So I was being a noob as usual and was trying to install Java on a Linux distro. I left my computer on for > 2 hours thinking it was just taking it's time. Little did I know, the terminal I pasted the command into was already running a process that froze. So it didn't even attempt to install. 😤

Why INSTALL java..? You can simply download and extract it and use it

@netikras Having Java automatically in PATH (+ file manager integration) is a bit more convenient than just extracting it somewhere.

@Jabster28 What did you do exactly? This never happened to me.

@sbiewald Sorry, might've worded it wrong. I untarred it and tried to use update-alternatives. That was when it froze.

@Jabster28 couldn't you just use your packet manager to install Java?

Why not simply install the openjdk? It should be available in most distro repositories.

@sbiewald depends. Is the install time worth this convenience? I mean it takes up to 3 minutes to configure 'java' alternatives and add file manager's integration [which is of questionable use imo]. And fetching java from repos might take significantly longer than from openjdk or oracle.com or ibm or whereever you'd be downloading it from

just a thought :) i also used to like this 'convenience', but lately it's just too freaking slow..

@netikras maybe you need to change the mirrors which you are using. This could help increasing the speed to install something from the repos.

@m3b6 I have :) servers are just a few km away from my home. Still jdk fetch is painfully slow

@Jabster28 storage issues? Any hints in dmesg after 5 minutes of waiting?

@netikras Since when are update-alternative issues logged to dmesg?
I'd rather say /var/log/messages

@sbiewald since when does such a simple operation as creation of a simlink is freezing?

I suspect a process in D state. Which means it will trigger driver timeouts in kernelspace. Which means kernel will make a 120seconds timeout log entry in dmesg

@netikras Fascinating.

@sbiewald I'd be looking in syslog in a first place IF the command failed for some reason. But now it does not fail - it just takes too long to process. That is not supposed to happen in unix/linux apps unless hardware or hw drivers are lagging. And that's where kernel watchdogs come into the picture. If the freeze is indeed happening in ketnelspace [some syscall], watchdog will klog a message after 120secs [by default] of the freeze. It will also log a stack trace, which will tell what driver functions were frozen, which will most likely identify a storage issue.

Now if the dmesg does not have any such messages, the app might be looping [a bug in the app]. Then either syslog or strace will explain what is wrong.

#linuxProblems