Today, the PC which is hosting my site and blog, which I name ‘Phoenix’, received a kernel update.
Debian Team has not been following standard guidelines in their propagation of kernel updates, as the last 3 updates produced the same kernel-version number:
3.16.0-6-amd64
Because even Linux computers require a reboot after a kernel-update, this blog was temporarily off-line from about 13h05 until 13h25. I apologize for any inconvenience to my readers.
There is a fact about the build of Linux on this computer which I should bring up. I have the following on-board graphics-chip:
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430/integrated/SSE2
And this proprietary graphics driver is the only one, capable of working with the said graphics-chip:
NVIDIA 304.137
The graphics driver is installed from standard Debian repositories.
Somewhere between these software-packages there is a problem, which Debian Team has never been aware of, but which has existed ever since I installed Debian / Jessie on this computer. Directly after a reboot, the ability of the X-server to start, is not reliable. Sometimes, the X-server starts on the first try, but on other occasions I need to make 7 reboot attempts, before the X-server will start, and from one reboot-attempt to the next, I change nothing.
Once the X-server has started successfully, this graphics-chip will work 100% for 30 days !
I have been reluctant to point this out for the past few years, because if a Debian developer finds out about it, he will try to fix this problem. And when he does, he will brick my computer.
This afternoon, 7 reboots were in fact required, before the X-server started. That is why the reboot-procedure took 20 minutes of time.
(Updated 07/14/2018, 16h45 … )
Continue reading Kernel Update today, Downtime, Multiple Reboot-Attempts