Which version to use, FC2 or FC3?

Rick Stevens rstevens at vitalstream.com
Fri May 20 20:50:33 UTC 2005


Chris Jones wrote:
>>Just to throw my 2 cents in, if the machine hangs, sometimes its because it
>>cannot figure out its own name via name lookup.
>>I had similar case like yours.
>>
>>It would hang every time I got so feed up with it I left it on and it
>>eventually finished booting.
>>Xwindows would have a similar problem.
>>
>>I finally figured out that it's the can't figure out its own name problem.
> 
> 
> Just to add my own 2 pence ( I'm English....)
> 
> If it is the network, and from what you say I'm not sure it is, but if it is 
> then I found the default network settings not to be particularly appropriate 
> for a laptop install. For a laptop you *don't* really want the network to 
> start automatically, since by definition laptops move around and may boot in 
> an environment where there is no network. If you haven't already try running
> 
> system-config-network
> 
> and setting your network devices not to start by default (you might also want 
> to allow non-root users to start the network). Then the machine won't try and 
> bring the network up whilst booting (and thus wait a very long time if one is 
> not available).
> 
> While you are at it, try looking at NetworkManager. Its an attempt to make 
> networking easier by automatically detecting available networks and 
> connecting. Its not perfect yet by any stretch of the imagination but might 
> work for you...

To simplify things even more, bad reverse DNS lookups can cause a major
slowdown at boot.

If you do NOT have a fixed IP (you're using DHCP) or you use a dialup
network connection, make sure you have a line in /etc/hosts like:

127.0.0.1	localhost.localdomain localhost host.domain.tld host

(replace "host.domain.tld" and "host" with the appropriate stuff for
your machine--but leave the "localhost" bits alone).

If you DO have a fixed IP for the machine, just add a line using that IP
and the machine's host name into /etc/hosts:

	www.xxx.yyy.zzz		host.domain.tld host

and remove the "host.domain.tld" and "host" stuff from the 127.0.0.1
line.

The idea here is to get the machine to reverse resolve itself off local
files rather than depending on a DNS server somewhere to do it for you.
And if you use DHCP, you had better hope that there's a reverse entry
in someones DNS for the IP it hands you or you'll still take a long
time to boot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-      A day for firm decisions!!!   Well, then again, maybe not!    -
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