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A command which crash Linux each time


Guest Pham
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Hi,

 

The following command at the root directory crashes Linux each time (the screen is frozen, and I cannot do a thing):

find . -name "*XFree*" > /home/pham/toto

 

It crashes even if I'm not using graphical interface (so the problem is not XFree86 ans my video card, that was my first guess...).

 

How can I debug that ?

I don't find any line about it in the logs files...

 

My computer is :

Celeron 430 Mhz, 64 Mo RAM, ASUS P3BF motherboard, ATI All-In-Wonder video card, 20 Go on an IBM hard drive.

 

I've tested with memtest86 my RAM a whole night. Not a single problem.

And my computer isn't overclocked.

 

I noticed that just before the crash, the red line in the scope (under WindowMaker, at the bottom right) is sky rocketting for 5 sec. and after that falling down. 3 sec after the screen is frozen.

 

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

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Define "crashes the computer" please. Does this mean that you do not get the prompt back and you can't type in another command? Or does this mean that you can not wiggle the mouse and open a new program from the menu?

 

If it is the former, then your computer may not have crashed. The find command can take a long time to complete and if you are redirecting the output to a file then nothing will show up on the screen. The computer will simply sit there until the command completes. And this can take quite a while.

 

Try adding a & at the end of the command:

 

>find . -name "*XFree*" > /home/pham/toto &

 

This will put the command in the background to run until it is finished and allow you to do other things.

 

However, if crash means the later, then you have a real problem. Find is a regular command in Linux and should not cause your computer to crash.

 

Last thing, if you issue the command and nothing seems to be happening, try issueing the command ctrl-c. This will terminate the currently running command and restore control back to you. If this does not work, then you have other problems.

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Hi,

 

When I mean crash, I mean that the whole machine is frozen.

I couldn't do a thing (like Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Alt-F2), and the only way is to reboot manually.

 

Anyway It seems that I have found the bug : Finally !

 

The problem was with the second hard drive (I forgot to mention it...).

When it is disconnected, everything is working.

 

But I found it surprising because this is a standard IBM 80 Go hard drive with only FAT16 ans FAT32 partitions.

I've just tested it with Norton Disk Doctor with surface test, and not a single problem.

Someone told me to disable DMA in the BIOS, but I haven't got such things.

 

Any ideas ?

 

P.S. : I've just bought 256 Mo RAM, but the problem is still here...

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I have no idea what could be wrong.

 

The only thing I can suggest is trying to run the command as a normal user and instead of sending the output to a file, send it to the screen. This should allow you to better determine where the problem may lie. At the very least, you can tell if the command runs for a bit and then kills the computer, or if it kills it right away.

 

Do you have the other drive mounted in linux?

 

Hopefully someone else can be a little more help.

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