RedHat 6.0 Game Server

[RenegadeKing]

I got an old computer back from my grandma that used to be mine. It is a Sony Vaio pcv-90. It has a P200 and 32 megs of ram. I decided I'd like to turn it into a game server, so I installed a copy of RedHat 6.0 on it that I had lying around. The installation went smoothly, and I decided to get the first dedicated server on there. I chose Jedi Knight 2, so I got the linux server and followed all the instructions. Then came time to run it. After it loaded the server.cfg file and got all the values from it, it waited about 10 seconds, and got a segmentation fault. I've tried many things but I can't fix it. Anyone know why this might happen? Could a kernel upgrade possibly help? TIA.

RenegadeKing

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Not really something I've tried, but I am not so sure that the kernel would be as big a deal as some of the libraries, or maybe the hardware support for your computer. Is the server part of this supposed to do graphics and sound, locally or is it pretty much a text client, running like a background process?

[RenegadeKing]

It's just a text server. I decided to install 7.3 on it. The only reason I didn't before was because I didn't have the ISOs burned on CDs. Now, the installation is around 800 megs after unchecking some things, vs the 300 meg installation before. The HDD is only 2 gigs. I should prolly get another one and some more ram..

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Hopefully, the 7.3, with the newer files will take care of the problem. I wasn't too sure you would want to push version 7.3, with a 200, if you had to cover the graphics, as the OS hardware demands are much heavier on 7.3, than 6. I checked a few sites, on this server, but couldn't find much. More talk about the game.
I remember RH 6.0 very well. The jump from 5.2 to 6.0 reminded me of the diff between win 3.1 and 95 :)

[RenegadeKing]

Well, unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem.

Segmentation fault: an error in which a running program attempts to access memory not allocated to it.

So I'm guessing lack of ram (32 megs) is the real problem.

I'll try to get more ram for it, the mobo can take up to 128 megs. If it fixes the problem, I'll put 6.0 back on. Everything seems to have gone faster with it and it took up a lot less space. I'll put 7.3 on this computer :)

[RenegadeKing]

Well, I maxed it out with 128 megs of ram. I reinstalled RH 6. I used 128 megs of swap. I installed the server, ran it, and I still get a segmentation fault! I reinstalled it and used 256 megs of swap. Put the server on, and ran it. Still, a segmentation fault! So I checked free -m and it said that I only have 10 megs of ram free! I rebooted, and it said i have 105 megs free. I ran the server, and checked free -m in another screen. It got up to 5 megs free, and then it got a segmentation fault. It went back to 10 megs free. The swap stayed empty. So basically, from what I can tell, it eats up the ram and never goes to the swap. Then it crashes. Does anyone know why this would happen? TIA

Also, I checked the ram with DocMemory v2, and all the tests pass. So the memory is good.

[Blakhart]

Linux will load most of the mem up and when you open an app it will drop unneeded items from the mem to make room. So, 4 megs left out of 128 is normal at startup.
This sounds like an addressing issue in the server software. Addressing may be a prob for both the server and linux as far as server mem calls go. Is this server program for linux specificly?

[RenegadeKing]

Well at bootup I have 105 megs free. It's after the server runs that it eats it all up. I downloaded the Linux version of the Jedi Knight 2 server. I followed the directions, copied the pk3 files over from the cd, used the server.cfg file I am using with the windows version of the server, and got one map. After it loads all the variables from server.cfg, it sits there for a few seconds, and gives the error. Apparently lots of people are running this server fine with linux. I have yet to install win98 on the machine and try the windows version of the server with it. Even if that worked though, I wouldn't want to keep it that way. I want it running with linux.

Any other thoughts?

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Can you re-download the file? Maybe from another server. I've seen Linux get a little fussy under certain graphics programs, but on a text- only. Not a usual thing. How well does this install run the regular Linux apps, by the way? Is it stabile the rest of the time?

[RenegadeKing]

I haven't run much of anything else, but the first time I installed it with X window system, and netscape ran fine. The last few times I chose no GUI.

I downloaded it from two different places, but no luck. I just got win98 on it and am going to try it on that to rule out a hardware problem. I'll report back soon.

[RenegadeKing]

Well it works on win98.

[Computer Hobbyist]

RenegadeKing,

I was reading this thread and it struck me that you created a swap partition of 128 meg. I am not sure, but as I recall the maximum swap partition for Redhat 6.0 was 127 meg. You should also make sure you uncheck the "grow to fill disk" box when creating the swap partition. You might also want to check for bad blocks as you format. Since we are dealing with an old harddrive it could be that the swap partition is running into a bad block or two that hasn't been identified. I don't know if these ideas will solve your problem, but you might give them a try if you decide to go back to Linux.

I have a feeling that the problems you are encountering are in the swap partition.

CH