Hi,
Thanks for your help. I've solved the problem, in a way that I didn't expect, so I'll post it here. It won't be too surprising to learn that it was a SUE (Stupid User Error).
I first checked the RH bugzilla link that mhearn suggested, but it didn't really seem to describe the problem I was having (I did have that problem occasionally with RH8). XMMS does seem to be involved with that, but it has also been reported from systems that weren't using it which is my situation.
In any case, the system logs ended up not helping me too much about the logout problem. Here is a sample listing of the sys-log when I would try to log out and the panel would hang:
At 8:32 I told it to logout, and at 8:35 opened an xterm and told it to reboot. It then goes through the reboot sequence properly.
Jul 9 08:31:11 localhost gdm(pam_unix)[904]: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jul 9 08:31:11 localhost gconfd (root-1141): starting (version 2.2.0), pid 1141 user 'root'
Jul 9 08:31:12 localhost gconfd (root-1141): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source at position 0
Jul 9 08:31:12 localhost gconfd (root-1141): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Jul 9 08:31:12 localhost gconfd (root-1141): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source at position 2
Jul 9 08:35:12 localhost shutdown: shutting down for system reboot
Just to note, I did wait to see if it would eventually logout. I let it sit over night last night to find it in the same place in the morning.
However, I was having another hang problem that was even worse (although I thought unrelated). Without warning some programs would just quit and lockup the X-session so that I would also have to reboot. For a while I thought this was because I chose to upgrade RH8 to RH9 rather than do a clean install and that something hadn't been upgraded correctly. Then, as per unSpawn's instructions, I checked the sys logs and this is what I found:
Jul 10 08:09:49 localhost gdm(pam_unix)[904]: session opened for user urbanotter by (uid=0)
Jul 10 08:09:50 localhost gconfd (urbanotter-996): starting (version 2.2.0), pid 996 user 'urbanotter'
Jul 10 08:09:50 localhost gconfd (urbanotter-996): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source at position 0
Jul 10 08:09:50 localhost gconfd (urbanotter-996): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/urbanotter/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Jul 10 08:09:50 localhost gconfd (urbanotter-996): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source at position 2
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost kernel: Via 686a/8233/8235 audio driver 1.9.1-ac2
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 4 for device 00:11.5
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost kernel: IRQ routing conflict for 00:11.5, have irq 9, want irq 4
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost kernel: via82cxxx: Six channel audio available
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost kernel: ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: ALG32 (ALC650)
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost kernel: via82cxxx: board #1 at 0xE000, IRQ 9
Jul 10 08:09:51 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-3
Jul 10 08:14:42 localhost login(pam_unix)[853]: session opened for user urbanotter by LOGIN(uid=0)
Jul 10 08:14:42 localhost -- urbanotter[853]: LOGIN ON tty1 BY urbanotter
Jul 10 08:14:45 localhost shutdown: shutting down for system reboot
So it was having trouble with the sound module. Here is where SUE comes in. When I upgraded to RH9 I remembered to re-install/upgrade the video driver, but forgot to do the same with the ALSA drivers. Ooops.
Just an aside for anyone with the same hardware, I had trouble making sense of the ALSA instructions for adding the "options" for the sound card in the /etc/modules.conf. I'm sure they make sense if you know more than me, but they didn't help me much. So, I used the option lines that I had used when I first installed the ALSA drivers in RH8 and they worked fine. Here they are:
options snd-via82xx index=0 id="VIA"
options snd major=116 cards_limit=1
I had gotten these from an example module.conf file I downloaded from ASUS. I don't know what they do, but putting them in there today took me from an unstable to a stable system. No more random crashes and I can logout of any account without any problems. Very happy.
Lastly, ALSA didn't give instructions (or else I missed them) on how to have your mixer settings saved rather than reset when the box is shutdown. I added these lines to the modules.conf to fix that:
post-install snd-via82xx /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
pre-remove snd-via82xx /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
I modified them from this posting:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/sound.../msg00007.html
Thanks for your help and suggestions. I hope this can help someone else in a similar boat.
All the best,
Brad