On 02.11.2017 10:10, Borden Rhodes wrote: > What kernel or other settings can I set to let me keep control of my > computer during a runaway process? Basically, how do I tell Linux to > keep just enough resources free so I can drop into a shell terminal > and figure out what's going wrong? > > In context, this evening my computer hung for 30 minutes. The hard > drive activity light went solid and it took about 10 minutes after > hitting CTRL + ALT + F1 for a bash shell to appear. It didn't matter > anyway, though, since the login process timed out if I attempted to > log in. > > Unfortunately, there's a 30-minute gap in journalctl, so I can forget > about figuring out what caused the hang or filing a bug report to the > maintainers' satisfaction. Therefore, I'm more interested in keeping > control of my computer in future. > > With thanks, > This sounds like hard drive problem. If your hdd hits bad block its firmware could stick in basically "re-read\try-to-recover\mark-as-bad-sector" loop for quite some time. This will hang your system, especially if this drive holds root partition. You can check if this the case with "smartctl" utility from "smartmontools" package. Information SMART table should provide answers. Also you can check surface of your hdd for bad sectors with tool from "badblocks" package. If that is not the case then post more information about your hardware and software setup.
-- With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀
