fsck & 3b1 continuous power up

[Joshua Stein]

In article <331 at heurikon.UUCP> dklann at heurikon.UUCP (David Klann) writes:
>
>I leave my 7300 on full time (with the exception of week-long vacations,
>etc.).  I have removed the call to fsck from my /etc/rc.  To me, it is
>silly to run fsck like that when booting.  To get around file system
>problems I simply run fsck from the command line.  I have yet (over a
>year) to find any major problems.
>
I've just stumbled on ot this leave it on/turn it off (and fsck) discussion.
I'm a bit superstitious about stating that I turn mine off and on all the
time with virtually no problems (arrggghh now I have to call out the repair-
person because of the panic message on my screen). I don't really know the
pros and cons of the matter (I've heard there's a greater and regular chance
of spikes, and other electrical fizzzbungz, on power up). I do it basically
because it's the only way that I can live with the box. In a small one bedroom
apartment it's the only way I can sleep at night. I know. I'll move to a
bigger place that I can't afford ;->.

As regards why the way fsck is implemented on boot up I think the rational was
this. The 3B1/UnixPC was designed as a OAS type system for naive (dumb? no
just unwilling to learn ;->) users. Busy on the go executives, their clearical
and secretarial staff, etc. The idea was that they would never understand
either the file system (it's why you end up in the Filecabinet when you start
unix from the Office for instance) or fsck. So they would never boot to single
user and use fsck to fix the file system. Just call AT&T service; at a reason-
able maintenance cost, of course ;->. Seems to make sense to me that if you
feel comfortable witha more vanilla style system you could rewrite rc to boot
in a way that makes YOU happy (for instance, run fsck and go to single user if
there are problems (or give you the chance to go to single user). Since I have
not been bit by this one (oops, now I'm for it) I haven't bothered,...yet.

-- 
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Joshua Stein  Pacific*Bell 415 823-2411 |"I make it a rule to never get involved
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