[Tfug] Persistent Linux and X Crashes. How to track down?

[Chad Woolley]

I started running Linux as my main desktop machine about a year ago
(I'm a software developer who works at home, and this is my work
machine).

It's a custom build box, with an intel motherboard, 4 Gig Geil RAM,
and samsung drives with software RAID 1.

The problem is I keep having persistent OS crashes/lockups.  I
originally had Redhat + an ASUS mobo, and it was unusable.  Now that
I'm on Ubuntu and an Intel MOBO, they are less frequent.  I've also
swapped out the RAM multiple times, 2 gig at a time.  That had no
effect either, I've still had crashes with multiple combinations of
ram sticks.

Lately, the crashes are not as bad.  Sometimes I can still SSH, but
can't restart X (using /etc/init.d/xorg-common, is that right?).
Sometimes I can ping but not SSH.  Usually I just end up hitting the
reset button (which Ubuntu handles MUCH better than Redhat)

On the most recent one, I could SSH but not start X.  The xorg log
said nothing more informative than "a crash happened".  I didn't know
what other logs to look in.

Any ideas?  I would think that linux should be more stable, but it
actually seems to crash as much or more than windows, in my particular
case.  I'm sure I'm just not a L33t enough guru.  I guess my next
steps are to research how I can restart X if I still have SSH access,
but I haven't gotten around to that (reset is much quicker), and
sometimes I still can't even ssh or ping.

Does this sound like hardware or software to you?  It's frustrating as
I have to depend on this box for my daily work, and I always have to
get up early so I have time to reboot if required before the standup
:)