PikLab deb for Ubuntu 7.10 may be bad

[futz]

I found an unofficial Ubuntu deb for PikLab, decided to trust it and installed. Started the program and played a bit. Couldn't get the Junebug to connect so I shut it off. I'm not 100% sure whether PikLab or some evil program bundled with it caused my trouble or if it was just one of those things, but I ended up with a scrambled hard drive. When I shut down PikLab the machine crashed hard and refused to reboot with failed auto-fsck and corrupt boot/root partition. I did an emergency black-screen fsck of the partition and it seems repaired (for now - knock wood). I removed PikLab and the possibly bogus repository completely just in case.

I tell ya, I've had my butt saved by fsck a few times. What an amazing program! It's capable of recovering very badly messed up partitions. I love it!

 

[Hero999]

Wow, I didn't know such crapware exists for Linux too.

You might have had some of your personal data stolen.

Where did you get it from?

That way I'll remember not to install it.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

I looked at the screenshots for Piklab, looks really nice too bad it didn't work in Ubuntu. What dist is it for?

 

[futz]

I looked at the screenshots for Piklab, looks really nice too bad it didn't work in Ubuntu. What dist is it for?

I'm still not sure it wasn't just a coincidence. I was running Pan at the time, along with a bunch of other apps. Pan is a total memory and cpu PIG, but I like it. If the machine is ever going to crash, it's almost always while running Pan. I'd run Agent or NewsLeecher if I could. Should see if they'll run decent in Wine someday. I had had some other disk corruption problems earlier from an unrelated thing (bad RAM slot(s) on new mainboard). Fixing the errors on the partition with fsck has cured some other minor problems I had been having. The package might be ok. Anyone else brave enough to **broken link removed**? I'm afraid of it. :

 

[Torben]

If I can find my 7.10 ISO I might see about loading up Ubuntu 7.10 in VMWare later on today and trying this out.

Did you contact the packager and see if he/she had any ideas?

When the machine crashed, I take it you were unable to telnet/ssh in and unmount the filesystems? Often when Linux "crashes" it's really just X which has crashed, although that can still mean that you can't do anything from the terminal you're using.

Hm. Can't find my Ubuntu CD right now so maybe I'll just alien the rpm and try that instead.


Torben

 

[futz]

Did you contact the packager and see if he/she had any ideas?

Nope. It was 3 AM or so and I was very stoned.

When the machine crashed, I take it you were unable to telnet/ssh in and unmount the filesystems?

Locked solid and blackscreened. I hit reset. When that didn't work I powered off and left it for a bit before powering back up.

Hm. Can't find my Ubuntu CD right now so maybe I'll just alien the rpm and try that instead.

I tried alien on the first install attempt. Doesn't work (for PikLab).

Anyway, Hardy Heron is supposed to have it, if not pre-installed, in the repositories. Only 32 more days till HH release! Looks like it's going to be a good one. I have the beta installed on one box here. Still really buggy, but promising.

 

[Torben]

Nope. It was 3 AM or so and I was very stoned.

Locked solid and blackscreened. I hit reset. When that didn't work I powered off and left it for a bit before powering back up.

I meant from another machine. X can lock the machine you're on, but if you have another box on the same net you can often telnet in and at least execute a clean shutdown.

I tried alien on the first install attempt. Doesn't work (for PikLab).

Anyway, Hardy Heron is supposed to have it, if not pre-installed, in the repositories. Only 32 more days till HH release! Looks like it's going to be a good one. I have the beta installed on one box here. Still really buggy, but promising.

Hmm. I managed to download the .deb referenced from the PikLab site and installed with:

% dpkg -i --ignore-depends=kdelibs4c2a --ignore-depends=libncurses5 piklab_0.15.0-1_i386.deb

Aside from some graphical glitches it appears to work just fine and it shut down with no problem. This is on Gutsy, with way too much stuff already running (including Compiz). Unless there's something seriously messed with the Ubuntu package you tried I'm leaning toward your "coincidence" hypothesis.

Ah well. I'm looking forward to HH as well, but I'll wait until it comes out. It can be Ubuntu's birthday gift to me.


Torben

 

[futz]

I meant from another machine. X can lock the machine you're on, but if you have another box on the same net you can often telnet in and at least execute a clean shutdown.

Oh! Good idea! I never thought of that. Anyway I was in no condition to be doing such technical things. Could barely comprehend doing the fsck, but fear clears the mind a bit. I'm pretty well backed up on that partition, but I would definitely have lost some stuff.

Aside from some graphical glitches it appears to work just fine and it shut down with no problem. This is on Gutsy, with way too much stuff already running (including Compiz).

Gutsy w/Compiz and all bells/whistles here too. Love my spinny cube & wobbly windows. Ya, this install of Gutsy is a mess. I changed core (mainboard/cpu/ram) without a reinstall, which surprisingly worked perfectly (try doing that with Windoze ). But the new mainboard had some RAM slot problems, causing many RAM errors, and the drive got corrupted a bit. A few minor things broke, but Linux is amazingly resilient. Just trying to hang on till Hardy before doing the reinstall. Was probably coincidence.