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Ubuntu's Laptop Killing Bug Fixed
jeevesbond writes "Back in October of 2007 we discussed a bug that would dramatically shorten the life of laptops using Ubuntu. Ubuntu users will be glad to know that a fix has finally been released for Ubuntu versions 9.04, 8.10 and 8.04 (LTS). However, as this fix is not yet in the update repositories, anyone wishing to test it should follow these instructions for enabling the 'proposed' repository. Report your results on the original bug report. Happy testing!"
Cracks are visible on the exterior of a settled suburban house in a lower middle-class neighborhood outside of Detroit. During the day, the house is mostly quiet save the occasional noise of babies' cries competing with shrill, high-pitched female voices. At night, the music of a handful of artists known as the "Three T's" - Tupac Shakur, Too Short, and Trick Daddy - blares from the domicile with aging blue-gray paint and bars on all of its windows. It is impossible to see into the house from outside because all of the windows are covered with aluminum foil. One window was broken but promptly taped together with the duct tape in the distinctive tell-tale pattern of brownian motion.
The interior of the house is barren save the sparse arrangement of old, unmatched furniture purchased(or, more likely, stolen) from an inner-city thrift shop; the centerpiece of it all being the stained, chintzy sofa peppered with the burns of marijuana and tobacco cigarettes. The place as a whole appears to be only a temporary living space, yet its inhabitants have lived here consistently for about ten years. The stench of dirty diapers, burned cooking oil, and the by-products of a metabolism so powerful it could fuel the outrunning of gazelles or a successful fistfight against 4 police officers at once permeates the entire home.
It may be mentioned in passing that this house's inhabitants are an assortment of African men, women, and children who live and sleep in intervals diametrically opposite to those of each other so that each inhabitant's productivity is maximized -- everybody in the house has their own role in a setup strikingly similar to the Smurfs' villiage or some other Socialist paradise.
A circular design of red, yellow, and brown was painted on the wall -- "Krylon on drywall" being the medium -- by the teenage male who is but one part of the small collective known as the Ubuntu developers.
The adult males do the brunt of the work. One bedroom of the house, the master bedroom, is the development studio. The whole outfit is the brainchild of Marcus Ubuntu, first-generation African immigrant who studied computer science at the university of Zimbabwe before fleeing the armed rebellion. At his left sit Reggie Omoko, associate programmer; and at his right sit Shawn James, graphic designer(it should be noted here that Shawn is the one who designed and painted the Ubuntu logo, reportedly gleaning Ubuntu's artistic inspiration from the color scheme and the shape of various public toilets).
The 2 women of the house serve as breeders and foragers, collecting the welfare and child support money and then buying copious amounts of food, drink, and dope in support of operations. The children of the house, in turn, support the women, though it is difficult to determine how exactly many children are in the house as they come and go as they please with some leaving permanently, some returning days or even years later.
The primary tools of this trade are an assortment of cutting-edge but stolen laptop and desktop computers. The Ubuntu operating system is coded in object-oriented C, a language Marcus developed at university because he didn't know that somebody had already invented C++. Years of crack and malt liquor-fueled hard work have transformed Ubuntu from a meager startup into the world's most popular open-source operating system.
Considering this was a fault of the manufacturers, this story is pure and total flamebait. Just don't bother feeding the trolls; don't reply.
Que the stories of laptop hard drives failing before their time and rebuttals and blame shifting from about 200 people, mingled with "in soviet Russia, hard drive crashes you!" jokes and ordered lists that feature question marks and profit.
Oh, and probably a hot grits joke or two.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Hello, I am your laptop's hard drive.
Boing, boing. Fwlishshklik. GUNTZ!
(Sound effects courtesy of Don Martin.)
It's time for some more delicious kool-aid! Drink up!
Well, one can squarely blame the HD manufacturers (look at the Seagate disaster) and say they need to fix their hardware.
However, when your stuff doesnt work, regardless who's fault it is, it's still broken. And in cases like Ubuntu vs Windows: it'll work in Windows and not work in Ubuntu. Who do you think the user will fault?
ObUserStory: I bought a T61 Thinkpad. Worked fine in Windows, and not so well in Ubuntu. What didnt work? The right side USB ports. If I was a regular user, I'd remove Ubuntu and put Windows back on. However, Im stubborn... and know that Linux shouldnt go disabling ports at seemingly random. Turns out, it was a ACPI bios bug that did so :( So a BIOS update did the trick and fixed everything.
So yes, it may be a manufacturers fault, but that's not where the blame gets placed all the time..
Those laptops were using ReiserFS.
And since Ubuntu = Linux and Linux = Ubuntu, it is Linux's fault, right?
Or was this issue specific to Ubuntu and not other distros? (Yes, believe it or not, there ARE other distros; although it is hard to tell since so many stories and postings say "Ubuntu" in place of the word "Linux" or "Linux distribution")
Hardware is buggy. BIOS is buggy. Drivers are buggy.
That doesn't matter one bit.
As an operating system and integrator, the whole system has to work. There are tons of quirks in Linux Kernel to work around BIOS and hardware bugs, because it's simply the reality you have to face. If you can't handle non-perfect hardware or firmware, then you don't make operating systems.
The fix is already included in the accepted updates:
acpi-support (0.114-0intrepid1) intrepid-proposed; urgency=low
* {ac,battery,resume,start}.d/90-hdparm.sh: don't just check whether
laptop-mode is configured to control the drives, also check whether
laptop-mode itself is *enabled*. Finally closes LP: #59695.
-- Steve Langasek Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:50:10 +0000
Just run apt-get update && apt-get install acpi-support.
The title and article summary is misleading. It shortens the life of the hard drive, not the laptop itself. Hard drives are cheap, and on most laptops as easy to swap out as the battery with screwdriver in hand.
Its not like Ubuntu is killing the motherboard or screen, its the Hard Drive.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
Does it bother anyone that Ubuntu, the community's duly annointed challenger to Microsoft hegemony, had an outstanding bug for fourteen months whose effect was to damage hardware? That's pretty terrible.
This is ridiculous. I've been running Ubuntu all this time and didn't know about this. I now have to check my install and see if I'm affected.
It may be time to stop dual booting, reclaim Vista Business' HD space, and run an Ubuntu vm.
If this were Windows messing up people's hard drives, you would all be all over it. But since it's Ubuntu, it's the hardware makers' fault.
I run Ubuntu since 6.something on 3 notebooks and all it killed was one drive (refurbished). The new drive (and all old ones) are still 'alive'.
Glad to know something is fixed, but I cannot confirm that bug at all.
What if the user has an ASUS EeePC, or other netbook like device with SSD hard disk or even a regular platter based hard disk in a incredibly difficult to reach location? This could still prove to be a laptop killer for many users and it is incredibly dishonest to pretend any differently. Oh and before anyone gets any ideas, look at my username, understand that this is being posted from Ubuntu Hardy Heron and I am quite happy with my Linux experience. I just don't think its fair to pretend this is any less serious than it actually is.
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
well, in a way. The problem is that the drive makers optimized their power saving algorithms for Windows disk access patterns - as you would expect them to since it is 85% of the market. And they didn't provide knobs to twist for other OSes - including new, more efficient versions of Windows.
The irony is that Linux runs afoul of the hard drive power saving tuning because it is too efficient. The gaps between disk accesses are too long, and trigger a head unload while the OS is still active.
The best fix would be to twist a knob to adjust the inactivity timer - but that isn't available. So the simplest fix is to disable power saving on the disk - fine for laptops used as portable desktops. To keep drive power saving without unloading/loading the heads constantly, you have to configure "laptop mode", which uses memory to cache reads/collect writes so as to provide something like 30 minutes between disk accesses for typical word processing/browsing activities.
I've thought about writing a background process (in python or your favorite script language) that monitors iostat - and reads a raw sector every 9 seconds to keep the disk from thinking we are inactive. At the same time, we have our own Linux oriented inactivity timer, and stop reading the raw sectors when the system is truly inactive (other than our own reads).
Depends on if he wants to give them a hint, or have them form a line.
Just in the last two days I've tried to install three versions of Ubuntu on a Toshiba Satellite laptop, and every attempt failed with a blank screen of death in the middle of the process. I tried 7.1, 8.04, and the latest nightly build (first two Desktop versions, the latter Alternate of course). This is an old laptop from 2001, a model 1805-S203, so there's no cutting-edge hardware that should be causing a problem, yet the installs failed spectacularly.
By contrast, BOTH Windows 2000 and MEPIS Linux version 7 were able to install.
I have to tell you, this has shaken my confidence in open source operating systems quite a bit.
Perhaps he wants to give them a hint that they should form a line, so that they formed a queue on cue.
Hmmm... Q on Q... that sounds like some weird Star Trek porn or something.
I hate printers.
Oh wait, it's kdawson.
It shortens the life of your HD, not the laptop itself, you chimp.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
...that this age old bug is fi
Is Debian still affected? The Ubuntu bug says:
In Debian, acpi-support is 0.109 for even unstable.
I'm running 8.10 on a Dell Latitude D620, and the default settings already have one of the workarounds implemented. The laptop-mode-tools package workaround mentioned at Ubuntu's wiki has already been implemented. Lower the FUD meters.
Nes pas?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It's not only Ubuntu or Linux. It's operating system independent issue. I have my DVR (Using it's own OS), which used to put HD in sleep every 15 seconds. When I changed other HD problem went away. So it's not about operating system at all. It's about HD manufacturer setting strange (too much too low) default values for drive.
Did somebody (really?) forget that HD drives are being used in many other systems than dektop / laptop computers, using Linux or Windows?
Does this bug also affect solid state drives, or just traditional drives with more moving parts?
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
No, it sounds like really hot James Bond time-travel porn.
I downloaded the image for a Live CD a few days ago but hadn't installed it -- lucky me -- and I was wondering, are the new Live CD downloads updated yet? Or do I have to apt-get something straight away?
I followed the instructions on Ubuntu's forums (what a pain to locate the actual instructions) (I transcribed what I did and will post them).
The actual problem was that manufactures have messed with their drives and altered the head parking timeout into a "detect if windows went to sleep" method. Basically Windows writes to the disk *all the time* until it sleeps, so the best way to minimize disk use is to park the head almost instantly after any inactivity, as that will park it asap when it sleeps. Furthermore at least 2 manufactures used the timeout control as <= 195 == "on" and >195 == "off".
Ubuntu/Linux wrote a lot less often, but plenty anyway, like every 15 seconds (doing stupid stuff like writing log files). So the head unparked every 15 seconds.
The fact that Windows "worked" led a lot of people to think Windows was doing secret messing with the drives to turn on extra modes that were not in the documentation, and that Ubuntu could not be fixed until this secret was found. However I think somebody could have figured out that it was not doing anything, there were programs (ported from Ubuntu, apparently!) for reading the disk settings under Windows.
It was also known immediatly that setting the disk timeout to 255 stopped this. Who cares if this was not the "secret Windows setting", it was certainly better than how Ubuntu was working at that time. This was known the same day the bug was first talked about! Ubuntu should have immediatly patched it, but somehow the fact that this was not "ideal" caused them to delay for 14 months! That is really bad, guys! I "fixed" mine as best I could with a program I had to run every time I opened the lid (because some stupid startup thing kept turning the timeout back on, and the only way to run my program last was to manually run it!) I eventually decided to go through the hair of actually fixing it and killing off that other thing that tried to do it.
There seemed to be a bunch of conflicting programs, all of them trying to set the disk timeout to 128 or 2. You had to get *all* of them (see next posting for what I did). This is what made it Ubuntu-specific. I sure hope this patch straightens it out so exactly ONE service, and exactly ONE file in /etc, controls the disk timeout!
Yea you can blame Windows all you want, but this was really, really, bad!
And I sure hope the update (which I just did) did not get screwed up by trying to merge with all the changes I did. Have not really checked yet. What a PITA. If they had put out a patch immediatly then they would not have to patch systems that have a hundred different solutions on them.
My point wasn't the cheapness, but rather the use of off-the-shelf components and a lack of proprietary crap that increases the cost to me, for instance the use of standard ATX cases and motherboards rather than some non-standard form factor that intentionally limits possible replacements and upgrades to just one source. In the case of eMachines, they may very well have used poor quality original components, but they were off-the-shelf components, meaning that you could easily get replacements and upgrades from numerous sources, not just eMachines.
Stupid mechanical device with all my data on it, integral to the function of my laptop.
This kind of attitude from Linux devs is why I've mostly migrated to OSX.
People that use computers don't want technical excuses. They just want to use the goddam computer without it destroying its parts, which seems entirely reasonable. Ubuntu in particular is targeted at this very group of people. It astounds me that this has remained unfixed for so long, and really shakes my trust in the whole open source thing.
"Just pop out and replace the hard drive, and restore from backup every 6 months" is not an acceptable solution.
I am seeing too many posts suggesting it's not Ubuntu's fault. Yes, it is.
A laptop doing typical work should only need to access the drive every few minutes, batching up writes to conserve energy. If Ubuntu insists upon pathological behaviour because, like many things Unix, it can't shake off its "server heritage", it is up to Ubuntu to say "please, hard drive, act like you're in a desktop".
Microsoft acknowledged and acted on this - or perhaps realised that part of the OS writer's responsibility is to make up for the deficiencies in hardware, something Linux doesn't completely ignore as illustrated by the number of workarounds in kernel drivers. But Linux followed typical nerd hubris, and such problems would make it impossible to recommend Linux "on the desktop/laptop". Can you imagine turning around to someone after a year and saying, "Oh yeah, running Ubuntu probably contributed to your hard drive death and data loss, but it's not actually Ubuntu's fault". That would make you an asshole and he a lost customer/friend.
...but the data stored on them can often be priceless.
Also...
Many users can't just pick up a screwdriver and replace the failed hard drive.
Many users are not allowed to.
Many users will void warranty if doing so.
For many users it involves a trip to a service center and a waiting period to get their laptops to work again. WITHOUT all their lost data.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Perhaps he wants to give them a hint that they should form a line, so that they formed a queue on cue.
Hmmm... Q on Q... that sounds like some weird Star Trek porn or something.
Dutch tv-series: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_en_Q
As someone else mentioned further up it wasn't true. The claims being made that this bug would shorten your hard drive were made by clueless users in the bug report.
I'm amazed at how many comments are so carefully pointing out it wasn't really Ubuntu's fault, but that perception is everything. I've never seen that comment made in any /. articles regarding Microsoft problems. =P
I can confirm that the issue does occur on a Debian lenny (testing) laptop (Packard Bell BG45-U-300) with minimal packages installed.
This is easily fixed, however:
apt-get install acpi-support
I don't know how etch (the stable version) is affected, and/or whether the fix has been applied in updates to acpi-support, but it would be worth checking, since there are several pages documenting how to fix the issue when installing Debian etch on a laptop (e.g. here).
After reading this back in 2007, I starting logging the Load_Cycle_Count (output from smartctl).
Extract from the log:
2007-11-29 131710
2008-08-28 135624
2009-01-18 138047
Is my harddrive headed for disaster?
"This provides a life expectancy of over four years, which is reasonable for a hard disk."
the target is only four years? Am I missing something here?
No wonder I've had so many disk failures, a mere four years is considered /reasonable/ by these asshats.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'll keep typing sudo hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda every time I boot or resume. It has the feel of some sort of magical incantation.
I don't like it when things "Just Work". If everything happens automagically, what am I then, just another nerd with a penchant for flash paper and wizard hats?
I also have this problem, with a asus board and a ati card...
You can try this (mtrr-uncover), it might help you...
ftp://ftp.cs.utoronto.ca/pub/hugh/
for me, it locks the machine when tried to remove the 0-4Gb mtrr range, but i read many success reports
Higuita
How dare you speak against Ubuntu or any Linux project. LEAVE UBUNTU ALONE!!!
A 14 month bug is perfectly justifiable in this case. They had more pressing issues to deal with. They had to get a new coffee stained background developed for the desktop. And they had to screw up the logoff shutdown buttons and lots of other stuff too.
Besides, 14 months and three version releases with an unfixed bug isn't all that bad. Is it?
Frankly, I think it is atrocious but, leaving major bugs unfixed for extended periods is definitely Ubuntu's style. Flame on bitches!
Y'know I'm all for fair treatment and equal rights, but won't it be better to simply tone down the MS fud instead of extending it to Linux? : )
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ubuntu's Laptop Killing Bug Fixed
Ubuntu makes laptops? Cool! I'm going to go right out and buy one of Ubuntu's "Killing Bug" Laptops, now that it has been fixed. I've been looking for a laptop with an interesting name (sorry, "Alienware" isn't interesting enough).
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Did you ever grow out of that shallow "distortion isn't music" phase, or your bizarre equation of xenophobia with "moral structure?"