Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[fitzhugh]

EDIT: figured out orig problem, now have another I'll post below but background is here- Thnx Sunburnt! It was, I hate to admit, a cable problem... cable was UNPLUGGED. Plus one drive might be bad. The 80 G has only 6+ G on it, uncluding all the OS)

While biking around at lunch today I found sitting in a parking lot under an overpass here in Berkeley, what appeared to be a rackmount server, in not great shape. In fact, I rather figured it had to be junk, or why would it be sitting there? The meatal on the case looked a bit weathered, so I figured it had been out behind a shop for some time before getting dropped there by someone too lazy to do something more appropriate with it. Plus the case seemed a little archiac, though that was pure guesswork: I've not been in a real server room since ceasing to be a programmer about 5 years ago, and I figured they'd look different - I recognized the actual design, though could not say from where. It's a Western Scientific, not what we used at the places I worked (almost all were solaris) so I don't know where I'd seen this. Anyhow, I stopped by after and picked it up (on bicycle, a real trick carrying a 2 space heavy rackmount home!).

OK... I check out the 4 removable drive bays. 1st two are empty, as I expected all were. The second two have a 40 and an 80 G drive! They look ok, and though that means nothing I start pondering what the chances of two drives going bad at once are, vs it being tossed for another reason. At least I might have a couple drives. Both are disconnected, though, so I'm thinking perhaps they ARE bad and were stuck there to toss... I open the case, and find what looks like a full setup: two PIIIs (starting to perk my interest, as two is pretty cool, even if I don't know how it will compare with the P IV 1.9 G I was just given), and a gig of ram! Now I'm quite interested. Chances of ALL being bad seem slimmer and slimmer... plug it in: mem test fails. Take out two X 256 M RAM, it BOOTS! Debian something (didn't catch # before moving on, though now curious and will check, in part to date when last updated if I can't tell otherwise). As I'm NOT going to spend an eternity trying to guess root password, or username and root, I drop in the HDD from the computer the P IV I was given replaced (after years of drought, it seems to be flooding ...
Everything is all good, thanks to my unthinkingly choosing the older HDD, which has a full install with grub and all, rather than the one from the P IV box, which would require a CD - admit it was a happy accident. In fact, to my surprise I not only saw it boot, but also connect right to the internet, as I'd set up puppy that way back then. Pretty cool, huh?

EDIT: this part solved, new problem posted below
Here's where I need help: I'd like to see what is ON those drives, if possible, or at least re-use them, if I can be sure the whole thing wasn't hiested and dumped (don't need a stolen property rap, and if someone is missing their webserver, or rather one of 35+ since it has a sticker labelling it 035 on the front... it started apache as it booted debian, so I'm guessing it is that).
-CAN one just mount another disk and see what is on it? I can't think of why not, except that it seems way too easy. As I've never messed with a computer with mutliple HDDs (I know, how could I not have?) I never considered it before.
-HOW can I mount them? They're IDE P-ATA drives. I tried just mount /dev/hdb /mnt/hdb but got "failed: No such device or address" errors with hdb (which I think I should, since the two mystery drives are on the secondary cable, due to a most unfortunate (read stupid) super glue accident that spilled glue, permanently fixing the single connector [or two, one on each end, no middle] cable to the drive with puppy on it [any tricks to disolving superglue?]), and also same error msgs with trying hdc, hdd, hdc1, hdd1...

I'd really like to A: see if I can find out where this thing came from, B: see what is on it and C: USE the drives, assuming I don't find data indicating I need to return it somewhere. I should learn this anyhow. Seems like I'm missing something. It did recognize the slave when booting originally, to the debian installed on it as found.

I'd take a picture of the mystery box but I need to go post "How do I access my new digital camera from puppy?" now...

Thanks!
Fitzhugh
Thanks!

[sunburnt]

Hey fitzhugh; You have to specify the partition as well as the device "hdb1".
hda = first HD, hdb = second HD, etc., 1 = first partition, & then it jumps to 5 (I don't know why).
You also have to specify the file system type, ext2, ext3, vfat, etc., so try:

mount -t ext2 /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1
mount -t ext2 /dev/hdb5 /mnt/hdb5
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb5 /mnt/hdb5
mount -t ext2 /dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1

See if they're mounted by typing: "mount"
See what's on it with: "ls -a /mnt/(device partition)"

[fitzhugh]

OK, I've managed to actually mount the drive I found, so I can see what all is in it. Looks like a server, no data, so far, though haven't really looked at all. (actually, seems to my ignorant mind that over 6 G is rather very large for a server OS install with data on the other, possibly failed, drive... in fact, I saw it start a database on boot when booting it as found, so unless tables are elsewhere, perhaps I WILL learn something)
New problem: can I create a user without a password so I can just log in? Or can I just copy over the contents of /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow? (noticed no /etc/security, which I seem to remember something about, or was it not that...)
will post results, appreciate any clues if I'm totally of base here.

[sunburnt]

Using probepart it shows 2 as the extended partition for HDs & USBs that I've seen.
All the vfat HDs start second part at 5, but the ext2 part. is hda3.
So my primary 160GB HD is: /hda1 = vfat, /hda2 = extended, /hda3 = ext2, /hda5 = vfat, /hda6 = vfat.

[fitzhugh]

Ah, well, I apologize - I misunderstood what you wrote and thought you only had an hda1 and hda5, hda6, hda7... etc. As warned, I was apt to be wrong
I would guess, then, that the extended partiton is labeled as the next number available when created, rather than skipping like I thought - had thought I recalled reading that, but clearly a false memory based rather on my current setup + what I read as yours:
mine is

hda1 vfat just in case I need to boot windows again
hda2 ext32 boot
hda3 swap
hda4 extended
| hda5 ext3
| ...
| hda12 ext3

and what I thought yours was:

hda1 vfat, ext2 or ext3 (or reiserfs or...)
hda5 vfat, ext2 ...
hda6 vfat, ext2 ...
...

which I read as implying

hda1 vfat, ext2 or ext3 (or reiserfs or...)
hda4 extended
| hda5 vfat, ext2 ...
| hda6 vfat, ext2 ...
| ...

In other words, sorry and oops.

Regarding the mystery box: I found that it was trivial to get in, as hoped - just used passwd to create a hashed password, pasted it into the root entry in /etc/shadow, and that was that... rebooted into debian (means just switching around which drive is where) and logged right in. Turns out nothing interesting as far as data... no indication of ANYTHING to point where it came from, not a saved email, nothing - oh yeah, actually, I did find a post on a programming forum from a user with the same username, but it is a somewhat common name and that the initials that preceed match might mean nothing. I've sent a message to the user to ask if they know. I'm really just curious. Looks like they cleaned it all out - that username was in an old archive of passwd and shadow, had been deleted, and /home was cleared out. The machine is what, 6-7 years old? Judging from components (like the P III 866 processors, which place it 2000+/-. I did find that it was shut off on june 4th, though. All that used space turned out to be 2 swap files, each of 2 GB, since it has 1 GB memory. Second HDD does work (cool, got a 46 AND an 80 HDD free, plus four X 246 M Kingston ram, 2 old processors that each would run puppy quite nicely, and - here is the unique part for me - a FLOPPY. The floppy in my other two boxes is either dead or totally missing, and I would never buy one, but now I can actually save to floppy if I ever feel so sickly inclined. Uh oh, the 46 GB drive just started going chzzzkChink chzzzkChink chzzzkChink chzzzkChink chzzzkChink ... and momentarily freezing my computer. It had errors before, but they disappeared so I thought it was something else. Oh well, maybe the 80 will remain stable.

Not a machine that would generally inspire much thrill due to the modest HDD and old processors, but for puppy? quite a find for free. I wonder how dual processors compare with higher speed singles...
Geuss that is all.

[Flash]

Fitzhugh, I have some experience with removing superglue.

Acetone (the active ingredient in most fingernail polish removers) will slowly dissolve superglue; swabbing speeds the process of removing the glue. Methylene chloride (the active ingredient in paint remover) will dissolve many plastics including the epoxy used to make circuit boards. Nitromethane (the fuel used in "top fuel" dragsters) is the preferred solvent for superglue but it too will dissolve many other plastics. Furthermore it is an explosive which can become unstable and easily detonated under some circumstances (such as age) and so is hard to get.

I'd swab a bit of acetone on the plastic parts the superglue is on, to see if they will be affected. Acetone will almost certainly not affect any cable insulation. Nor will it do anything to the printed circut board except maybe remove some printing. The connector body may or may not be made of a material which acetone will melt, but probably not. If a few seconds of swabbing with an acetone-soaked cotton swab doesn't do anything to the connector body I'd say you're home free. Of course you know that acetone is highly flammable, right?

[sunburnt]

In thinking about it, I had C: /hda1, D: /hda5, E: /hda6 all fat.
It's a 160 GB HD so Win98 wouldn't see the last 40 GB, so I made it ext2.
The Linux ext2 part. shows up as /hda3, so...
It appears that logical fat parts. (those in the extended part.) start at 5.
But Linux logical parts. start at 3, right after the main 2 extended part..

[fitzhugh]

Flash... an apt name for one experienced with such flamable materials! Thanks for the clues, I'll try that. It isn't actually necessary since it works for anything I need to use if for - is on a single drive cable but I don't need more than three drives for anything ( primary + slave, secondary (the glued one) for example), but I just don't like having glued the darn thing like that! It was utterly foolish... part of the housing of the connector on the cable broke at the side of the connector, just a little piece that meant I should replace the cable, but it worked just fine... I decided, without thinking AT ALL, to put a drop of super glue on it. Only maybe 5 drops came out and promptly flowed into the space between the connectors on the cable and the drive. I doubt ANYTHING will penetrate into that space but I'll try just because then I can forget my mistake and throw away the cable. ok, a chisel would do it just fine, but that doesn't really count.

Sunburnt (hurts to even read that right now, with my skin on fire still... how did you get that name?)... now I'm confused. Or I was, and still am, only about this now... I understand what you wrote, but not why it would do that. Perhaps it is just MS, in the form of fat partitions, being difficult by habit?

[sunburnt]

I live in Arizona... need I say more?

Probably due to something in how the kernel allocates the /dev nodes.

[Sage]

Next time you encounter a junked server look out for scsi drives. They won't work in Puppy yet, but DSL runs like lightning, and they rarely fail:
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=62627#62627
Even those that do fail, may have five, yes 5, year warranties.

[fitzhugh]

Yeah, sadly no scsi drives. It was rather old, after all (~2000).

And... the smaller drive head crashed big ugly. Cool sounds, by the way. good rhythm. Then, this morning, after being fed up with not remembering the name of company it might have belonged to, I tried same as above again. Only I sheared off a pin on the 80 GB drive Oh well. I then realized the company info was in opera's history on the drive I had booted from, so I found it and called the company. The girl who I spoke to said they'd canned their colo company at the time the server last ran (June), so clearly it was not stolen, no worries about doing the right thing. But no hdd either. Oh, and I got major sparks while trying to plug in one of the drives to my regular computer (sparks at drive power connector) and fried my regular power supply, so I'm currenly running with the one from that box (too large for my case) while I lazy out on checking for reset (unlikely) or fuse (probably buried inside somewhere, and loaned soldering iron to neighbor who turned out to be a tweaker and not worth trying to retrieve... so far past time to move! Finally trying, hard).

Sunburnt, you're welcome to it, but may not be worth the shipping to you. On the other hand, I have a P III 1 GHz eMonster w/ 256 that weighs a lot less, but I'd need to figure out what exactly I need to hold on to to have a complete system. There should be two complete regular desktops - the one I was given recently (this one), a 1.9 GHz P IV, and then the other, which ever is put together (emonster 1 GHz PIII or rackmount server 2 X 866 PIII, so probably usually faster). On the other other hand, or maybe the foot, cases are a dozen, powersupplies can be found (or taken from your boss's computer while he's at a long lunch... "Nope, no sir. Don't know why it won't boot. Better buy a whole new one..." or whatever, so might be cheaper to just ship all the important and light stuff like, well, everything else. Smaller and lighter so cheaper. It is around $40-$50 to send the whole thing for a regular case computer, the emonster is a small form micro atx or whatever it is called. I might also end up using the power supply from the emonster if I can't fix this one. So, your call. You can send me a used copy of a good paper back or something in trade, if anything at all. One caveat: it will probably have to be next month, since I'm gonna try to set up one of the boxes to constantly record from webcam to cover back yard due to crack problems until I move. I REALLY want to catch on film the crack monster next door walking by screaming taunting threats and racial slurs like she did all Saturday - I just didn't think to record it in time, and she's been gone since. God I hate the ghetto. Didn't look like the full ghetto when I moved here, though I would have known if I even thought about it. Prices were so high a few years ago that you couldn't tell from that like normal. But, in any case, I can't use all the hardware and would like it to go to use, not great for much but totally good enough for a decent puppy...

Fitzhugh

[sunburnt]

No no... I was just answering your Q about my screen name.

I have folks give me old stuff all the time, some of it I can use, most not.
Old stuff definitely isn't worth putting money into, unless you can use it in something newer.
I'm looking at getting a P4 dual core 3.4ghz, 512mb 667mhz DDR2, 120gb HD, nVidia 6200, & box for $200.
An AMD 64 3400+ might be better though, not multi core & it's a 64 bit cpu, better for now & in the future.

[fitzhugh]

Ah, that makes plenty of sense! I think I had said I wished I could give it to someone needing a half-decent machine for puppy somewhere up above and thought you were replying to that I couldn't live in that sun since I melt here as it is, though have learned to avoid sunburn - this was just a rare and painful mistake. I'm about as light skinned as possible.

Plus I just got a call back from someone else at the company that lost it, having only spoken to someone who it turns out didn't know squat... and they are eager to get it back, if only to add to their sense of mystery of how it went missing in the first place. Seems it just up and disappeared during a move. They're gonna have the server shipped via their UPS account from here later in the week. Still leaves me with the emonster, a complete machine, but not anything special at all. I do read about people here having older stuff and it is those cases that lead me to think something could be done with it since puppy did give it new life - I was not planning to replace it at all, just had a newer machine dropped in my lap. It is wonderful how cheap things are getting now. Seems like almost time for something revolutionary to come along that becomes the new "must have" and jacks the prices back up to 2K per machine. holographic memory, I don't know. Maybe Lobster's quantum devices. Enjoy your new box - where are you getting it? That seems even cheaper than what I'd seen, though I haven't actively shopped, just clicked on the occasional link to cheap linux setups on forums and such.

Fitzhguh

[fitzhugh]

oh, and maybe you can help answer a question I've had for a while now but have not found a decent answer online for: how does one compare (approximately only, I assume) the speeds of current chips - the dual core, 64k, etc all make it clearly not the same scale as the only partially sorta almost kinda useful act of comparing MHz on pentiums. Do you have to hunt down specific benchmarks, or is there a rule of thumb of some sort? I've found various sites that say "You can't compare the new chips in the old manner blah blah blah" but none that goes on to say "so do this instead..."

Any simple concepts or pointers? A totally unimportant question, just curious - not going shopping soon.

Fitzhugh

[sunburnt]

A local store here in the Phoenix area called Fry's Elecrtonics.

$ 90 : AMD 64 3.1ghz cpu & VIA chip set M.B.
$ 45 : Kingston 512mb 667mhz DDR2 (from web)
$ 30 : nVidia 6200 256mb DX9 video card
$ 20 : WD 120gb H.D.
$ 15 : ATX 350w psu case
-------
$200
$ 17 : tax
-------
$217 : total (no display monitor)

Rebates needed on: WD H.D. & ATX case.