-   Fedora (
-   -   Update from 10 to 11 breaks floppy, speaker, firefox. (

perplxxt 07-24-2009 10:45 AM

Update from 10 to 11 breaks floppy, speaker, firefox.
After upgrading from Fedora 10 to 11, there are several problems.

1) Speaker beeps come out the audio card instead of the PC speaker. I tried the "beep" program, and the sound came from the PC speaker, but terminal bells come through the sound card. I would like the beeps to come from the PC speaker.
The speaker driver is loaded, so that's not the problem.

NEW DATA: The beeps come out of the speaker if I am using a text console (e.g. Ctl-Alt-F2). The problem is only when running X.

2) The floppy disk module was not loaded. I loaded it, but then the
floppy was getting probed every 2 seconds. I upgraded the DeviceKit-disks package to version 004-4, but the probing continues. To stop the probing, I have to remove the floppy module.

3) Firefox crashes a LOT. Only when loading certain pages. Others are fine. If I try to restore a crashed session, firefox crashes again. Sometimes, it seems to crash after being on a "safe" page for a few minutes. After some web research, I tried updating to the latest cairo package, but that didn't help.

An unrelated question: Since upgrading from FC6 to F10, I can't seem to access the other virual consoles, besides the one that X is running on.
How can I access them?

UPDATE: Virtual consoles no longer a mystery. One of the fedora upgrades must have moved X from virtual console 7 to virtual console 1, so when I hit C-A-F1, as I was used to, the system stayed with the X server, instead of giving me a fresh console.

Many thanks,


rexbinary 07-25-2009 06:57 AM

If you performed an upgrade rather then a clean install from FC6 to F10 and then to F11, you need to back up your data and clean install F11.

perplxxt 07-25-2009 10:34 AM

I performed a clean install of Fedora 9, upgraded to 10, copied my data from the old box running 6, then upgraded to 11. Do you still recommend a clean install?


lazlow 07-25-2009 03:07 PM

A clean install is always the officially preferred method. By attempting to upgrade you leave behind a lot of stuff that can cause issues. Old configuration files are notorious for causing issues. Often a more insidious condition can arise where the system does not completely break but performance is reduced. I cannot tell you how many times I have moved upgrades to fresh installs and the operators are shocked how much faster the system is.

perplxxt 07-25-2009 08:11 PM

clean install
So, the recommendation seems to be: Upgrades can cause all kinds of problems, so do a clean install instead. If no one can give me a more specific analysis of the problems, I will do that. Is there anyone out there who can give me a definitive analysis of these problems? If not, I will try the clean install.

perplxxt 07-27-2009 04:32 PM

Firefox fixed
I seem to have fixed the Firefox crash problem. I disabled all the plugins, including flash (which I suspect was the culprit), and Firefox hasn't crashed all day.

That still leaves the problem of X sending my terminal beeps to the sound card, and the problem of the floppy module probing the drive every two seconds.

Any more ideas?


Escher 07-28-2009 07:04 AM

To stop the constant floppy probe you have 3 options:

1. devkit-disks --inhibit-polling /dev/fd0 &
2. stick a floppy in the drive.
3. If you're not using floppies then unload the module.

Escher 07-28-2009 08:32 AM

scrap that advice, the latest udev and devicekit updates fix the floppy probing issue.

$ rpm -q DeviceKit-disks
$ rpm -q udev

perplxxt 07-29-2009 09:30 AM


Originally Posted by Escher (Post 3622874)

$ rpm -q DeviceKit-disks
$ rpm -q udev

That worked. Thanks.

Now that just leaves the problem of the speaker beeps coming out of the sound card. Anyone have any ideas?

perplxxt 07-31-2009 11:44 AM

Final result on Firefox crashes:

I replaced the regular flash plugin with the gnash plugin (GNU replacement), and reactivated all plugins, and firefox no longer crashes.

