This has happened to me various times in Redhat 9 and RHEL4. Let's say I'm trying to open a file that I scanned to RHEL from a ftp service on a printer. The pdf file arrives in the ftp folder but I can't open it. I reset the permissions and try again. Nothing happens. After that I can't open any other apps in linux. Terminal, Network Services, etc.. Nothing opens except the File System browser. This has happened to me various times in numerous situations. I can't open the System Monitor to look at process either. Why does linux quit opening apps when I do various things?

Pretty good question. I'd suggest that next time you open a couple of xterms
before you try opening your PDF, maybe run top in one, and see what happens when
you open the PDF from the console, as well, e.g. by typing
xpdf /path/to/your.pdf

I've never had THAT problem, not even with RedHat ;}


Cheers,
Tink

Probably SELinux or PAM configuration is set too tight. It also be a quota problem. Though I could be wrong.