[PLUG] Rebuilt System Still Not Right

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Wed Mar 29 14:52:32 UTC 2006


   I would like some thoughts on what could be wrong with my newly-built
composite system. There are still unresolved issues of system lockups and
segmentation faults that are new experiences for me and beyond my expertise.

   The past two mornings, just after logging in and starting X, the system has
locked up solidly while loading Xfce. Yesterday it was after the root window
wallpaper loaded; today at the next step, after the panel loaded. In both
cases I had to do a hardware reset, and then X started just fine.

   Thinking to eliminate one possibility, I just downloaded the xfce-4.2.3.2
tarball so I could rebuild from source and see if that makes a difference.
Trying to check free drive space in the various partitions, I get a
segmentation fault from 'df -h' or just 'df.' How strange!

   I thought that a seg fault was a bad data structure or pointer that crossed
a code boundary in the ia86 processor/memory architecture. Despite the 2.2M
hits Google returned, all I saw were reports of the occurrence of a
segmentation fault, not a confirmation of just what it is, and what causes
them.

   This sudden lack of stability with a new motherboard, memory that tests
good, and the same hard drive that worked flawlessly in the old
workstation/server is distracting and bothersome. If anyone has ideas on what
the problem might be, ways to test for the problem source, or practical
solutions, I would like to learn from your greater expertise and experience.

TIA,

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.             |  Quantifying subjectivity for the
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM)  |  benefit of business and society.
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863



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