LinuxQuestions.org - Linux becoming unstable?

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- - Linux becoming unstable? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/linux-becoming-unstable-324924/)

Quote:

Originally posted by pingu
I'm a bit puzzled now - So far one has had problems, most replies "rock stable". And my 3 computers dies in average at least once a day! It used to be once a year...
I'm happy to hear that it isn't Linux - could be KDE of course, but then crashes occur with no X running too, or using IceWm.

Now I have to do some serious thinking.
Can it be hardware, when all three computers behave the same? Hardly unlikely.
Problems with patched kernels? In every distro I try, but no problem for other people? I don't believe it.

I'm beginning to believe it has to be related to some program I'm using, thus always installing it. But a program shouldn't kill the system?
Only thing I know can kill the system completely is hardware, like Genesee suggests - but then again, on 3 different computers???

Hmmm....
What do they have in common? The mouse. That's all - Fujitsu wheel-mouse, standard protocoll.
And I also use Midnight Commander, always a few terminals open with mc running - earlier mc has crashed sometimes but never took system with it.
On the other hand, I remember a few times: a fresh installed distro, starting X resulted in no mouse or keyboard. This was caused by an incorrect mouse-config in XF86config. So maybe computer isn't dead, only mouse & keyboard! I have to investigate this.
I can use mouse in text-console today, don't think I had that before? Well, it's pretty handy to copy a commandline but that's all I use it for. Maybe I'll start with disabling that, hopefully the text-driver is easily found. ( gpm?)

speel: You also have several crashes. Maybe we should compare our systems and programs, see if we can find something in common.
To start with, you're running Ubuntu, did you install mc? Can you use the mouse in text-terminal?

And SciYro, thanks for the udev-explanation. Good to know there is a reason, and problems will surely be fixed.

well i dont have ubuntu installed right now i have slackware and yep i get random program crashes with that also and the mouse in the terminal i have that disabled and my computer specs are as follows

amd athlon 2000+
512 ram
nvidia geforce 4 mx 440

hmm anything else you might want to know?

my machine with lfs6 simply never crashes and i mean not ever not at all and is perfectly stable and fairly modern and up to date so i think you problem is with the way the distributions are put together and not with the software itself.

Linux is not becoming unstable in any way
if you have a broblem with something being unstable just fix it !

Being a long term Linux user, I disagree with the initial post. I think Linux has become a lot more stable and useable over the years. I have not experienced a system crash in the last few years and most problems I have had were minor or caused by myself tinkering. This is in contrast to 6/7 years ago when just installing it was hit and miss. Once the installation was complete you were not guaranteed that you could boot into a gui anyway because configuring X was a chore that could take you several hours because the configuration tools weren't as good as they are now.

The OS has evolved into something than non techies can easily install and run (well depending on the distro) but it still remains a powerful os for the techies or geeks out there, which I think is a good thing. Other points I wished to mention have already been covered by other posts, paticualarly the issue regarding kernel 2.6. I think its really made a difference in hardware support and brought a lot of features to Linux that were not available just a short while ago.

I run 3 boxes from a single office. 2 Debian Sarge and 1 Debian Woody (Internet server). I have never had a system crash as a result of software. Server crashed a few weeks ago when the power supply failed. The only software issues I have had in the last year relate to Mozilla crashing with mpegs.
Do you run 3 computers and ancillary devices, like printers etc off a single power point? Given that most boxes are drawing up to 500W this can have a significant affect on the power available via a power source. I don't think this is a software issue.

You should check the HCL (Hardware Compatibily List - you can find it on here) maybe you just have some compatibily issue that is causing the problem. I've been using linux for a year or so on a computer from 2001 and haven't had any serious problems. Once i couldn't start it up but that was because my uncle only gave me a small partiton when he installed it for me to try it out and some log tried writing a file and there was no more space to do so. (that is why many people have /var on a seperate partition) And right now i don't have sound working but that is because i tried compiling a custom kernel not entirely knowing what i was doing.

So I'm convinced - really happy to know I was wrong, I don't want to see Linux go down the drain!

I don't really believe it's faulty/unsupported hardware, and not power supply - that would affect other computers as well.

Maybe it is related to a few programs, to start with I've found that KDE's desktop-sharing is not reliable, using vncserver instead.
I also disabled 'gpm', will take a day or two to see the effect. Since noone except speel has had any problems, it has to be something all 3 'puters have in common. I really believe it has to do with mouse or keyboard, next crash I'll ssh to it to see if it's alive.

So, I'll just have to wait & see, at least now I know the problems can be fixed.

speel: Your computer is entirely different from mine, also you don't use gpm.
Hmmmm...
But you say

Quote:

random program crashes

does that mean your system doesn't hang, only programs?