Ubuntu Stability

[Vincent Trouilliez]

Update: have been quiet about this for a week or so. I was busy trying
things out and testing them.

I am glad, well, overjoyed, to say that I "may" have found the problem.

I have removed lots of components from my machine to try to figure
things out, and it would still crash.

CPU was fine, RAM passed the tests too. However, I have never been quite
sure if I inserted them correctly in the motherboard.
I have recently upgraded the RAM and now have 2 sticks of 256MB each.
There are 3 slots on the board, and they are NOT equal. The motherboard
manual gives a few pages of explanations on how to set things up for
various configurations, but still, things to do for my particular case
didn't seem obvious. Worse, the French part of the manual was
contradicting the English translation big time, as badly as "A+B=C" then
"A+B=Z"...., so I really had no clue what to do.
So just to give it a try, I moved one of the modules into the remaining
empty slot. 

A few days later, Ubuntu has yet to crash once. GDM and X don't restart
or freeze anymore at random. Even things that seemed unrelated, have
cured by themselves, like Evolution that kept crashing when pasting some
text from a Terminal window into the composing window. I tried that 50
times, but it's hasn't crashed once. Same for Rhythmbox who used to
freeze almost everytime I use the control buttons or seek bar !
It used to disappear/seg-fault often too, not anymore!
Even X-plane, that would hard lock or seg-fault pretty much everytime I
start it, runs perfectly now, not a single problem to report.

I have yet to put my SCSI card back with the scanner and CD burner that
go with it, and also the parallel port external ZIP drive, but I think I
will be okay, as before shuffling the RAM modules, system would crash
regardless of what SCSI card or periphral I had installed.

So basically my Ubuntu works like a charm now, plays my favorite 3D
game, runs the Nvidia driver without problems, Evolution doesn't crash
anymore, it's all rock solid and confidence inspiring. 
The only worries I have left is XMMS that doesn't want to start, and the
terminal that crashed once. But that's about it. It's light years more
confidence inspiring and enjoyable than before. I am now really starting
to enjoy Linux, it rocks ! :o)
So, next time I buy a motherboard, I will download the user manual
first, to see if the chapter about RAM upgrades is clear or not... ;o)

Well I just had to share my joy, and hopefully that will help others
with stability problems, to keep the faith... it can be cured !

Thanks to all who helped about it


Vince, very happy bunny now.