[plug] Fwd: Mandrake 9.0 to 9.1 upgrade

[Craig Ringer]

> I've had both symptoms - blinking keyboard LEDs under kmail deleting email and 
> freeze-reset under (I'm not sure now) Open Office and/or Gimp? I'm not good 
> at keeping records - just sigh, reset and reboot!

Well, then I'll have to give you the stock-standard "you're going to 
hate this" answer - the problems you're seeing indicate possible 
hardware issues. Make sure your CPU fan is working properly, that your 
case is well ventilated, that your power supply isn't crap, etc. If 
you've added any memory recently, perhaps your mobo doesn't like it.

It's hard to track down hardware faults. I tend to try to get a little 
debug info (see if I can capture log msgs or a kernel panic, usually via 
a null modem cable and serial console) first. Honestly, I've /never/ had 
Linux kernel panic regularly without a hardware fault or very-pre-alpha 
harware driver (rarely even then). I've only had an apparent hard crash 
when a disk was failing and I was running X - the machine would just 
stop responding and you couldn't switch out of X. I've had this happen 
rather too often actually, but seem to have successfully identified and 
purged all my dying HDDs now.

Craig Ringer