tracking down linux lockups
 

Hello, some time ago while using Debian testing, I was experiencing intermittent lockups of my PC. I switched to vanilla Mandrake 10, and the problem went away. Now (having learned nothing) I'm using Mandrake Cooker, and I'm getting lockups again. I *could* reinstall Mandrake (probably no more than 2 hours, including setting up all my software); however, I'd prefer to track this down. How would I go about doing so?

(Please refer to the following threads, describing the debugging I've done so far on it.)

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=179509

http://forum.libranet.com/viewtopic....717&highlight=

http://forum.libranet.com/viewtopic....345&highlight=

It is possible to get a kernel panic that locks up the system before a message can be written to the log file. If you set up your system to use a serial console, and hook a second system to the serial port using a program like minicom, you can sometimes catch kernel messages that don't manage to get written to the log file when the kernel panics.

Look for the file serial-console.txt on your system for documentation on how to do this. A kernel recompile may be necessary to enable this capability.

It can be hard to track down sometimes.. ie I had a lockup where artsd was interfering with apps I'd installed and there were no real good clues. Since I disabled artsd it's been good tho :) I had nothing show up in any logs, etc...