Ubuntu Install: Buffer I/O Error on Device SR0

Installing Ubuntu has been a bit of a challenge due to errors reading from my optical drive.  I was able to get through some installs successfully with a CD burned with Ubuntu but in most cases it fails while trying to read from the CD before the install is finished.  I tried moving devices around on the IDE cable, burning the disc at a slower speed, verifying the disc burned correctly, making sure the ISO image checksums correctly.  It just appears that the drive I'm using to burn the disc or the media I'm using just isn't compatible with my Ubuntu machine's drive.  The one thing that did work is using DVD media instead of CD media.  If you're having the same problem, I recommend giving this a shot.

OS X Time Machine Hang

I just had an awesome experience debugging a Time Machine hang. A backup was hanging indefinitely as far as I can tell. I couldn't stop it through the preferences pane, or pull down in the menu bar. Looking at the system log, I found the following:
Mar 28 22:08:50 Tornado mds[36]: (Error) Import: importer:0x85d400 Importer start failed for 89 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)
Mar 28 22:09:20: --- last message repeated 7 times ---
Mar 28 22:09:22 Tornado mds[36]: (Error) Import: importer:0x85d400 Importer start failed for 89 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)
Mar 28 22:09:52: --- last message repeated 7 times ---
Mar 28 22:09:54 Tornado mds[36]: (Error) Import: importer:0x85d400 Importer start failed for 89 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)
Mar 28 22:10:24: --- last message repeated 7 times ---
Mar 28 22:10:26 Tornado mds[36]: (Error) Import: importer:0x85d400 Importer start failed for 89 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)
Mar 28 22:10:37: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Assuming these errors were related, I opened up Activity Monitor, and killed the mds process and was greeted with the following in the sytem log:
Mar 28 22:10:37 Tornado com.apple.launchd[97] (com.apple.Spotlight[145]): Exited abnormally: Interrupt

So it looks like mds is part of Spotlight, maybe the indexing process. Immediately after I killed the process, my Time Machine backup unfroze and reported an error.
Mar 28 22:11:33 Tornado /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15448]: Indexing a file failed. Returned -1120 for: /Library/Application Support/Mozilla, /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Tornado/2009-03-22-011202.inProgress/E3158A6F-868B-4E81-82EE-7D3151A1A287/Magnus/Library/Application Support/Mozilla
Mar 28 22:11:33 Tornado /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15448]: Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
Mar 28 22:11:33 Tornado /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15448]: Stopping backup.
Mar 28 22:11:33 Tornado /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15448]: Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
Mar 28 22:11:34 Tornado /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15448]: Copied 101 files (12 KB) from volume Magnus.
Mar 28 22:11:34 Tornado /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15448]: Copy stage failed with error:11

Elsewhere on the internet people claim that their hard drives start thrashing if Time Machine is backing up at the same time Spotlight is indexing a back up volume. I didn't hear any thrashing on my backup drive. I think there is something else at work. In the above system log messages there is a line saying "Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed." That's a printout from the backupd process which I assume is part of Time Machine. I'm going to guess that Time Machine and Spotlight running at the same time with Spotlight indexing the backup drive can hit a bug that causes the two processes to dead lock.

I added my Time Machine backup database to Spotlight's privacy list so it won't index my backup drive. It doesn't prove that it's the problem, but after killing mds, and telling Spotlight to ignore the backup drive, the next Time Machine backup completed fine.

Still a Long Time Before Judgement Day

I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief because it is still going to be a while before the terminators are intelligent enough to become self aware and want to murder us all. I refer you to figure 1 and figure 2 where my dirt terminator was found today precariously balanced and stuck.

Either that or he has become self aware and he wants to check out of his life as a vaccuum.

DIY Nas: Linux as a Time Machine Backup

I already got a few questions on how I did this. Here is the link to a super how-to on a really nice looking blog. A geek with creative sense!

http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/06/ubuntu-as-mac-file-server-and-time-machine-volume/

DIY Nas: Up and Running!

Well, I intended to blog more about this guy as I was building. I set out with the idea that this system would be a bit more embedded than it turned out. It ended up being a full blown server with 8 hot swap raid bays. It's a Core2 based system and what is pretty fantastic is with the 2.5" system drive running and the NAS drives spun down it consumes a bit over 60 watts measured at the wall. That should improve by another 8-10 watts with some of the new efficient power supplies coming out later this year. It's running Debian and Time Machine backups of two laptops in the house are working like a charm.