Hi folks, I have parabola linux (32 bit, openrc), and my system is freezing a lot.

It freezes randomly in shell, and freezes any time I try to go into a graphical enviornment.
When I starx I get a cursor over a black background; cursor responds to input for a short period and then my entire system freezes. I have DWM installed.

How can I check my logs? When I try journalctl as root I get a bash error telling me it doesn't recognize the command.

For those unfamiliar, parabola is arch based, so if you have any relevant information based on experience with arch, then I would appreciate it.

Should I investiagte this as a hardware or software issue? I have an older computer with low ram (like 3gb I think).

Distrowatch shows Parabola has no systemd version. Journalctl is a systemd logger. Does your installation use systemd? If not, you almost certainly don't have a journalctl command, so will have to use whatever logs show up in /var/log/, and dmesg. Xorg.0.log should be there, but it only applies if X is or has run, and may not be there if Gnome or a derivative of it is your DE and/or WM.

Old PCs often run into trouble with failing RAM. Run memtest86 or memtest86+ for several hours, overnight if necessary, to ensure a RAM problem isn't responsible for the freezes. If a stick tests bad, pull out all but one at a time to retest and isolate which has the problem, assuming only one has a problem, as there could be more than one bad one. Sometimes reseating RAM is enough to solve a RAM problem.

Freezes in genuinely old PCs (15 or more years and/or 32 bit) often also result from bad electrolytic capacitors on motherboard and/or in power supply. Visit badcaps.net and Wikipedia to get the story on, and what can be done about, bad caps. Power supply caps can often be DIY changed relatively easily, while motherboard caps are typically more difficult to those not highly experienced with a soldering station and lead-free solder removal. On a PC seriously old with bad caps, it's usually a poor investment to try to repair, unless you have ready access to usable power supplies at low or no cost, which usually are rather generic and swapable.

Boot some live media other that Parabola to narrow down whether it's a problem specific to it, or more likely a hardware problem.

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Thanks, I’ll investigate from here!
There is an option for a systemd Parabola install, but I chose OpenRC instead. No particular reason, just wanted to try it. I wasn’t aware journalctl was a systemd thing.

It is possible this is ram issue, because now that I think about it I had to take out and reseat the ram when I first got this computer (a T60 thinkpad) because it would not boot. I also don’t have a good battery so I can only use this computer plugged into the wall, in case that may be related. I’ll take the battery out and leave it plugged in, see what it does.