Doing "make" command makes system freeze
 

Hi!
I was trying to install GIMP from sources the other day but could not get past "make" step. When I did "make" it worked for about 20 mins and then the PC just froze. I am running Mandrake 9.1; 256M DDR; Pentium Celeron 2GHz. I rebooted and tried again - the same thing occured.
Then I tried to "make" wine and it froze again. Sometimes it just freezes or kernel panic occurs.
Any help is much appreciated!

PS: How long should it take to "make" GIMP on a PC like mine ?

Thanks!!!

Your computer freezing is a sign of a serious problem while running Linux. Are you sure it is truly frozen? Have you tried switching to another terminal ie: [ctrl]+[alt]+[F1] to [F6] ?

It may be just one process that is hanging. Does it only hang while compiling software? Are you using the stock Mandrake kernel or a custom one? Crashing Linux using a stock kernel is almost unheardof on a system as fast as yours.

No, nothing helps. It becomes frozen completely, sometimes Caps Lock and Scroll Lock are flashing - i guess this is what is called *kernel panic*.
Basically, the only choice is to Reset the PC.

- It only hangs when I try to compile.
- I am using native Mandrake 9.1 kernel w/o any patches or security updates.

Just how long GIMP or wine should compile, do you know?

Well, did you try? :)

sorry, yes i did but the keyword would not work at all

??? keyword ???

Which one? What did you type? You realize that you do have to log in (at least under F2-F6)?

ahh... it was *keyboard* , not keyword, sorry!!!

the pointer stops, mouse does not work, keyboard either,
i tried [ctrl]+[alt]+[F1] to [F6] , killing X server, etc. but no use

Okay, understood.

Why don't you check the free space of the partition(s) you use for source, object, log and temp files during compilation? Any partition with less than 100 MB or 5% free space left could be dangerous for a big packet like GIMP and here 100 MB is a lower side guess.

This thought crossed my mind, but it unlikely that this is the case here since I have 17G for my root partition, and 1G for swap. I don't have any other partitions. I have about 14G of free space on the root partition.

Again, it is not only GIMP. It froze when I tried to *make* wine too. And wine is not that big.

Are there any logs that could give me a hint what is wrong?

I'm out of my depth, here. You will have to wait for an a reader who is experienced with this, I am experimenting still, myself.

Why don't you look for *.log files on your system, sorted by date and time? You know when you tried to compile, so then is where to look ... ;).

The make hanging is a serious sign of RAM trouble. IMO just download a memory manager or RAM doctor and just check out your RAM.

Thanks ALL,
i somehow managed to *make* it, however, it did not install anyways because of various dependences. So, to solve it all I download rpm from Mandrake Cooker and it all worked.

Congratulations. But what did you do exactly to get the make utility up and running??

Jees! If I only knew... Maybe my PC had a bad hair day... I did not do anything! I will run *make* again on something when I have time to double check it.

If you ever find out, please post the reason(s) here, we all want to learn ... :D