Strange Network Problem - Setting up file server

[pstone]

Ok, this is weird... maybe this has something to do with dual processors? I dunno... I'm a noob.

So yea, I have 3 PC's.

1 Old crappy Dell Inspiron 5000e Laptop
1 New AMD 6400 X2 system
1 New DuoCore 6600 system

Real simple right? Boot Knoppix 5.1.1 on the laptop with it's crappy 10/100, setup nic for static ip in the usual way, start the samba server and blammo - on the network and copying craploads from the laptop to various Windows XP machines with non-stop happy IP traffic via the IP Traffic monitoring tool.

Here's the painful part.

BOTH the newer systems - Same deal - Same everything and when you go to the network and pull files from the server, it ticks for a second, then hangs and dies and tells me how it can't find the connection anymore, blah blah blah...

errr... hair pulling out....

The NIC's on the new machines are gigabit and work fine on the network w/windows to windows....

Could this be a Nic incompatibility issue or what? Is this symptomatic of something?

Update: I'm getting overall delay issues from web browsers as well on the Knoppix machine. Odd that I'm setting up the laptopp and the AMD machine exactly the same... what would be causing this... only difference is the AMD is on a gigabit connection. It works fine as a windows machine - just Knoppix is having issues.

LSPCI shows me about the network connector:

Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Unknown device 4364 (rev 12)

err.... could that be the problem?



Thanks for any insight.

[pstone]

Quick update - Changed to a different NIC card (Linksys) - same problem - not the NIC card.

Anyone encounter this problem before?

[wbatw]

two possibilities:

try cheatcodes on boot: "noapic" "acpi=off" or similar

it seems newer Marvell and Realtek nics common on many mobo's are not always properly detected and wrong drivers get loaded or even possibly conflicting drivers. try "lsmod" to see what is loaded, use "rmmod <driver>" to remove one, "insmod <driver>" to force load a different one.

[pstone]

Well the above suggestion didn't work but I did narrow it down. It has something to do with NTFS formatted drives.

The drive in question (NTFS) causes the stall when copying. Copying the same large files from the local drive (formatted as a unix boot drive w/debian on it which has the same problems but thus, FAT) showed a 650 kbits/s in the iptraf monitor program. From the NTFS drive, 350 kbits/s with stall-outs lasting 10-30 seconds, then it would pick back up.

So this seems to be related to mounting NTFS drives?

[pstone]

Well after consulting around, it seems as if it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get this to work as it's NEVER worked before yet on the planet with ANY unix OS. NTFS is not supported enough in the unix community, PERIOD.

Sure there are some methods to do what I've already done but that's for transfering tiny text files, etc... not 6 gigs of data via 600mb files which seems to work flawlessly on FAT32 drives.

CONCLUSION: Not possible. Use FAT32 drives.

[WHODIDDAT]

Well after consulting around, it seems as if it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get this to work as it's NEVER worked before yet on the planet with ANY unix OS. NTFS is not supported enough in the unix community, PERIOD.

Sure there are some methods to do what I've already done but that's for transfering tiny text files, etc... not 6 gigs of data via 600mb files which seems to work flawlessly on FAT32 drives.

CONCLUSION: Not possible. Use FAT32 drives.

NOT ENTIRELY TRUE pstone
I had a similar circumstance recently, where I absolutly HAD to move over 20GB of data. Many files were over IG from a NTFS formatted "compressed" drive I might add; to my linux box (knopppix 5.1 HD install - an old 733 box) from a new AMD64 box running windows Xp Pro.

Although the statement you made is essentially correct from a physical drive standpoint, so long as you are moving files from differnt OSes that are running over a network (2 machines or more) then it IS possable to move files from one drive formatted in NTFS to a Unix friendly formatted drive.

What's required is to setup and have the directories run over a FTP connection - very fast and should be free from corruption.
The only issue I ever had was when I tried to compress a large amount of data into a .7z format which could not be read under Linux but from the raw files it could - just took a while longer to transfer.

As I understand it you are moving data BETWEEN machines and have run into this issue. Setup an FTP server on the box you want to move the files from and login with your client on the box you want to move them to and presto! Your moving the files!

Where there's a will - there's a way!

[Harry Kuhman]

Setup an FTP server on the box you want to move the files from and login with your client on the box you want to move them to and presto! Your moving the files!

Actually, I tend to do it the other way around, set up the FTP server on the receiving system and just use Knoquror as the ftp client. Works either way, but avoids having to deal with an ftp server under Knoppix (there doesn't seem to be one on the CD, unless I just can't find it). But you're right, the clain Linux can't read from ntfs is complete nonsense and ftp is a great way to move files between systems, much faster that Microsoft networking.

[WHODIDDAT]

I tend to do it the other way around, set up the FTP server on the receiving system and just use Knoquror as the ftp client. Works either way, but avoids having to deal with an ftp server under Knoppix (there doesn't seem to be one on the CD, unless I just can't find it). But you're right,

Yes I agree, I guess I was assuming a few things.
1) A working Windows OS (box1)
2) A working knoppix OS (box 2) with access to partitions in the usual Unix formats
3) A swap file partition
4) A saved image (my config file and home directory) installed on the HD

In this way you can download additional software that knoppix doesn't have browser plugins wine and a ftp like FileZilla. Konquor works well only as a client.

PS lately I've been monkeying around with knoppix as a HD Debian install from the v5.1 and use both Gnome and the default KDE enviornments - works great and so far is the best linux I've used so far.
I was surprized at how much space is required for the HD install from the CD +4Gb!