Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

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kylerickards
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Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Hi

So this is a strange one but I will try to be concise, it's baffled me and I have never seen it before.

I have my regular desktop/hard drive with Linux Mint on it. I have an SD card with BionicPup on it which I can boot from if I need to jump on quickly and just watch a video or something and don't particularly want to faff around and also because VLC is being not great now watching network vids locally.

So... Upgraded to Mint 20.2 this week, had some problems as documented in other places in the forum - some of which I have got help with, some not, some fixed, some not but I am grateful for the assistance.

However, went to boot from my SD card and it's just ignored now and I can't work out why? Like nothing happens, I just get the regular options for Mint 20.2 or Windows (it's dual boot). If I go into the Mint desktop it seems to not even recognize I have an SD card in the card reader at all even in things like Gparted? Because of my issues with Mint 20.2 which seem to be increasing at this point, I timeshifted back to 19.3 just about 10 minutes ago, rebooted with the SD card still in situ, and it instantly worked as it always did.

So I guess my question is - why would LM 20.2 cause this to happen?

EDIT: Hmmm, also now my second internal drive (where my timeshifts exist) is reporting it has 0 bytes of free space and yet a check (with a DVD even as well) shows there is at least 60gb free? It also seems to take about 15-20 seconds for the initial GRUB screen to appear now? I have through the main settings and also through the bios and cannot see that anything has changed? Can anybody even nudge me in the right direction at things I could be looking at please?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mikeflan
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by mikeflan »

So LM 20.2 is ignoring a SD card reader. We have seen stranger things.
my second internal drive (where my timeshifts exist) is reporting it has 0 bytes of free space and yet a check (with a DVD even as well) shows there is at least 60gb free?
What do you do to get it to report 0 bytes? What does

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df -Th
show?
Also report the output of this if you want to:

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sudo fdisk -l
I wonder what these show in your case:

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systemd-analyze 
systemd-analyze critical-chain 
systemd-analyze blame 
Here are 2 of mine:

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systemd-analyze critical-chain 
The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit takes to start is printed after the "+" character.

graphical.target @9.193s
└─multi-user.target @9.193s
  └─postfix.service @9.191s +1ms
    └─postfix@-.service @8.862s +328ms
      └─network-online.target @8.862s
        └─NetworkManager-wait-online.service @868ms +7.993s
          └─NetworkManager.service @683ms +182ms
            └─dbus.service @559ms
              └─basic.target @555ms
                └─sockets.target @555ms
                  └─snapd.socket @554ms +1ms
                    └─sysinit.target @530ms
                      └─systemd-timesyncd.service @496ms +33ms
                        └─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @447ms +36ms
                          └─systemd-journal-flush.service @281ms +164ms
                            └─systemd-journald.service @220ms +61ms
                              └─syslog.socket @219ms
                                └─system.slice @212ms
                                  └─-.slice @210ms

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$ systemd-analyze blame
   10min 28.443s fstrim.service
         11.451s apt-daily.service
          7.993s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
          2.521s postgresql@10-main.service
          1.271s snapd.service
           888ms dev-sda1.device
           607ms mysql.service
           559ms apt-daily-upgrade.service
           449ms udisks2.service
           411ms lightdm.service
           410ms plymouth-quit-wait.service
           345ms dev-loop1.device
           338ms dev-loop0.device
           328ms postfix@-.service
           318ms dev-loop2.device
           291ms dev-loop3.device
           273ms networkd-dispatcher.service
           206ms ubuntu-system-adjustments.service
           201ms systemd-logind.service
           188ms grub-common.service
           182ms NetworkManager.service
           165ms avahi-daemon.service
           164ms systemd-journal-flush.service
           127ms snap-core18-2074.mount
           126ms snap-snapd-12398.mount
lines 1-25...skipping...
kylerickards
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Thanks for this Mike.

This is where I am at - I removed the 20.2 timeshift. I do have a spare HDD knocking around so I am going to put Mint 20.2 on that, I think I have got the hang of doing it smoothly now (think being the key word). However, due to case and cable issues I would have to keep physically swapping the two drives in and out depending on which HDD I was using - my other two drives, well one has Windows on it and the other is where all my data and files live. I am mindful that any version of 20.2 at the moment will lose my ability to boot from my SD card.

Right! With that in mind, this might not much be help at the moment but here are results:

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udev           devtmpfs  7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.6G   28M  1.6G   2% /run
/dev/sdc1      ext4      432G  358G   52G  88% /
tmpfs          tmpfs     7.8G   76K  7.8G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs          tmpfs     5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs          tmpfs     7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1      ext4      1.6T  1.5T   28G  99% /media/Music_Backup
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.6G   76K  1.6G   1% /run/user/1000

The 28G on sda1 is interesting because when I checked it was saying 60 and I deleted quite a bit of stuff that I realised I would never use after that.

I also get this with the other command

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Disk /dev/sda: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 0D22E06A-0B08-4201-B6D8-4157AF90580A

Device          Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1        2048 3375665151 3375663104  1.6T Linux filesystem
/dev/sda2  3375665152 7814035455 4438370304  2.1T Microsoft basic data


Disk /dev/sdb: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x45a8d956

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         2048    206847    204800   100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2          206848 975767551 975560704 465.2G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       975769600 976773167   1003568   490M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdc: 447.1 GiB, 480113590272 bytes, 937721856 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x356a3b74

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *     2048 921337855 921335808 439.3G 83 Linux
Here are the results of the last three commands - it still takes about 10-12 seconds for the grub window to appear but I can't remember how long it took before.

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Startup finished in 4.426s (kernel) + 21.891s (userspace) = 26.318s
graphical.target reached after 21.883s in userspace

The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit takes to start is printed after the "+" character.

graphical.target @21.883s
└─multi-user.target @21.883s
  └─docker.service @14.887s +6.996s
    └─network-online.target @14.883s
      └─NetworkManager-wait-online.service @6.380s +8.503s
        └─NetworkManager.service @4.038s +2.340s
          └─dbus.service @3.394s
            └─basic.target @3.387s
              └─sockets.target @3.387s
                └─docker.socket @3.383s +3ms
                  └─sysinit.target @3.350s
                    └─apparmor.service @1.598s +1.752s
                      └─local-fs.target @1.597s
                        └─run-docker-netns-ac5dd41a11ce.mount @20.233s
                          └─local-fs-pre.target @1.597s
                            └─systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service @1.276s +319ms
                              └─kmod-static-nodes.service @753ms +523ms
                                └─systemd-journald.socket @743ms
                                  └─system.slice @743ms
                                    └─-.slice @726ms


 8.503s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
          6.996s docker.service
          3.488s ufw.service
          2.841s networking.service
          2.496s dev-sdc1.device
          2.340s NetworkManager.service
          1.949s vboxdrv.service
          1.752s apparmor.service
          1.602s ModemManager.service
          1.380s udisks2.service
          1.241s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-68ba6c7c\x2d823c\x2d4f14\x2d92
           980ms apport.service
           861ms ubuntu-system-adjustments.service
           854ms gpu-manager.service
           851ms lm-sensors.service
           780ms networkd-dispatcher.service
           627ms accounts-daemon.service
           583ms loadcpufreq.service
           566ms systemd-modules-load.service
           565ms lvm2-monitor.service
           532ms avahi-daemon.service
           523ms kmod-static-nodes.service
           501ms cpufrequtils.service


Thank you again so much for even looking at this!

Also - I am now getting the crunchy, sound down a straw effect which I never had before - I did mention it as I thought it was a new problem and read up about it on here as a possible Intel sound issue with 20.2 but somehow it seems to have manifested itself in my rollback to 19.3 which seems a bit weird.

Sorry for rambling on!

Kyle
mikeflan
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by mikeflan »

Please forget all that systemd-analyze stuff. I don't know what I was thinking there. All that occurs way after grub, so it is of little interest.

Your 20.2 timeshifts were on sda1, but they no longer are. So we really don't care how much room is left on sda1, right? Maybe you do, but we don't.

LM 19.3 is on sdc1 and all is good there except for the hard drive noise you hear and the 10-20 seconds delay before grub appears.

LM 20.2 is going on a spare HDD which is not shown in df -Th yet.

Keep in mind that this grub stuff is not my forte. I wish Andy or one of the others would pipe in.

Here are my questions:

What is taking so much space on sdc1? Just user files I assume. Music, videos and the like?? I would expect LM 19.3 and its Timeshift to take up less than 200 GB.

Why are we even going into grub? Is it the BionicPup SD card reader?? Oh, never mind. It is windows on sdb2. That was not mounted, so didn't show in the df -Th output.

We need others to step in with the grub issues. I'm not going to be able to guide you there. But I'm thinking 15-20 seconds for the initial GRUB screen to appear might not be real unusual even if sdc is a SSD. But sdc is a spinning drive, isn't it? I'm not sure about the 15-20 seconds delay because I don't go into grub. My system boots up pretty fast, but I probably have at least a 10-15 second wait before the desktop comes up.

The free space shown by df -Th is not necessarily 100% correct, but it is reasonably close.

My thinking right now is that the SD card reader might be the only real issue we have to work on here, but I'm interested in what you think.
kylerickards
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Thanks again Mike for even looking - I think there's a few issues with with 20.2 (for me I should say not necessarily others) but the one that tipped my hand into reversing things was the card reader. Like every thing else I could sort of live with even though I wasn't happy.

I was making the switch initially to get the latest version of IDJC for my little internet radio hobby which I needed 20.2 for but in doing so found the other issues (such as file association going a bit odd)

Thank you
kylerickards
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Well this is a bit odd - so I found a spare HDD and put LM 20 on it. Tested and I could boot from the SD card. Upgraded it to 20.2 thinking that was the problem but it still booted up with the SD card so I have no idea now. The only thing I cannot check is the SSD with a running version of LM 20.2 on it. The other issues still seem to persist though.

Thank you for looking though.
mikeflan
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by mikeflan »

Sorry for being so thick headed, but I think we are saying:
LM 20.0 on the HDD sees the SD Card.
LM 20.2 on the HDD sees the SD Card.
The only thing I cannot check is the SSD with a running version of LM 20.2 on it. The other issues still seem to persist though.
What are the "other issues"? Is it that LM 20.2 on the SSD does not see the SD Card? Maybe if you install 20.0 on it and upgrade it would work also??
kylerickards
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Not thick at all - I am completely thrown by it all.

In summary I think,

LM 20.0 on HDD sees/boots from SD card
LM 20.2 on HDD sees/boots from SD card

This isn't an ideal solution as I had to swap my SSD with my HDD to do these tests and the SSD is running the reverted 19.3 - this was the one that was wouldn't see the SD Card reader or boot from it. The test is to reinstall 20.0/2 onto that drive and retest maybe?

Remaining issues seems to be the file association with "Share On Skype"/VLC not being remembered and the weird scratchy sound but looking through the forum I can't see a permanent and lasting fix for that, just suggestions of what it could be. The GUI for MP3Gain is something that has gone by the way side and it is a very old piece of software as some have explained here.

It seems to take longer to load up the initial GRUB screen - as we discussed but interestingly that doesn't happen with when I did the install for testing with 20.2 on the HDD... (Sorry I am scribbling notes as I go so I don't miss things)

Lastly, there is there System Problem Detected on start up window with the prompt to report it (yes/no) but then it doesn't actually tell me what the problem is, nor does it appear in the system reports or crash logs so I can't go about trying to fix it.

I think that's it!

(EDIT: I've left the system running on the 20.2 HDD for the moment and won't switch back to the SSD until the weekend so I am not pulling cables in and out)
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AndyMH
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by AndyMH »

Is this a usb plug-in card reader or a built-in reader. With a version of mint that can see the sd card, look at the outputs from lsusb or lspci. The built-in card reader in my thinkpad appears as a pci device:

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02:00.0 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd PCIe SDXC/MMC Host Controller (rev 07)
Repeat for the version of mint that can't see the reader - any differences?
Thinkcentre M720Q - LM21.3 cinnamon, 4 x T430 - LM21.3 cinnamon, Homebrew desktop i5-8400+GTX1080 Cinnamon 19.0
mikeflan
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by mikeflan »

Remaining issues seems to be the file association with "Share On Skype"/VLC not being remembered and the weird scratchy sound but looking through the forum I can't see a permanent and lasting fix for that, just suggestions of what it could be. The GUI for MP3Gain is something that has gone by the way side and it is a very old piece of software as some have explained here.

It seems to take longer to load up the initial GRUB screen - as we discussed but interestingly that doesn't happen with when I did the install for testing with 20.2 on the HDD... (Sorry I am scribbling notes as I go so I don't miss things)

Lastly, there is there System Problem Detected on start up window with the prompt to report it (yes/no) but then it doesn't actually tell me what the problem is, nor does it appear in the system reports or crash logs so I can't go about trying to fix it.
We would like to encourage you to create multiple topics with informative subjects. That way others with your problem can find the topic easier and find solutions to their problems faster. And we also don't have to wade through things to find all the stuff that relates to a particular issue. I'm thinking 'Skype/VLC' and 'GUI for MP3Gain' and 'System Problem Detected on start up' might be separate topics. But you decide.
kylerickards
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Thanks Mike, I did raise two separate threads for two of those issue, from memory Skype/VLC is the one I didn’t but I will do that now, thank you. I won’t repeat the two I’ve already done.
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

Hi Mike - just checked and I did raise them as separate topics but perhaps I didn't provide enough information - perhaps someone might find something that piques their interest enough!
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

AndyMH wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:58 am Is this a usb plug-in card reader or a built-in reader. With a version of mint that can see the sd card, look at the outputs from lsusb or lspci. The built-in card reader in my thinkpad appears as a pci device:

Code: Select all

02:00.0 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd PCIe SDXC/MMC Host Controller (rev 07)
Repeat for the version of mint that can't see the reader - any differences?
Thanks Andy. At the moment, the SSD (running 19.3 which sees the reader is not connected).

The HDD oddly was not seeing it yesterday and today but just has done as I put an SD card in? It has started booting from the SD card also.

lsusb

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lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:0825 Logitech, Inc. Webcam C270
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c408 Logitech, Inc. Marble Mouse (4-button)
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 058f:6364 Alcor Micro Corp. AU6477 Card Reader Controller
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:760a Microdia USB Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 08bb:2902 Texas Instruments PCM2902 Audio Codec
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
So this looks to be it.

Just started seeing some ata blk error text on boot now but it vanishes off before I can read it so this could be unrelated?
kylerickards
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

kylerickards wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:43 pm Hi Mike - just checked and I did raise them as separate topics but perhaps I didn't provide enough information - perhaps someone might find something that piques their interest enough!
Do I just sort of wait for a while now? I don't want bump anything or ask again about these things (on the threads I have started) but I am stuck at fully moving to 20.2 without having solutions in place
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by mikeflan »

I think it is OK to bump the topic. FYI, I am totally confused about the problem now, but that is OK - you are probably better off with others replying. But if you want, you can rephrase the problem while bumping. Totally up to you.
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Re: Linux Mint 20 and BionicPup

Post by kylerickards »

mikeflan wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 11:23 am I think it is OK to bump the topic. FYI, I am totally confused about the problem now, but that is OK - you are probably better off with others replying. But if you want, you can rephrase the problem while bumping. Totally up to you.
Thank you
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