Re: Linux Sudden Death Syndrome?

Christopher Gori (cgori@isengard.stanford.edu)
Wed, 4 Oct 1995 15:00:46 -0700 (PDT)

> > root@sasami.anime.net writes:
> > > Has anyone had experience with the "Linux Sudden Death Syndrome?"
> > Have you replaced the memory?
>
> Yup. Went through several SIMMs. Just about the only thing we *haven't*
> replaced is the hard drive. However there are several local Linux ISPs
> which have the *exact same* problem, on completely different hardware and
> motherboard, etc. and they have also gone through motherboards, cards, etc.
> so I don't think it's the hardware config -- I definitely think it's in
> the kernel.
>
> If someone can't find the cause of the problem, I'm afraid we'll have to
> ditch Linux and go with FreeBSD. Pity, coz otherwise Linux is very nice.

I find this very unlikely. Do you realize how many people are using
Linux at this point without experiencing the kind of crashes you are
talking about? That's got to be a rather large number. (100,000?,
that's me being conservative)

I used to work for VA Research, one of the companies that advertises
in Linux Journal building linux boxes. We built bunches of systems
and the #1 reason for a machine not to work was flaky simms. You can
get batch after batch of flaky SIMMSs, or motherboards that have bad
memory hierarchy problems. (We stopped carrying one laptop company
because 75% of their machines had architectural problems with more
than 16 meg of memory) Motherboards were probably #2. Linux exposes
design flaws in systems that work perfectly well in DOS/Windows.

I suggest you continue to examine your hardware -- it's most
likely that.

-Chris Gori
cgori@isengard.stanford.edu
cgori@leland.stanford.edu