System freezes a couple of times a day
 

Hi, I'm running Fedora 10 on a typical HP Intel dual core machine. Here is the exact one if you need specifics.

Anyway, since installing Fedora 10 about a month ago, my computer freezes solid at least once a day. Before installing 10, I was running Ubuntu, and before that Fedora 9. Didn't have this problem with either of those.

When it freezes, it's everything. If I plug in a USB device it doesn't come up on the desktop, can't eject a disk... & if the drive was already open, inserting a disk isn't recognized. Heck, even the Caps Lock and Num Lock keys don't toggle the lights on the keyboard.

There's no pattern to what I'm doing to when it freezes. I've had it freeze while watching videos, or listening to music, or web surfing, or doing nothing and the computer sitting idle.

I've gone into Applications -> System Tools -> System Log and there's nothing obvious that happens just before it crashes. Other than that, I really have no idea what could be the problem or what to look at.

I've used Linux for quite a while now, but I'm definitely no expert. I get what I want working by googling and reading this forum, then I just use it.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I don't really want to go back to Ubuntu, but this freezing is getting annoying.

Thanks in advance

I don't know about specifics for your problem. I can say this. Fedora Core is a development distribution. Problems are to be expected. It is not stable enough to use in an important role, even if that role is just reading your email.

If you don't like Ubuntu because of the interface try one of the variants such as Kubuntu or Xubuntu. I like KDE so I use Kubuntu. And DON'T use the latest version of Ubuntu (8.10). There are numerous posts about problems with that version. Use the latest Long Term Support version (8.04).

On the contrary of what is said above, Fedora is stable enough to read your mails. And though it is a bleeding-edge distro, it isn't that bleeding-edge as what is made of. I design 3d models and animations on my Fedora and haven't found it crashing or intrusive. Well, then again this is on a desktop PC and every distro differs in execution on PC and laptops and varies from hardware to hardware.

Anyways not to confuse you, here are a few suggestions that you may find helpful,

* Update - Always try and update to the recent available packages, as bug fixes happen round the clock. There was a major bug in the dbus module with came out of with Fedora and that caused a major concern in mounting devices such as USBs. It would also help if you can add yourself to the 'haldaemon' group.

*numlockx - This is a package to ON the numpad lights at the bootup. [ I know what you said, just added it as an info ]

For the non-toggling of Capslock and Numlock, my guess is something must have been running in the background. An output of 'dmesg' command could reveal something.It would also help if you can provide details on your desktop environment and the current kernel you are using. And also Compiz or Xcompmgr or any effects you may be trying.

Also make sure you have updated the 'mkinitrd' package. The initial one has a nasty bug that goes like "Waiting for stabilization 10 seconds" during bootup. Apply the fix once you have updated to the new one.

Bug details - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=470628

Fix - https://admin.fedoraproject.org/upda...ORA-2008-11149

Such nuisances happen in Fedora, but nothing like end of the world thing.

Did you see your X-logs?

Said like a true Ubuntu fanatic trying to scare someone away from other distros.

At any rate, I have a box that locks up randomly with any distro. I have ruled out memory and am currently using a different video card with no lockups for a week. Still too early to tell yet...

The update thing occurred to me after I started this. Looks like my system isn't even checking, because I had a buttload to do. Everything is now updated except the Kernel... there's a dependency issue with kernel-uname-r = 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.i686. I'll worry about that later.

I'm running Gnome and kernel 2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686

No, you cannot leave out it like that, kernel is the heart of the OS, you have to sort out the dependency, who knows, a new kernel might have solved your problems, you know, it happens a lot, when people have updated the kernels, many of their problems have gone away, so I'd say don't ignore it.

What about X-logs, dmesg, compiz..?

I'm not a fanatic or fanboy or groupie for any distribution. I happen to be using (K)ubuntu now but I've used others in the past and I will use others in the future. Your post did not help to answer the original poster's question.

I wasn't going to ignore it, just take care of it later. I'm guessing it just hadn't been added to the repository yet, because I redid update today and it went great.

I'm now on Kernel 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.i686

I ran dmesg, but the output was too long to post, even using code tags. Not sure what x-logs are.

For now, with everything updated, I'll let it run and see if the problem is resolved. Thanks everyone for your help so far.

Well, the update didn't help. It's still freezing up 2-3 times a day. I've looked through all the logs I can find and don't see any obvious errors. If anyone can tell me what I'm looking for and where, I'll post whatever information I can find.

Hi,
maybe try to tail the logs in some backup (ie tail Xorg.x0.log > xorg.bck.log ), so t be able to debug before scratching the latest verion at reboot ?

(for info: on linux since 10 years, and fedora since 4 years, and even if not perfect , as any distro, as an evidence it is usable for everyday use)

Finally got massively annoyed enough that I did a complete reinstall, this time I decided to give the 64 bit version a try. I last tried the 64 bit version of Fedora 8, but at that time getting things working was too frustrating. Hopefully things are better now. Got Flash & Java working easy enough.

So far no freezes with the 64 bit Fedora 10.