Haines Brown said on Sat, 31 Jul 2021 21:54:56 -0400

>Sorry for the ambivalent subject line.
>
>I'm running Beowulf with Fluxbox window manager but without a desktop
>environment. Without knowing what might have triggered it, I find it
>laborious to start some applications from CLI. What happens is that
>I get a hang (little spiral rotates) until I kill the process with
>Crtl-g and try again.

Do you mean Ctrl-c ? I've never heard of ctrl-g killing commands.

[snip other weird intermittent symptoms]

I'd start by collecting data:

df -h >> data.txt
vmstat -S M >> data.txt

The first command finds any mostly-full partitions. The second command
finds if you've run out of real RAM.

Also, run the htop command to see whether you're maxing out your CPUs.


If nothing pops out at you, I'd try power cycling the computer, leaving
it powered down for 30 seconds before restarting. A lot of times such a
move cures the problem, at least until events happen that bring it back.


If none of this works, run a program that can check your drives for
problems. And memory test your machine with one of those boot-up memory
tests. If these show no problems, run the same programs from a live CD
and see if they occur. If they do, you have a hardware problem. If not,
you probably have a software problem.

Before I go farther, try the stuff I've mentioned.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques