[TriLUG] e2fsck under cron gets retcode=8 operational error

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012, Thomas Gardner wrote:

> [...whatever...] You don't always have to break things to 
> make them more usable for more use cases.  Never mind. 
> I'll just put it on my long list of things I want to do 
> ``some day''.  If you could come up with a list of 
> pointers to those other forums where you saw specific 
> cases where this was messing people up, I can use that as 
> supporting evidence.

I'll be more than impressed if you can get this fixed. It 
would show me that there's more hope of getting the world to 
work than ever I thought.

I have a map generator that makes maps for ham radio 
operators (code first released in 1994). Some of the data 
comes from ham sites (eg lists of beacons, logs from 
contests). Almost none of it is machine readable. Comments 
and notes are spread throughout, like it was a letter to a 
friend. I contacted the list maintainers, asking them to use 
a machine readable format. I suggested a few, but was quite 
happy to use a format of their choosing. I wanted my map 
generator to be able to download new versions of the files 
automatically and map them without human intervention. I 
didn't want my map generator crashing because it was trying 
to plot a corrupt file. Most of the list maintainers didn't 
reply. The most encouraging reply was that the list 
maintainer thought it a good idea, but he wasn't going to be 
the first.

I tried to plot the activity in contests, where you look for 
unusual propagation that will only be seen when large 
numbers of hams are operating at the same time. The contest 
organisers won't let you have the data submitted for the 
contest. The contest is not auditable. Neither can you learn 
from it. The ARRL's policy is that the contest winners have 
put a lot of work into getting to where they are, and to 
have people learn what they know, would negate their 
efforts.

I decided if these people really didn't want their data 
plotted on my map generator, then I wouldn't plot it.

The last ham radio event I plotted was the biggest aurora 
opening in the last sunspot cycle, in 2000. After that I 
gave up on ham radio and put my efforts into Linux.

In the process of collecting data to be plotted on my map 
generator, I found that hams were computer illiterate. 
They're just a bunch of windows or Mac users. I would ask 
for the files in ascii format and get binary doc files from 
Macs etc. One person sent me jpg photo of his log page. I 
talked to one of these people face-to-face and he was 
adamant that the file was ascii; he saw characters on his 
screen and not binary and that was all there was to it. When 
I started ham radio (50's and 60's), the ethic was build it 
yourself and understand everything you're doing. When Linux 
arrived in the '90's I recognised it as another ham radio. 
However hams haven't moved. AFAICT they are still back in 
the '50s and '60s. Many of them just want to operate their 
rigs. This is fine, people can do this if they want. But 
when I go to ham radio conferences, where people are doing 
the cutting edge ham radio (eg moonbounce), they are still 
using windows for their computing. They don't see a 
connection between FOSS and ham radio.

As a side note, people living in the US should be very glad 
of some of the US Govt's policies. Data the US Govt collects 
(eg location of post offices, county borders, TV and radio 
station frequencies etc) using taxes from the citizens, is 
by virtue of the FoI act, freely available. I use it on my 
map generator. Other countries (even civilised places like 
Canada) don't make it available at all, or charge you large 
amounts of money for it and place restrictions on what you 
can do with it. It's one very nice thing about the US Govt.

In the fsck case, I googled for

e2fsck operational error

where "operational error" is the text version of the error 
code.

I came up with

http://www.techtalkz.com/suse-linux/183070-problems-fsck-status-0x8-boot.html
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21387564
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/fsck-died-with-exit-status-8-a-499851/
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-918740-start-0.html

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!