Hello everyone!

This is my first post on this lovely forum, and I see everyone is friendly here .
So, now I wanna ask something

I'm pretty new to Linux, but not really, I have some experience, as my father is a sysadmin in one of the major ISP companies in Estonia, so I know whats it all about, and I usually have someone to help me . But even though he is very experienced in *nixes (he knows much more in *nix than in M$) he is pretty weak in Linux as a Desktop OS(he ran XP, and NT before it on his home PC, but he is dual-booting FC2 and XP at the moment ). So the question I'm about to ask is not for him .

So, the question:
my distro, as you can see, is Debian (read: Knoppix HD-Install ), and I have a problem, not really a major one, but it just bugs me. Sometimes, when I run Firefox and some other apps, the PC just hangs, the mouse stops responding, the keyboard stops responding(can't do CTRL-ALT-F1 or CTRL-ALT-BKSPACE) and nothing happens on the screen. It's not really a prob, but it just is bugging me, and it will be a real prob if I'm gonna run some servers(and I will) later.

I'm expecting some tips .

Thanks in advance,

Teren

does it come back? or does it stay frozen? Does it only happen in X? Or has it happened in console as well?

Nope, it stays frozen.
Nope, doesn't happen in console.

What window manager are you using? Maybe try another and see if the problem still persists.

Heh, using KDE, don't really want to move to another one
But thanks for the help anyway

no problem. I was just saying you should try that to see if you can isolate the problem to being KDE related or XF86 as a whole.

for starters your going to want to make sure your kernel is compiled with preemption, which could mean having to recompile your kernel. If your using a 2.6 kernel then all you need to do is enable it in your .config and recompile, if your using a 2.4 kernel then you need to "apt-get install kernel-patch-2.4-preempt kernel-patch-2.4-lowlatency" and then recompile your kernel for support for those.. Read the kernel compilation guide on newbiedoc for more information on compiling your own kernel.

Next you can try enabling DMA (if it isnt already) on your drives. "apt-get install hdparm" and try looking around on the forums for more information on how to use it.

Next time try to provide more information.. Your knoppix-hd-install was a good start, but more information on your computer and kernel would be more helpful..

zuralin, thanks for your ideas, I'll try them when I can.
And some other info: running kernel 2.4.26 (iirc), and my computer is in my sig
DMA, yes, I have it.
I was planning to migrate to 2.6 anyway


Teren

Looking at your system specs, can I assume that you are using Nvidia's binary display drivers? If you are then this is your problem. I've seen this happen on quite a few systems using nvidia's drivers (not all, but it's definitely a problem). The only way to fix it (at least until Nvidia does) is to not use the binary driver. The "nv" driver is rock solid with the drawback that there's no 3D accel.

Wandering_Dru, i've always used the nvidia drivers and never had a problem with them. i know you said that not all systems have a problem with these drivers but i have used the last two versions of the linux ia32 drivers from nvidia on more than one machine and with more than one type of nvidia chip set.

Teren - if you are not using the nvidia drivers, you might consider installing them. Wandering_Dru is correct in that the nv driver is solid but also very basic. maybe what you need is a newer updated driver

anyway, back to the problem. if you use a shortcut to start firefox, right click on the icon and go to properties and click the application tab and then click the advanced options button. there is a checkbox under the startup section that says enable launch feedback. try clearing this checkbox for any app that gives you the problem.

if that doesnt work try your screen resolution or color depth, both of which can be set in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file