I'm completely stumped on this one, researched for weeks in forums and Bugzilla and can't find anything even close to this except someone running FC2.
I'm running FC6 on new-ish hardware (see my sig) and having a big problem. KDE apps segfault, other apps crash at random, sometimes X just crashes itself.
Most often, the crashes happen on a GUI event like clicking on a button or hovering the cursor over a link, but it's not necessary; a number of times they'll crash overnight.
Here's what I've done so far:
Ran memtest for 10+ hours, no errors.
Installed (and reinstalled) on both the same and a different partition, no difference.
Tried a different install disk, HTTP install, and local hard drive install, no difference.
Tried a different video card, no difference. Also switched between the Livna drivers, the proprietary nVidia drivers from their site, and the stock nv drivers. None made a difference.
Tried with updates and without, every kernel available for FC6 including 2.6.19-1.2895 in testing, no difference.
Tried completely different distros but that's not an accurate way to do things in this case since this hardware is new enough that many distros aren't ready to run on it yet and may have their own issues with it (in fact ironically enough Fedora is the most stable distro on this rig).
Tried different GUIs (I normally use KDE) and the only difference is that KDE apps don't segfault (that I've seen anyway); other apps (and X) will still crash.
After a reinstall, I've only updated one thing at a time (and sometimes nothing at all)...you guessed it, no difference.
Nothing out of the ordinary shows up in any of the usual logs except a recurring automount error in /var/log/messages:
Jan 16 13:41:53 destroyer automount[2800]: create_udp_client: hostname lookupfailed: No such process
Jan 16 13:41:53 destroyer automount[2800]: create_tcp_client: hostname lookupfailed: No such process
Jan 16 13:41:53 destroyer automount[2800]: lookup_mount: exports lookup failed for.directory
I've shut down everything unnecessary (bluetooth, IrDA etc) and I can't kill anything else without causing a trainwreck. There are no other operating systems installed on this or any orther disk with the exception of VMWare, which has never been an issue before; according to VMWare, the current 2.6.18...FC6 kernels are officially supported. I also know that others have had problems getting FC6 (or any other distro) to run on this CPU/board, but their problems have been limited to actually getting it to install, recognize IDE/SATA drives etc. I've already gotten around all of that.
If anyone has any ideas or further questions, let 'er rip; I'm all out of ideas on this one. Let me know whatever logs you want to see, whatever snapshots you want, anything. I depend on this machine for school and don't want Firefox or OpenOffice burping on me in the middle of a class or a term paper.
This is also posted at FedoraForum.org so please don't refer me to my own post-

It's been driving me nuts. Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you. I'm using a Dell Dimension E520. It's a dual core intel with a gig of memory, and an NVIDIA 7300 LE. Like you I have been trolling my log files looking for the answer and have found nothing. I had thought that the crashing was related to my rather esoteric display setup. I'm using the nvidia driver with dual widescreens. But if your experienceing it as well I'm thinking it's not related to some bug in the driver or X being misconfigured. One thing worth mentioning is that I'm using Gnome, not KDE. If anybody out there has any suggestions I'm sure we both would be very interested.

Thanks

You know this thread sat for so long without a response I'd just about given up on it. Anyway, I've replaced the motherboard with an Intel 975XBX2 to eliminate any driver issues and I was still having the same problems. I too am running dual monitors, but I can tell you these problems manifest themselves with or without either the Livna Nvidia drivers or the proprietary ones; there's no difference on my end. I'm working on a new theory, though...I've tried both IDE and SATA optical drives, and different types/brands of media, and still get the same problems but I'm beginning to wonder if it's not a hardware conflict when the OS is installed, but rather when it's actually *being* installed, it's getting corrupted. See, it usually takes me several tries to get ANY Linux distro installed on this thing (and yes, I've done the "all-generic-ide" and pci=nommconf kernel appends already). I seem to have scared away the random crashes with this particular install (2.6.19-1.2911) but now I have dead 3D effects and VMware freezing it up (though that's prob an issue for a different thread).
Long-story-short, my current thinking is that something's not going right with the install. Let me know if anyone figures it out before I do-

I would have a closer look at your xorg.conf, more specifically the mouse section. Is there only one mouse or more? I had similar issues with another distribution that had configured no less than three mice; this led to a large number of dead menu items under Gnome and crashes in KDE. Other than that, I wouldn't know what could be responsible for your problems.

As for installs taking several attempts, that's something I'm familiar with from the previous version of Suse and the current one of Debian. I had to try four of five times, but once installed, they run without a hitch. No such issues with the latest release of Suse, though, which makes me assume it is somehow bug-related.

VMware may be incompatible with any fancy 3D effects; I noticed they even recommend to turn off any screensavers as these may have undesired effects.

Btw, I'm using C2D6600, ASUS P5B, 2GB Corsair DDR-800, 3x250GB WD SATA II, ATI 1600. Running Mandriva Cooker, PCLInuxOS 2007, Debian Etch, Suse 10.2, Sabayon and Fedora 6. No (serious) problems so far.

Oh, yeah...thanks for bringing up the xorg.conf. Forgot to mention that I have something weird happening there too, but I've no idea what's causing it:

Section "Monitor"

# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Acer AL2002W"
HorizSync 31.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Acer AL2002W"
HorizSync 31.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

See all those commented lines? There's only supposed to be one in each "monitor" section; I'll get rid of all of them (they're comments so it doesn't matter), and after awhile I'll start having problems...once restarted, my xorg.conf has these commented lines duplicated a bunch of times. This happens with either the Livna version or proprietary Nvidia drivers. Related?
As far as the mouse thing goes it's only listing the one as a generic mouse (it is, in fact, a Logitech USB trackball).
I had a hunch a while back that the whole thing was X-related regardless of the initial cause; if it was something else it would either affect only one app (not serious), or it would reboot the machine (very serious and most likely hardware-related).
Jay73, you say you're used to Linux installs having to be done a few times before they work? I didn't have that problem ONCE until FC6 (its temperament with certain newer hardware is well-documented). Then I put this C2D machine together and all hell broke loose. FWIW, the VMware install has its own set of issues, but doesn't appear to be a cause of the main problems I'm having, as they occur before I even (re)install VMware. For that matter, they happen before I install the Nvidia drivers (I tested that first). So far I've tried:
FC6 (surprisingly, the one most likely to install and be useable)
FC5 (you can imagine where that went)
Zenwalk (less likely to install successfully, different set of problems entirely)
DesktopBSD (won't install)
PCLinuxOS (both the 0.93a and 2007 TR2 have about a 1-in-10 chance of installing successfully, and each has things that won't work when they do)
Kubuntu 6.10 (random crashes)

I even tried Winblows XP in a fit of frustration and it wouldn't even start Setup.

I've tried different burn rates, different media, 4 different optical drives (both SATA and IDE), 2 different hard drives (SATA and IDE), switched cables...something keeps nagging at me that it's the install getting corrupted for each one of these, and/or something's not making it from the disc to the hard drive.

This sounds more like a hardware problem to me. My best advice would be to individually try each component (including the PSU) in the problem system in a known good system. If the component(s) work properly in the known good system you can eliminate hardware problems slowly but surely.

You're right, and that's the first line of defense when it comes to testing a possible hardware issue. However, as I said both the board and video cards were replaced, and I tried different optical drives on both this and another known good machine (I'm limited in actually trying the video cards on another machine as I currently don't know anyone who's running a PCI-e board). The PSU tests good.
FWIW, The current install is the most stable I've gotten it yet; I have only X crashing now, and then only rarely. Come to find out that a number of ppl are having Firefox crash on them regularly (don't know how I missed this in all the thread research I've done) so apparently that's unrelated Nothing else ATM is giving me any problems so I think until this current install starts behaving seriously badly, I'll just keep this afloat until F7 comes out; it appears that the odd-numbered Fedora releases are the most stable for some reason and FC6 wasn't really meant to fix anything...FC5 was, in my experience (until they went to the 2.6.18-1.2200-series kernels anyway) the most stable OS I've ever run in my life; funny how a perpetually bleeding-edge distro can end up being the most stable in this case-

I don't know I've gotten Slackware to run well on hardware similar to that in your signature. Although I did have to compile a 2.6.x kernel.

dx0r515t, which kernel did you use? I got a copy of Zenwalk, was really intrigued by it, but figured out that I'd need at least a 2.6.19 kernel for everything to work (the current 4.2 has 2.6.18.something), and even then optioning the kernel build would be a nightmare. Zen and Vector both look like what I'd be interested in; I'm gonna look into Vector this week and see what it can do for me-

I used kernel 2.6.20. However try it with the latest kernel if your going to give it a shot. Since you have two gigs of RAM when your going through the kernel options be sure to include large memory support.

Also if you need 3D rendering be sure to install the NVIDIA Linux driver.

Got Zenwalk 4.4.1 Yesterday, with the 2.6.20 kernel....24 hours going and it's all good, no hardware changes.
I'm going to laugh my a$$ off if all this headache was about the kernel not being mature enough for the hardware-