Horror stories...

Rwilson · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Feb 2004 Posts: 78

I've been in the process of getting Gentoo to work, and I made the quasi-mistake of mentioning this to a friend. He procedely filled my head with warnings of dire consequences should I make a mistake in the install and running of linux, such as burning processors and dying drives. I was curious as to what is the worst you can do to your pc, especailly when your not editing the kernel or things of that nature. I realize that such things are a possibility, but surely it's only in the worst case scenario, right?

teknomage1 · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 5:49 am Post subject:

sounds like your friend is uninformed. The only time you can physically jack your system is is you overclock it or something of that nature. Software won't cause your system to spontaneously combust nor does linux add support for the self destruct key.

_dook_master_ · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 6:03 am Post subject:

how could software destroy your system? i can understand it messing up a BIOS, or a firmware update gone wrong, but software won't ever actually destroy your system. i think its impossible.

ChopChopMasterOnion · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 70 Location: North Texas

i could see bad power management settings causing wear and tear (like how in Windows it's best to use the "power down hard drive" because constantly re-spinning-up wears it out quicker, and such) but frying a processor or other components is rare. On some models in the past I've heard that IRDA on thinkpad 600/600e would kill your motherboard, but that's very isolated and isn't something I've ever even used on mine. That may even be fixed by now.
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There are 10 types of people in this world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

Mosaic · n00b Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Posts: 21

well,I tried to install gentoo and for some reason it was going well.i kept getting errors trying to mount,so i stopped and installed my xp becuase i decided to wait till i get a new system to try and install again.so when i started i put in a disk in my main drive and it doesnt read it,my burner still works my other drive seemed to die on me,the light works but it doesnt read anymore..and im pretty sure this happen while i tried to instal linux.hopefully it gets back to working once when i become successful with the next install.

Jay Belanger · n00b Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 37

plasmagunman · l33t Joined: 07 Jun 2002 Posts: 604 Location: berlin

the only way i know or ever heard of destroying your computer is the /proc-filesystem. it is very important for the system, i'm not sure if anythink would work without it. but you shouldn't mess with it manually, unles you know what you are doing. if you ever come to write something into a file which is located in the /proc-directory think twice what you are going to do. on my laptop it's possible to switch off the processor-fan with it.

but it is not very probable that you do that by accident, so no real danger for your hardware. btw the biggest enemy for my hardware turned out to be tea.
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Rwilson · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Feb 2004 Posts: 78

Well thats a relief! I was somewhat worried about this type of stuff. Now I can continue trying to get my wireless drivers working without fear of my reciever turning into slag!

ChopChopMasterOnion · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 70 Location: North Texas

Wireless will be no problem. The worst that can happen is you'll have trouble getting it to run. My wireless runs fine, and God knows I've done some stupid things trying to get it to run (including trying to see if it would run on a pentium 75's 16-bit pcmcia bus, which by the way it didn't)
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There are 10 types of people in this world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

ewan.paton · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2004 1:52 am Post subject:

i wore out the processor fan bearings on my 5 yearold laptop but i stage1 on it well over 20 times. gentoo woulnt cause any real damage, more show up flaws in the system like bad cooling which you should be aware about anyway.
the only prob software can really cause is the mandrake case where cdrws where shipped with dangerously faulty firmware and the kernel broke them, these were timebombs and it was probably a good thing as they were still in warrenty.

i would say your friend is an illinformed puttz who obviously knows dick about linux, fact is when big companys want stable reliable dam near indistructable computers{1} they go for a *nix variant not some bastardised toy os which you have no idea what is going on behind the curtain.

{1} i saw the hotswap cpu patch in 2.6 meaning assuming the pc suports hotswaping{2} the only time you would be forced to reboot would be if a mainboard went down, there were times last year windows xp would need a reboot without anything even runing at the time

{2} out of interest whats needed to cpu hotswap a x86 system apart from a smp i assume
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revertex · l33t Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 806

Some time ago tons of machines has their bios ERASED by virus (CIH_Chernobil), hopefully none has running linux, but a commercial OS.

I knew people that just threw away their unbotable mobos, thinking that was irrecoverable.

Is linux dangerous to your hardware?

ChopChopMasterOnion · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 70 Location: North Texas

revertex · l33t Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 806

Okay, this time i used the right flags.

ChopChopMasterOnion · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 70 Location: North Texas

also, with the handy-dandy windows slide-bar video card fryers, you feel a little safer doing something that will kill your hardware, whereas when you mess with the scripts to do something you know you shouldn't on a *nix, you aren't surprised when it happens. plus there's no upper limit, so if you're bent on frying it you can fry it right.
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There are 10 types of people in this world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

Jay Belanger · n00b Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 37

plasmagunman · l33t Joined: 07 Jun 2002 Posts: 604 Location: berlin

amne · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2004 7:20 pm Post subject:

2 Dangers i'm aware of:
LG-cdrom drives and some kernel versions - destroyed the drive because it was buggy (sticky thread somewhere here in the forums).
lm-sensors and ibm thinkpads - deadly for the thinkpad (some bios problem).

Everything else should be pretty safe.