Yesterday, my Linux PC started running very slowly after I loaded aMSN. The hard drive started working and continued to thrash for 45 minutes until I turned the power off. At first I was able to switch to a Konsole window that I already had open and used the top command and discovered that wish and X were both operating at about 20% CPU but nothing else seemed to be using much. After a few minutes, I was unable to switch between programs and was unable to issue any commands in Konsole. I used control+alt+f1 to get to a terminal login prompt but it took over 1 minute to bring up the prompt. I tried to login but it kept timing out and wouldn't even let me enter my password. I finally had to turn off the machine. Today, everything seems to be working fine.

Here are some more details:
--Red Hat 9 on a P2-350 with 300MB RAM
--the system had been up about a week without a reboot
--programs running included Mozilla, Evolution, Konsole, and aMSN
--desktop is KDE

Do you have any ideas on what might have caused this? Are there any log files that could provide some insight on what went wrong?

I looked at some of the files in /var/log but couldn't find anything helpful.

personally just given your info, my first guess would be that you have too much of a load in comparison to what your system specs are ....
i know if i was running a p2-350, the first thing i would ditch is KDE, cause as we know its a hog (on slower machines that is)..

i am sure you'll get other suggestions, but just to start you off i would suggest you try a lightweight window manager such as fluxbox ...

My system doesn't exactly run quickly but is does work. Prior to the crash, all the applications I mentioned above had been running for over a week. With Evolution, Mozilla, and Konsole running on KDE, the top command says my CPU is 90-97% idle. I don't think that this explains the crash.

I installed fluxbox a couple of weeks ago. After using it a bit, I missed the "start" button and went back to KDE. I should probably run flux a bit more to get used to it but I must admit that I do like the feel of KDE even though I wish it ran quicker.

try xfce-4. you may not miss kde.

h/w,

What window manager do you use?

Sounds like a memory leak.

It shouldn't happen regardless of whether or not you run KDE. And your hardware isn't that deficient IMO, I've used slower hardware with similarly modern apps without any real problems.

Next time in top, hit shift-M to sort by memory usage in descending order (warning, deceptive results due to shared libraries and other factors) to get an idea of whether or not something's hogging massive unexplained amounts of memory.

Also run free just to see whether memory usage really is the problem.

In my experience Mozilla is most likely to blame here, but maybe I'm biased...

Assuming a memory leak is to blame and I am able to find the application causing the leak, will stopping the application "release" the memory?

http://cs1.cs.nyu.edu/~prm225/img/scrshot/

thats my xfce-4.

and to add to what snacky said, aMsn (the latest ver) does have some issues. i have seen it suddenly hang after peaking mem usage, but it doesnt crash my system.

You have quite an interesting desktop! How is you terminal window transparent and so colorful? What program do you use that graphically shows the system statistics?

BTW...I am currently running xfce-4 and I like it. It is much nicer than Fluxbox (at least easier to configure). Is there a way to put lauchers into a hierarchy like KDE does with the "button" so I can have groupings of programs?

I use XFce 4 too and I've noticed less memory being used. This window manager rocks!

window xparency - it's part of the options for the terminal. im using gnome-terminal and Eterm(for the system messages at the bottom) in that. you can either pass the args when u start it, or do it from the menubar options.
i dont know which one u talkin bout @ system stats.

as for groupings, as u saw, i have my messengers in one group, my office suite in another, multimedia in another ... like gnome/kde. right-click, add.

OK Thanks! By system stats I meant the program running on the right side with all the meters showing memory, CPU, etc.

ahh, thats gkrellm.