total freeze - 2.0.23/2.0.24/2.0.25

Paul Dunne (paul@tiny1.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 20 Nov 1996 18:40:52 +0000


> If you are connecting to a linux box over a lan without an NFS, you must
> have all computers that will be connecting to it listed in /etc/hosts.
> Otherwise your box will stupidly dilly dally around for a minute waiting
> for the NFS to respond or something. This may only happen if eth0 is your
> default route, I'm not sure. Add them to /etc/hosts and see if the delay
> goes away.

Yes, it did! Why the bloody hell does that happen? I specifically
didn't put the local network host in /etc/hosts because I'm running
a local named for the network.

> > This test did not yield the expected results; the crashing continued.
> > I have now reverted to 2.0.23, which is very stable on my machine;
> > but before I did so, I noticed an interesting thing. When using my
> > terminal, I could not keep the machine up more than a few hours at
> > most; however, if I left the terminal switched off, and used only the
> > console, I went a whole day (!) without a crash. So, some problem
> > with the serial driver, maybe? I'm no kernel hacker; but there does
> > seem to be a kernel problem here.
>
> That could just be a coincidence. I've "fixed" programs to have them
> magically work for a week but then crash again from the exact same
> problem.
>

Yes, I take your point; but I haven't been doing any programming.
I had a stable kernel - 2.0.23, max. 14 days uptime before I shut it
down - then I did several things: patched to 2.0.24 and then 2.0.25,
added the local network, and stuck on the terminal. Hey, presto!
Unstable machine, prone to freezing. I notice I say "crash" in my
previous message; but what actually happens is a total freeze: no
disk activity, dead keyboard, can't log in from the terminal or the
network, the works. This must surely be a kernel problem?

Paul

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