Fresh install has errors

[sirvival]

Hi,
my Hardware is a Dual Core (Yonah) Intel 945GT Mini ITX System.
OS on SSD (btrfs) and home on Platter disk (I moved home according to: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Parti ... ome/Moving).
The CPU is 32bit thats why I choose the 32bit image.

I had to change the header/image etc. to get the Dual Core running (else it is 486) and Synaptic lets me choose the 2.6. Kernel.
It says package: linux-image-2.6-686-pae but below newest version 3.0.0+39.
Then 3.0.0.1 gets installed (not the 2.6 that was choosen).
How can I get the 2.6 based pae kernel?

The next issue is that Firefox and Thunderbird seem to be brocken.
Firefox does not start at all (not through the menu or with the command line) and does not even show up in htop for a second.
Thunderbird starts but I only get a frame with some code fragments nothing else.
I reinstalled Firefox and now it is working fine.

How can I be sure that nothing else is fundamentally broken in the system?
Did I do something stupid by choosing btrfs (I know its not suppose to be 100% stable)?

[GregE]

I also have an Intel Mini-ITX system, but running a 1tb WD 2.5" conventional drive. So my knowledge of SSDs is zip.

However, in my humble opinion btrfs is not ready for prime time on a Wheezy system. If I was going to use it then I would at least upgrade to a Wheezy/Sid system so I had all the latest and greatest kernels and disk tools. But running Sid means much more system maintenance.

LMDE is Debian Wheey, so looking in the Debian forums would not hurt.

http://wiki.debian.org/Btrfs

https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/articles/ ... _1fe9.html

They do talk of fstab switches for SSDs.

Or, just do it all again and select ext4. You can do an install with a custom partition layout (the bottom selection) and make the partition on the other drive /home without having to resort to moving it later. I would put swap on the other drive as well and with lots of ram it would never get used.

Anyone out there actually using an SSD? It would be good to hear from someone who has a working system. I have toyed with getting one for a while and the prices do keep dropping. A Linux system without home or swap can fit in as little as 3gb so even a 64gb SSD is overkill with this type of configuration.

[sirvival]

Hi,
I have two SSDs running with linux:
Intel 320 40gig (System mentioned in first post).
Samsung 470 64gig (X61s Ubuntu 10.04)

If you are running Linux a SSD with good garbage collection is the best choice (trims not working).

The Intel and Samsung drives have the best track record on reliability.

The 470 is the best choice for a Laptop as it is one of the SSDs that uses the least power in idle.
Garbage collection is also better than with the Intel drive.

Boot time is around 22 sec (without bootloader).
Booting is faster than boot from suspend to disk.

Just browse the anandtech.com reviews they have good introductions on the topic.


PS: Ok I will try a reinstall with ext4.

[GregE]

I am going to get an SSD this week, so I am reading all I can. Apparently you can use trim with Linux and ext4, you just have to manually turn it on ....

http://techgage.com/article/enabling_an ... der_linux/

I am just looking at the options and prices. Here in Australia I can get various brands of 120GB drives for around $A180-190. Drives from the budget end, but that is fine for a home computer.

I am reading Annand and comparing the different models that I can source easily.

[GregE]

I got an OCZ Agility 3 120gb. Came down to what was in stock.

I was wrong above, the Debian installer would only let me install from one drive so I had to manually add swap and the partition on the HDD.

I have added the discard switch to the fsatb entries thus / ext4 defaults,noatime,discard 0 1

The drive boots (very fast) and runs. I am still installing, but so far so good. I have yet to verify the trim is actually working. I have to get it all running before I move on to that problem.

[GregE]

@sirvival

From my system

greg@greg-mini:~$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | awk '/.*TRIM supported.*/{ if ($1 == "*") print "Yes, TRIM is enabled"; else print "No, TRIM is not enabled.";}'
[sudo] password for greg:
Yes, TRIM is enabled

I am using ext4 and everything is rock solid at the moment. I have the SSD as /dev/sda and a Seagate 2.5" 750gb HDD as /dev/sdb

The SSD is partitoned as a 20gb / partition and 92gb /home. The HDD is mounted in my home partiton as /home/greg/media and rw permissions set to greg ownership. It is automounted through fstab, as is a swap file on the HDD. I have 8gb ram and run 64bit so the swap file is not necessary but it is there anyway. The HDD has an 8gb swap file at the beginning and the rest is a single ext4 partition.

[GregE]

For anyone who stumbles on to this thread and is looking to set up an SSD in LMDE or Debian I found this article very helpful.

http://apcmag.com/how-to-maximise-ssd-p ... -linux.htm