[vox-tech] RH keeps crashing

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin Richard S. Crawford <rscrawford@mossroot.com> 
> At 10:20 AM 4/22/02 -0700, you wrote:
> >richard, at the risk of starting another "tom the bicyclist" thread, i
> >would say that you need to pick up a general book on linux.

> Oh, and who the heck was Tom the Bicyclist?
 
don't ask -- it was probably one of the low points of this list.
basically, this guy asked:

   how do i run a program on linux?

and my response was to tell him how to run a program (type the name in
at a prompt, possibly prepending a "./" in front of the name).  i then
suggested that he read a general book on using linux.

he basically had a cow.   a ... mad ... cow.


> Hee hee.  I admit that I kind of panicked on this one.  I've heard that:
> 
> a.      The most common cause of a Linux crash is a hard drive problem... 
> and
> b.      Hard drives are difficult to replace by yourself.

the most common cause of a *serious* linux problem (like spontaneous
rebooting or hanging) is a general hardware problem (of which, hard
drive problems are a subset of).

also, hard drives are very easy to replace.  replacing your first hard
drive is easier than replacing your first stick of DIMM.   hd's are
idiot proof (well almost.  sorry, mike  ;) ).

the hardest part of installing a hard drive is getting the case on the
computer again.   ;)

> I'm also not at home with the box right now.  I'm trying to log in 
> remotely, and unable to do so (though I was able to just an hour ago)... 
> there is simply no response from my computer.
 
ok, this might be an indication of a bona-fide kernel crash.  that's
when linux "stops running".  the kernel stops responding to any event.
may be a ram problem.  doubt it's hard drive related.   a user space
program shouldn't be taking the whole system down.

> I had some problems with Evolution last night, which I had traced to a 
> problem with its mail folders.  I had tried killing Evolution and 
> restarting it but that seemed to cause the system to crash.  I removed the 
> Evolution RPM's and reinstalled them, and things seemed to go all right for 
> a few hours, and then it crashed again.
> 
> Perhaps "crash" is not the technical term.  The system simply froze 
> up.  The screensaver was on in the second case, but immobile (those ants 
> were stuck on that moebius strip forever, not moving).  I couldn't figure 
> out what else to do either time, so I simply pressed the "reset" button on 
> the computer.  The computer rebooted, of course, and prompted me to run 
> fsck each time, which I did.
 

> Basic Linux books that I have: "Running Linux" and "Linux in a 
> Nutshell".  Those two books (along with a couple of good search engines, a 
> very patient brother-in-law, and an outstanding local support group) are 
> usually more than adequate to help me figure out solutions.

i would say that "running linux" and "linux in a nutshell" are both good
books, but unsuited to learn from.  they're both good reference
material.

get yourself one of those huge honka-books.   the kind that are
published by QUE.  the 1000 page ones.

pick a few chapters to read from.  obviously, you don't need to know
much about name service or (at this stage in the game) firewalling.
read what seems relevent.  i read "redhat secrets unleashed" when i
first installed linux.   eventually, i read the book cover to cover, but
would take the book to delta of venus on sundays and read the book from
9 to 12.  or i'd take the book with me on trips to the registrar's
office and read it while waiting on line.  or waiting on the lines at
safeway.  that sort of thing.

eventually, i covered the whole book.  i learned more about linux in those
few months than i've learned in the rest of the 3 years that i've
used linux.

pete