* On 2023 12 Jan 08:15 -0600, Dan Ritter wrote: > Nate Bargmann wrote: > > I have a Freedom Box Pioneer (hardware is an Olimex A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 > > unit with a Samsung 128 GB micro-SD card. The micro-SD is partitioned > > into 2GB boot ext2 and the remainder as the root partition as BTRFS. > > > > The thing has been crashing for months > > For the future: don't let things go this long. I know it's > tempting to say "maybe it won't happen again", but the second > time should be the last time before you take action.
At one point I replaced another piece of hardware that was on the same Ethernet switch as this unit and the crashes cleared up for a while. Then I suspected a flaky power adapted but haven't addressed it and then I suspected RF from my amateur radio operations and put the power cord in a ferrite core with no positive results. It wasn't until the 'apt update' GPG failure this morning (the Freedom box image is setup to auto update) in a manual update attempt that the light bulb lit up. > > and now it started giving GPG > > signature errors when trying to run 'apt update'. I copied the entire > > micro-SD card to an image file with dd so I have a backup. Running > > 'btrfs check' resulted in a lot of errors so I ran the check and > > directed the output to a file which is over 2MB in size! The following > > is a small snippet of what it in the file: > > ... > > > Everything online hints that attempting repair is particularly > > dangerous, but what else am I to do? At the moment the system is pretty > > much useless. > > > 1: get a new card, or, much better, replace with a SATA > SSD. (I see the Olimex has a SATA port. Use it!) Here's a > https://www.newegg.com/adata-ultimate-su800-128gb/p/N82E16820215015?Item=9SIAJNUBMB4508 > $29 128GB SSD from a reputable manufacturer. > > 2: Reinstall Debian on the new disk. Don't use btrfs on a > single-drive system; only use btrfs on a mirrored system. In most cases, > use ext4. > > 3: copy all the data you can from the image file. Looks like a plan I will do. I had an SATA drive on it to begin with but then decided to just use the micro-SD card. My guess that a quite large card with much excess capacity would wear level enough for long life. Well, maybe 18 months or so is "long life". For the record, the Freedom Box micro-SD card image formats the root partition as BTRFS. It wasn't a choice of mine. I've used ext2/3/4 for many years and that system has always done well for me. Fortunately this isn't a system that is critical, but it does serve some purposes. - Nate -- "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true." Web: https://www.n0nb.us Projects: https://github.com/N0NB GPG fingerprint: 82D6 4F6B 0E67 CD41 F689 BBA6 FB2C 5130 D55A 8819
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
