[IAEP] Testing SoaS at Waltham MA YMCA

[Carol Farlow Lerche]

Regarding the "SoaS2 Assuming Drive Cache write Through -- no boot"  -- It
was pretty common in older commodity Wintel systems for the drives to not
write through the cache.  This was for "performance".  I think the
assumption was that if the system died in the middle, you were only writing
a sequential file, and could just rerun whatever program you were in without
really losing much.  Of course this played hell with database reliability in
a power failure.  This could often be changed in a BIOS setting.  Does
someone know if SOAS/Fedora is testing/verifying this setting in some way?

On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Caroline Meeks
<caroline at solutiongrove.com>wrote:

> YMCA Computer Lab 4/4/09
>
> The Waltham YMCA is a community center with a room with 10 computers pretty
> much all different.  We have been invited to present Sugar at Healthy Kids
> Day on April 18th.
>
> I went today to test SoaS
>
> Overall Results
>
> Only one computer (#8) was able to run SoaS2
>
> Three computers ran SoaS1 = #2, #3, #4,
>
> No computers could connect to the internet or see any other Sugar machine.
>
> Here are my notes. It worries me that we are giving out SoaS2 at FOSSVT yet
> it seems to have a much higher failure rate. It would be good if we could
> figure out some of these bugs.
>
> Detailed Notes:
>
> Starting to the left of the door ordering computers clockwise.
>
>
>  Computer 1 – Does not stay on regardless of USB – Broken Computer.
>
>
>  Computer 2 – F8 for setup then you can boot from USB.
>
> SoaS2 Assuming Drive Cache write Through – No boot
>
> SoaS1 – Boots
>
>
>  Computer 3
>
> Boots with CD helper on Soas2 but you can't see a curser for the mouse. I
> can tell its there because I can get the frame to appear and disappear.
>
> SoaS1 Boots and you can see the curser arrow
>
> No internet access no one in neighborhood
>
> Del allowed me to change bios to boot from USB. Booting SoaS1
>
>
>  Computer 4
>
> SoaS2 Assuming Drive Cache write Through – No boot
>
> SoaS1 – Boots, no internet access, no one in neighborhood.
>
>
>  Computer 5
>
> Delete to enter setup.
>
> SoaS1 create symlink error.
>
>
>  Computer 6
>
> Power button appears to be broken – Broken Computer
>
>
>  Computer 7
>
> Started to boot from USB SosS2
>
> :: Denied BIOS AML access to invaldi pot 0x4d0+0x2
>
> SoaS1 Gets to blue line then
>
> EXT – Fs error device dm-0 ext3_journal_start_sb deteceted aborted journal
> – inode 6609, block544159 and 54305
>
> Remounting filesystem read-only
>
> but does not boot
>
>
>
>  Computer 8
>
> Boots SoaS 2 from USB, no internet
>
> Used Del then changed the order of the hard drives
>
> Sound works
>
>
>  Computer 9
>
> Used Del then changed the order of the hard drives
>
> SoaS2
>
> :: Denied BIOS AML access to invaldi port 0x4d0+0x1 (PICO)
>
> [sdb] Assuming drive cahce: write through
>
>
>  SoaS1 – you must specify a file system type
>
>
>  Computer 10
>
> SoaS2 with Boot helper - Canot find root file system
>
> Same error with SoaS1
>
>
>
>
> --
> Caroline Meeks
> Solution Grove
> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>
> 617-500-3488 - Office
> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>



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