Linux introductions, tips and tutorials. Questions are encouraged. Any distro, any platform! Explicitly noob-friendly.
So I just bought this refurbished laptop with Mint pre-installed, and it's showing these error messages when booting. Boots just fine afterwards and seems to work normally. Is this normal? Should I get my money back, or should I do a fresh install?
In the 15 years I have used Linux I haven't had a single PC where I wouldn't get some startup errors. If the system boots and everything works, you can ignore them.
https://askubuntu.com/a/1333162
(Yes I know Ubuntu is not Mint, but BIOS is BIOS)
Basically just ignore it. If it really bothers you try updating your BIOS, but that could break something else.
As long as it runs ok you are probably fine.
What you are seeing is the system log before your desktop environment starts (someone who understands systemd pleasr correct me). Generally the errors you probably are gonna get about are kernel panics, which will prevent your system from continuing to run.
This thread https://askubuntu.com/questions/1333069/acpi-error-on-every-boot/1333162#1333162 postulates that the errors you see are because the hardware vendor didn't implement the bios right. You could try updating the bios but if it runs ok then you are probably fine.
Thanks, at least it's not something critical. I'll probably give updating the bios a try when I have some time.
I would suggest a fresh install, regardless.
I did buy this as a hobby project to learn Linux, so I might as well.
I also had the same thing, don't worry too much about it.
One thing is worth checking though, which happened on my laptop: After your computer is booted up normally, open a terminal and run dmesg. Is it still spamming these errors?
What happened with mine was that it was still spamming these errors and writing them to the log file(both the log file and the journald database), causing unnecessary wear on the SSD. I filtered out the logs to the file (don't remember how, but can probably find it again), but couldn't find how to filter out the logs to the Journald journal.
In my case the spamming was triggered / stopped by unplugging/plugging in the charging cable. If you run 'dmesg --wall' it will keep showing you the latest kernel-messages untill you abort with Ctrl+C
Thanks a lot for this.
Running dmesg I'm not sure what to look for in terms of checking if it keeps spamming them. And 'dmesg --wall' doesn't seem to be a valid command.
Oops, sorry, I meant 'dmesg --follow' (or 'dmesg -w' )
Normally the dmesg kernel log will be quiet after boot, and only give new messages when there's hardware related changes, like pluging in or out a USB device, or the charger cable.
In my case the log was spamming several messages every second non-stop so it was very obvious
Why do I keep seeing the same problem posted, with different wording entirely? Seemingly the post is then removed and reposted?
No idea, I posted this once and it's been up every time I've checked afterwards.