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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Various distros across different families freezing when doing package manager updates (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi All. I'm having an issue that I am hoping I can get some help with.

I have been using linux on this particular laptop for over a year now, and for the past 6 or so months (right around the time I upgraded to Plasma 6, but I think it is just a coincidence) about 50% of the time, when I update all my packages via package manager, the whole system freezes. Like, hard freezes. Waiting any amount of time won't get me out of it. I have to hold the power button to power it down. I can't use ctrl+alt+F3 or whatever to get another TTY. Mouse doesn't move. Nothing works.

It originally happened with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on btrfs. I thought maybe it was btrfs, so I reinstalled with ext4. Same issue. I tried Manjaro. Same issue. I tried EndeavourOS (wasn't really expecting different behavior at this point). Same issue.

Now I am thinking, what could cause an issue like this? Well, a package manager update just is a ton of file I/O operations, right? Could I have bad RAM and that is getting written to disk? Well, I did a memtest today and it came back perfect. So now I'm thinking it might be the SSD, but I'm not even sure how to check that.

Does anyone have any ideas of what might be going on or what I should do to fix it or debug it?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Try firing up btop in a terminal before you kick off an update in another, that should give you a better indication of what's happening when the system hangs. Turn on kernel "show kernel threads" so you can spot anything kernel side eating CPU.

Check your kernel journal from the last boot after a freeze, there should be some indication of what went wrong before you rebooted the machine. journalctl -k -b -1 will show you what was going on with the kernel before the machine froze.

Edit: things to watch for in btop: CPU pegged at 100% and no disk activity? Look at the top process, there's your offender. Super high IO latency but otherwise the system looks normal? Try another drive. Memory completely used and swap endlessly thrashing? Find something to kill to make more memory available.

Turn on "show kernel threads" in btop, they're off by default, so you can see if something in the kernel is eating CPU time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I will try this once I get my system back up and running tomorrow! I'm going to install the distro on a new SSD and see what happens.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I made a couple of edits above re: btop and troubleshooting, if you're not used to diagnosing hardware and kernel issues they might help