[Tfug] Persistent Linux and X Crashes. How to track down?

[Christopher Robbins]

Chad -

Can you post/give us a copy of /var/log/messages and /var/log/warn?
Hopefully this will lead us somewhere; it's at least a start...

-Chris

 started running Linux as my main desktop machine about a year ago
> (I'm a software developer who works at home, and this is my work
> machine).
>
> It's a custom build box, with an intel motherboard, 4 Gig Geil RAM,
> and samsung drives with software RAID 1.
>
> The problem is I keep having persistent OS crashes/lockups.  I
> originally had Redhat + an ASUS mobo, and it was unusable.  Now that
> I'm on Ubuntu and an Intel MOBO, they are less frequent.  I've also
> swapped out the RAM multiple times, 2 gig at a time.  That had no
> effect either, I've still had crashes with multiple combinations of
> ram sticks.
>
> Lately, the crashes are not as bad.  Sometimes I can still SSH, but
> can't restart X (using /etc/init.d/xorg-common, is that right?).
> Sometimes I can ping but not SSH.  Usually I just end up hitting the
> reset button (which Ubuntu handles MUCH better than Redhat)
>
> On the most recent one, I could SSH but not start X.  The xorg log
> said nothing more informative than "a crash happened".  I didn't know
> what other logs to look in.
>
> Any ideas?  I would think that linux should be more stable, but it
> actually seems to crash as much or more than windows, in my particular
> case.  I'm sure I'm just not a L33t enough guru.  I guess my next
> steps are to research how I can restart X if I still have SSH access,
> but I haven't gotten around to that (reset is much quicker), and
> sometimes I still can't even ssh or ping.
>
> Does this sound like hardware or software to you?  It's frustrating as
> I have to depend on this box for my daily work, and I always have to
> get up early so I have time to reboot if required before the standup
> :)
>
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-- 
Chris Robbins
Dept. of English Technical Support
http://www.homerengineeringcorp.net