Droping to a shell on startup

flann311 · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

I've worked with Linux a little, but one problem that I've had with every distribution is sometimes at startup it will drop me to a shell. I have to run fsck and reboot. What is causing it to do this and is there any way to prevent it. The exact thing I enter is fsck -y /dev/hda2 this answers yes to all the questions. What is really happening when it clears an unused inode?

If any body can help me I would appreciate it.

Thank you,

Flann
http://www.freemortgagecalculator.net

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:02 pm Post subject:

flann311,

It appears that you don't wait for the filesystems to be unmounted before you switch off.
That will leave your filesystems marked as 'dirty' and may leave them in an inconsistant state.
fsck then scans the partitions to make sure the filesystems are internally self consistant.
That does not mean your data is intact, just that everything ties up.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

flann311 · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

Thank you

how else should I go about shutting down, I log off my Linux system in a similar fashion that I would log off a Windows system. When I have open programs, I close them, and exit out of my terminal sessions before I shut down. I have noticed that this happens, at least with more frequency, when I leave my computer on for long periods of time. Do you think that this could be the cause of the problem?
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Flann

freelight · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:08 pm Post subject:

Do you use the shutdown -h or poweroff command to turn off the computer? If you don't, you're leaving your fileystems mounted (and some programs running in the background), and this is causing the problem you're experiencing.

flann311 · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

I use Gnome and KDE graphical user interfaces, so I go to the little red hat, and click log off. Should I open a terminal window instead and use "shutdown -h" like you suggested?
_________________
Flann

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject:

flann311,

If log off shuts down, that fine. If not you need an orderly shut down somehow.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

flann311 · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 4

Thank you,

I'll try some of your suggestions.

My Linux computer could spit on me everytime I turn it on, and I'd still like it more than my Windows XP computer

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Flann