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On Wednesday 17 Sep 2003 9:14 am, Simon Waters wrote: > linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Are you sure you don't just want unstable? It is a lot more stable than > building your own Debian variant in my limited experience. The stability has become a non-issue as of tonight. I always suspected that the Advent is a no-good cheap pile of trash but after spending out on it, I wanted to give each option a try. It crashed regularly with Windows ME (not surprising), it also crashes with Linux. I get random F3, Q and 4 keystrokes, the mouse (trackpad or external PS/2) suddenly relocates to the upper right corner and executes more random commands (usually popping up all sorts of unnecessary dialogs) and then, worst of all, at random intervals the machine locks up entirely. Lockups don't happen in init level 1 or 2, only when X is running. I thought maybe it was the journalling as it seemed to pause intermittently with the Hd light on. It does it with Mandrake 8 through to 9, RedHat 7 and 8, SuSE 7.1 and now with Debian. I can put up with the random keystrokes (which occur in all init levels, including 1 and 2 in Mandrake and RedHat but not so far in Debian) but the lockups are just a mess. After discussions with Rick, I concentrate on picking up if it happens as a result of air flow problems, but it just locked up now in Debian whilst running on a perfectly flat and dustless desk. It had successfully rotated several images using Gimp then suddenly locked up when one of those random mouse problems cropped up during a rotate operation. (It also strangles KDE sounds if they last more than about 0.7seconds - it doesn't cut off, it really does sound like the soundcard is being mercilessly strangled.) I can't see any other reason other than the hardware itself is screwed. It's just locked up again. After a restart (which involves removing the mains lead AND battery as the buttons are unresponsive), the clock is out by as long as the lockup is allowed to continue. So I restart, login, let KDE finish startup, write a bit more of this email on a different machine and then just right-click the desktop. The menu comes up, I select Configure Desktop and it locks up. Because I'm testing it without journalling as well, I now get a fsck every time it boots. Great. > I certainly found that XFree86 dependencies are an issue for some > applications, probably not that surprising really. > > Simon, whose Debian boxes are all powered off at the moment. Just to make it clear, this isn't a problem with Debian or even with Linux. It's a problem with Advent machines. Sorry Gemma, I hope yours is put together better than mine! (You don't want two, do you?) If I replace it, I'll take Rick's advice and buy an Acer (or a Mac). -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.codehelp.co.uk http://www.dclug.org.uk http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3
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