I have a Dell laptop running Linux Fedora Core 7 Moonshine. I am running Gnome desktop. I get very strange errors from time to time, of the type:

Failed to execute child process: [process-name] Input/output error

where [process-name] has happened up until now to be:
* gnome-screensaver - this used to happen a lot after I was booting. It annoyed me so I disabled the screensaver. However, the problem is not solved, read on...
* gnome-terminal - I try to open a new terminal, and I get the above-mentioned error.

I also mention that, after this error is displayed, I notice an important degratation is system response time: any GUI interaction is seriously delayed( 1-2 minutes ), and also from the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1) keyboard input is very slow.

Any suggestions regarding this behaviour?
Uname info:
Linux 2.6.23.17-88.fc7 #1 SMP i686

You should check your /var/log/messages for more information: there's probably more errors being logged and more going on (apart from Fedora 7 being outdated).

What should I search in /var/log/messages for?
I've tried grepping for the string "error". Found some errors related to some yum repos being out of date - nothing to do with my error I guess. I also get warnings like this:

Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: WARNING: at net/mac80211/rx.c:1695 __ieee80211_rx_handle_packet() (Tainted: P )
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<f8a04687>] __ieee80211_rx_handle_packet+0xa7/0x9c4 [mac80211]
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<f8ac006b>] iwl3945_rx_reply_rx+0x80d/0x818 [iwl3945]
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<f887b84c>] scsi_end_request+0xa1/0xab [scsi_mod]
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<f8a05c7f>] __ieee80211_rx+0x48d/0x4e8 [mac80211]
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<f8ab0171>] iwl3945_rx_queue_restock+0x8a/0x107 [iwl3945]
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<f89f7c7a>] ieee80211_tasklet_handler+0x3f/0xb9 [mac80211]
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c047cfc2>] __slab_free+0x5c/0x216
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0431ed6>] tasklet_action+0x58/0xb8
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0431dee>] __do_softirq+0x66/0xd3
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0407405>] do_softirq+0x6c/0xce
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c045b832>] handle_edge_irq+0x0/0xfc
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0431cb1>] irq_exit+0x38/0x6b
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus dhclient: DHCPACK from 193.51.208.129
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0407506>] do_IRQ+0x9f/0xb9
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0407ef1>] do_syscall_trace+0x4b/0xde
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0405b6f>] common_interrupt+0x23/0x28
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: [<c0610000>] xfrm_send_policy_notify+0x270/0x4fd
Dec 6 16:06:37 minus kernel: =======================

Nothing else suspicios that I've noticed...

Basically anything out of the ordinary because at this point you have not provided enough info to be able to exclude anything.


That's one of the reasons not to run outdated distro releases. If that was related to the mac80211/iw.* module it was previously fixed in F8 which ran a 2.6.24.*something kernel.

Ok; does anybody have any suggestion related to the actual issue posted?