black
box that also happens to store all of your most valuable elec-
tronic data. A lot of *nix users are guilty of this, too.
At the end of the day, I am just glad that I know that a bad
stick of memory or a bad OS installation is not that big of a
deal. I also welcome excuses to recreate a fresh FreeBSD, mini-
mal install - it is perhaps one of the nices environments that I
know of in which to work.
Cheers
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