from PriorityMotif@lemmy.world to linux@lemmy.ml on 07 Sep 15:09
https://lemmy.world/post/35577596
I’ve been facing issues lately. A few weeks ago I kept having “lockups” where the keyboard and mouse would stop working. It turns out my crappy mouse was causing all USB ports to stop working. I noticed that the PC would still go to sleep and the clock was still working.
Yesterday I was having a weird issue with a site where I couldn’t download files. It worked on every other device I own so I decided to restart. After restart the PC would boot to a black screen. The actual monitor was still on just not displaying.
I already back up my home folder to a second drive automatically so after searching for an answer to this issue and finding nothing I just decided to switch to fedora and see what that’s all about.
It seems like it’s one thing after another lately and I just needed to use my PC. I guess a fresh install every once in awhile isn’t a bad thing.
threaded - newest
Is everything working as expected now?
Out of curiosity what distro?
It was stock Ubuntu. Everything was working fine for a long time. The only thing I can think of is that I was trying to get rdp going last week so I could access my main PC from a thin client in my garage. Maybe I got “hacked”? Otherwise it could be some issue with the PC, a used hp business pc, nothing special. When I first tried to load the fedora image it did the same thing, other recovery images from medicat worked. Then later trying the fedora image worked. I also reseated ram and ssd, unplugging everything and trying different monitors, etc. before trying anything else.
Everything seems fine now, I just need to install all of my applications again.
Sounds like you may want to install them as flatpak and or distrobox to stop messing with the system like on atomic distros
My advice is: this isn’t Windows, so if you look at the logs you will probably find clues to what is wrong. With those clues you can find help online, either from blog articles or from Linux forums like this one.
I know reinstallation is the default in the Windows world, but you stand to learn a lot from trying to solve the issues you are facing.
I recall these times. As experience grows, one needs to do it less and less often :)
Also, if your filesystem is Btrfs (which is usually a great choice), check out Snapper. With it, when an update goes wrong, you can often revert your system to a previous state.
On Fedora, it doesn’t come by default, so you’ll have to install it. I don’t use Fedora, but this guide looks like a decent introduction: dustymabe.com/…/fedora-btrfs-snapper-the-fedora-4… Or for something shorter: andotech.net/installing-snapper-on-fedora-a-compr…
For its usage, this tutorial from openSUSE should be quite transferrable: en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Snapper_Tutorial
Take a close look at your USB ports and any other ports for debris. Sometimes you end up with shorts that do all sorts of weird shit. The crappy mouse might have warped the port too. It’s probably not the issue but it never hurts to check.
though nowadays i usually research heavily and fix hardware problems more often, i have reinstalled linux many times due to weird issues i did not understand many times. its okay, it happens to us all <3
i think im ~#6 :)
How old is this hardware you’re installing on? I’ve had similar issues on my last install using a totally cursed lvm setup involving 3 HDDs, 2 SSDs, and an SD card that was apparently not up to the task.
Once the SD card went bad any time I’d try to access it my filesystem would fail and I’d have to fsck after a reboot. Couldn’t take the SD card out of the array though, it was full too the brim so I didn’t have the knowledge needed to remove it correctly. Ended up just nuking the system and restoring from backup without the SD card involved.
Anyway the download issue might be worth following up on.
It’s a ryzen 3400g with 16gb ddr4 ram and a fairly new nvme ssd. Although I do have a really old 1.5tb drive acting as the backup drive. I’ve been looking at cloud backup solutions in case that dies.