[techtalk] Kernel lockup

[Almut Behrens]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2001 at 10:40:06PM -0400, David Merrill wrote:
> Hi, I have a bit of a problem it seems. I installed the 2.4.7 kernel
> today, went out for a bit, and came home to a wedged machine.
> 
> It's a new machine -- about two weeks old. I was just starting to
> enjoy my new, nicely tuned Debian, but alas, it was not to last.
> The system looked fine when I first came home. I liked the groove xmms
> was putting out, so I went to rewind the song. I held down the left
> key, and bang! Tunes stop. All stop. ]-:

Hi David,

this is probably not going to be of much help technically -- more
kind of an attempt to express my sympathy for your misfortune :)

Considering the fact that your system is relatively new, I wouldn't
want to rule out hardware problems (e.g. RAM). Did the same system run
without problems with an older kernel?  Can you still boot your
previous kernel?  Does the machine repeatedly (or preferably) crash
when you are trying to use xmms?  It might be a bug in the sound
driver -- but it could also indicate a sound hardware problem...

If you're confident that it actually could be a kernel bug, consider
posting your problem to linux-kernel or somewhere else where the real
experts are assumed to be lurking ;)  Also, I'm sure you've already
checked the archives...

> 
> That's my new grumpy emoticon, (c) 2001. But it's encrypted, and if
> you decrypt it I'll sue you under the DMCA, take your money (hey! it's
> valuable ip!) and have you thrown in jail by the FBI.

(-;

(that'll probably suffice to sue me for implicit decryption attempts,
copyright, trademark or patent violations and whatever... I guess I
better get a new identity before I travel to the States next time ;(


> What can I do to get a core dump, etc., and investigate? If I've
> tripped up an obscure bug...

If you're feeling really adventurous you might want to check out the
stuff you'll find at:

  http://oss.missioncriticallinux.com/projects/mcore/
  http://oss.missioncriticallinux.com/projects/crash/
or
  http://oss.sgi.com/projects/lkcd/

I'll have to admit up front that I've never tried anything of this
myself...

Good luck, anyway :)

- Almut