Re: System lockups in linux prevent productive work.

Hi Greg,

> i) On one box (Aptiva Netvista 2.8 GHz, 512 MB RAM)

I'm inclined to agree with Daryll that you probably don't have enough 
RAM for the task you are attempting.

> a box where I once 
> in my foggy recollection saw a MEMTEST failure

I'd recommend that you download the bootable iso from:

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Sometimes RAM is good enough to boot the machine and run everyday tasks 
adequately, but it will throw out weird errors under heavy loads, such 
as compiling apps or rendering. Memtest should pick up any subtle problems.

> I am willing to switch distros (again-- I do it about every two weeks) 
> if anyone can assure me that they had hardware that was prone to this 
> type of problem and another distro fixed it.

It could also be an application or kernel bug which is not 
distro-specific. You're welcome to try 64 Studio - please let me know 
how you get on with it: http://64studio.com/

>  My unnegotiable 
> principles for the distro are:
> i)   atheros wifi driver built in.

http://www.marlow.dk/site.php/tech/madwifi

> ii)  Rapid, smooth USB connection

We've never had any problems on that front.

> iii)  povray and blender (v>2.3) installable form a pacakge management 
> system of some level.

We include blender and yafray, but povray is available direct from 
Debian via apt.

> v)  live CD.

We don't have one of those at present, due to the performance hit, and 
the need to load/save large projects to HD anyway.

> iv)  Re-flash my bios.  (A person in my local LUG suggested this, and 
> I'm dubious, but if it were the solution, I'm going Vista).

If your BIOS is buggy, then switching to Vista won't help ;-)

Cheers!

Daniel

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