deleted

opentaka · l33t Joined: 18 Feb 2005 Posts: 840 Location: Japan

Deleted, because People are misunderstanding what I was saying.
and I dont want People to flight with me.

gday.
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opentaka · l33t Joined: 18 Feb 2005 Posts: 840 Location: Japan

Deleted, because People are misunderstanding what I was saying.
and I dont want People to flight with me.

gday.
_________________
"Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent" - Marilyn vos Savant

psyqil · Advocate Joined: 26 May 2003 Posts: 2767

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-198023.html

And if you cat binary files, some values get interpreted as escape codes. Just use a pager or type "reset" afterwards.

wjholden · l33t Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 826 Location: Augusta, GA

Well, I would say that laptops are hardly a platform for stability. What hardware do you have? All I know is you've got a laptop. This could well be a driver problem, or else something accidentally or unknowingly left out of your kernel configuration.

I have a desktop that regularly does uptimes of over 20 days. I never really tested it for the longest possible uptime it could get in Windows was, mostly because I would notice severe performance losses after keeping it on for longer than 2 days (this is a Athlon XP 2400+, Biostart nForce2-based mobo, originally 256 MBs of RAM later increased to 768, nVidia Geforce 5200 FX). And I should say that in Windows when I played a game and then exitted I'd always have to restart before regular desktop performance returned...this is probably the games fault for having memory leaks, but Windows XP is supposed to have a good garbage collector, which is garbage in my opinion.

These X lockups are not uncommon. If you can, run SSHD on your computer so that you can login remotely when it locks up so you can find out what's going on.

DNL · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 27

I did a little test, because I've noticed stability problems on several Linux distro's on this box under X, doing certain things. In all cases, if I used the 'nv' driver, the stability issues disappeared, if I used the Nvidia supplied drivers(I've used several versions), I would invariably get a lockup. It seems use of Opengl speeds up the time to the lockup.

Though when this happens, I can still login via a terminal on the serial port and restart X.

Anyways, as of now, I'm convinced my own problems are due to the Nvidia driver.
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zxiiro · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:17 am Post subject:

if your concerned about stability your probably not gonna run an X server,

Lechium · Apprentice Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 244

Your linuxbox lockup is prolly a result of bad config or random act of wierdness... although I dont know much about fluxbox, i had massive uptimes on old gnome and good uptimes (12 days max, cuz i recompile kernel a lot =), but its always stable) on XFCE4.

wjholden · l33t Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 826 Location: Augusta, GA

12 days isn't what I'd call good uptime. I heard about someone who set up a webserver and has never logged in, rebooted, or even looked at this Solaris box in 3 years. I should go start a thread in OTW about longest uptime right now, in fact, I will

Given M. Sur · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:52 am Post subject:

DNL · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 27

opentaka · l33t Joined: 18 Feb 2005 Posts: 840 Location: Japan

Deleted, because People are misunderstanding what I was saying.
and I dont want People to flight with me.

gday.
_________________
"Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent" - Marilyn vos Savant

DNL · n00b Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 27

Athas · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:34 am Post subject: Re: Is linux really stable?

ChojinDSL · l33t Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 784

No matter as how stable most users experience a system, there will always be someone who's struggling.
However, there is to consider that sometimes its not the software at fault but the hardware. A couple of years ago my father had a AMD K6-III 450mhz pc with a VIA based motherboard. Nothing but trouble. On the other hand a friend of mine bought almost the exact same system as me (which is rock solid), but his motherboard had a defect.

A hugely common factor in stability is proper configuration. Often its the user that did something wrong, but sometimes its also the software that recognised something about the hardware wrong.

From my personal experience, linux is way more stable for me than windows ever was in any of its incarnations.
Case in point: I usually only reboot if I'm upgrading the kernel. The thing is I'm quite lazy when it comes to certain things. So more than once, I rebooted, only to find that my system wasnt working 100% as it should. Why? Because my reboots are so few and far between, e.g. a couple of months, that I often simply enter a few commands at boot to config my network and stuff like that, but Im too lazy to put that into a permanent configuration, or I simply forget about it. So by the time the next reboot comes around, I've forgotten about it and "hilarity" ensues. :wink:

Actually its quite annoying. Especially when I've rebooted, started mythtv, am lying in bed and got my remote control in my hand, and am wondering why its not responding - I forgot to start the lirc daemon since the reboot of course. :oops:

Thats a fine example of bad computer habits.
With windows of course, just keeping the system up to date on a regular basis requires frequent reboots, so in Windows I tend to make sure that everything thats supposed to run, is auto loaded at startup.
Also, since Im a 3D graphics artists, I tend to use programs that really task the resources - modelling, rendering, encoding to dvd or divx, etc. So it is important for me to run in a stable environment. In windows it seemed as if I always needed to eventually reboot after a big task. Bottom line is, I dont trust windows as a rendering platform, and apparently neither does the rest of the 3D industry.

vonhelmet · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:06 am Post subject:

I have a Gentoo box acting as a database/web server for a small website. Current uptime is 28 days. It was up to over 50 a while back, but I rebooted it to switch to a newer kernel.

I'd say it's pretty damn stable.
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yngwin · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:34 pm Post subject:

In my experience Linux is definitely more stable than Windows. In the setup I currently use, I cannot use WindowsXP for more than a couple of hours (and often less) without it completely freezing, requiring a hard reset. This never happens on my Gentoo. Also in the past, on other boxes, in Linux I would at most have an X freeze, which would still leave me with a usable console (and thus the possibility to kill X).
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rogerdugans · n00b Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 32 Location: massachusetts

Yes, no and maybe.

When run purely as a server there is no doubt in my mind that linux kills any version of windows for stability and reliability.

When run as a desktop OS the question is slightly less clear, as more complexity is involved.

Say what you want about Windows (as we often do

) but it is NOT all bad, and for a number of reasons.
Windows CAN be pretty stable in some versions- NT4 and Win2K in my experience, but some hardware/software configurations do work better than others.

Linux as a desktop os has its share of problems as well and among the biggest of these may be that when there are problems they can be very hard to fix, especially for those fairly new to linux.
Some of the advantages of linux can also be negative in ways: the wide range of window managers, themes, add-ons and libraries that can be used do NOT always help stability, and it can make troubleshooting more difficult.

I have had windows NT4 servers run for over a year without rebooting or problems.
I have had Win2K worstations run for months at a time without rebooting.
I have had linux (various distros) servers run for over a year without trouble.
I have had linux workstations (xfree86/xorg, kde, nvidia closed-source drivers, 2.4 and 2.6 kernels) run for months at a time.

Windows takes a lot more work to make a stable, secure server in my experience, but it can (or could in the past) be done.
Linux needs more config but still manages to be easier to set up a stable, secure server.

On the desktop-
Windows is easier and more compatible for gaming and still is the business standard for application compatibility, but it can be problemmatic. Regular reboots are the best bet.
Linux- well, this depends on how you use it.

And how good you are at setting it up.

Setting up a full-featured, gaming-capable, stable desktop is possible but it IS harder than setting up an equivalent environment than in windows. It will also be more stable when done.

I am nowhere near the level of "linux guru"- in fact at another forum I have a custom title that reads "Linux challenged, not that it stops me"

but I HAVE mucked around with all kinds of stuff and found many interesting ways to break things. As a result, I have also found a few things that help to keep from breaking things.

Windows does get the edge for ease.
Linux gets to hold first and last place for stability though, with windows in the middle.

The opinion expressed above is mine and may not reflect anybody else's experience.

Jeremy_Z · l33t Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 671 Location: Shanghai

I never had X to freeze on my laptop, but i had on my former desktop computer. The only anoying thing is when X freezes the keyboard so you cannot go to a terminal. But the machine is still working i you can kill X by connecting to remotly (ssh).

And yes, most of the time it is due to hardware or driver.
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Pithlit · l33t Joined: 27 Dec 2003 Posts: 887 Location: fuhen

My server only goes down due to power loss (I have no UPS... yet), hardware upgrades or kernel upgrades. I guess I'll have to agree with the statement "Linux is stable". And since the same comp acts as my wives desktop (KDE) I'd say it's pretty damn stable. It got rebooted 8 times in the last 14 months (2 hardware upgrades, 3 kernel upgrades and 3 power losses).

Wife keeps forgetting her password since she hardly ever needs to use it

.
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Jinidog · Guru Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Berlin

I once ran my Desktop for six days under maximal load and it didn't freeze.
And my system is no really stable one, I use the newest gcc-3.4.3 and dangerous CFLAGS in addition to some unstable software.
You can have luck

My Desktop is really rock solid, although I overrated the FSB about 4 MHz (not much

)
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quag7 · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:44 pm Post subject:

I have an Apache web server in production at work which is at 254 days now; that's on Debian Woody (I actually installed the OS 254 days ago, so who knows how long it will actually last). My own record here at home with Gentoo is 150 days exactly, cut short by a most unceremonious power outage during a storm.

I have found that apps in X crash fairly regularly (mainly Firefox, sometimes Evolution) and I have had very occasional (once every few months) crashes where keyboard and mouse freezes in X, presumably a video issue but I don't know for sure.

But overall, I would say even running X aggressively, it is more stable than my still-pretty-good Windows 2000 machine. Generally the machines I run X on last 45-60 days before I need to reboot. Often those reboots are for kernel upgrades or whatever anyway, so I don't have a firm benchmark in terms of stability. I had a problem in my initial X config when I first started running Gentoo which caused it to freeze about once weekly to the point that the entire system became inaccessible. But once I fixed that, I haven't had any chronic difficulties.

By comparison, Windows 2000 lasts 15-30 days on average, occasionally going beyond that. A friend of mine had 65 days on a Windows XP system, and he pushes it hard with gaming and so on.

Right now, my uptimes are:

This machine (Gentoo): 11:30:03 up 14 days, 6:17, 6 users, load average: 0.82, 1.19, 1.25 (don't remember why I rebooted 2 weeks ago - though I did have some kind of runaway condition recently which ate up all available RAM plus the swap file - that may have been why I rebooted)

My internal server (Debian unstable): 11:30:43 up 8 days, 19:23, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 (compiled new kernel - I suspect this will go several months at minimum now)

Router (Debian unstable): 11:31:56 up 76 days, 17:32, 4 users, load average: 0.98, 0.82, 0.83 (This machine has never crashed. It's a P2-400. All reboots have been related to my playing with the kernel.)

Windows machine (Windows 2000): 5 days, 3 hours (don't recall why I rebooted)

Most of these machines are at the beginning of their uptime cycles, meaning they'll probably run quite awhile before a reboot. Will be interesting to see how far they go.

One problem with getting too interested in uptimes is that there are good reasons to reboot, like tweaking your kernel or upgrading (less of an issue on crusty kernels running on servers, like Woody). In the case of Windows, it's necessary to reboot for many of their security patches.

I do, however, notice that many of our internal Solaris machines at work have utterly ridiculous uptimes, as many others report.
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asiobob · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:32 pm Post subject:

I have a gentoo box as domain controller/file server. 50 days of uptime today. it only gets an I/O trashing, and samba has been restarted once due to a config change. touch wood it will just keep going for months more unless there is a kernel security update

Riddick · Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 5:44 pm Post subject:

server at home, SuSE 9.1.
Hosts 40Gb of documets that are contunuously remotely mounted and written to.
I can remember, since I'm at university, but must be well about 100 days uptime (the kernel is quite out of date).
The XP machine, when it comes to networking and long-term stability is not in the same league.

The server is a 3200+ which also folds 24/7.
edit: for those who don't know: load = 1

Riddick

RBH · Apprentice Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 184

My Gentoo server has never crashed. Its longest uptime was somewhere around the 80 day mark, then went down to a power cut. It's gone down at various other times due to deliberate shutdowns (hardware changes, moving the box etc), but never just fallen over through any fault of its own.

That said, it doesn't run X

asiobob · Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2005 5:06 pm Post subject:

Stabilty is not just crashing. These days if I ran Linux/samba and windows 2003 (with no other crap) it would be interesting what who beats who. I guess hardware failure. But if there was a serious samba security flaw you'd just upgrade to the new one, restart samba (3 seconds "down time") and all is well. Windows probably would need a reboot, but thats what back up domain controllers are for (or peers in Active directory).

X is not ultra stable. No I'm not one of those poorly misconfigured souls. I could probably run x for weeks but still Gnome might have a sad which I *could* recover with a bunch of killall commands but the time it takes to do that (downtime) is more than login and out (nearly a reboot in the user sense)