Ubuntu

why does ubuntu lucid hanging with more data on my hdd

Asked by ajmal_82

it seems unusual but true that when in installed ubuntu on my friends pc Lucid 10.4 with 160gb harddisk with full data and some viruses(sorry) in it ubuntu went thrice unresponsive or call it hanging,this kind of problem is only known to windows users but when i found it in linux it looked me as a bizzare incidence does it happen and what are the precautions should i take to make my system(friends PC) more responsive,thanks

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#1

> went thrice unresponsive or call it hanging

Without detailed sys info lets throw darts.
e.g.
Graphic card/driver
Not much space left on disk
Flash or Xorg race CPU
listing uncompleted.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Video
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoverLostDiskSpace
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/Flash
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/HighCPU

Run MEM test via boot menu.
Run SMART test via disk utility (system administration).

Review log files.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LinuxLogFiles
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/Security-HOWTO/#logs

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ajmal_82 (ajmal-82) said : 		#2

thanks but how can i see log files or run tests when system hangs? ahaha

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

System check and review of log files can be done via LiveCD.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery

After reboot previous log files (/var/log) can be reviewed, by searching the regarding time within the log file, when issue occured.
e.g.
dmesg.0, kern.log.1, syslog.1, Xorg.0.log.old

Or by switching to tty (virtual console text mode only).
CTRL+ALT+F1 (session)
CTRL+ALT+F2 bis F6 (free tty)
CTRL+ALT+F7 (GUI)

e.g. on tty a file can be opened with nano:
nano /var/log/syslog.1
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Nano

or reading directly in terminal:
less /var/log/syslog.1

## page-up, page-down, close with key 'Q'

To reboot in console:
reboot

In case of total freeze.
Instead of hardreset one should use MagicSysRq.
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-use-magic-system-request-keys-in-ubuntu-linux.html

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#4

Sorry, this incl. a german word CTRL+ALT+F2 bis F6 (free tty)
engl.
CTRL+ALT+F2 to F6 (free tty)

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