[Discuss] ugly problem

[jdm at moylan.us (dan moylan)]

steve litt writes:
> On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 12:35:00 -0400
> dan moylan <jdm at moylan.us wrote:

>> since yesterday i have been having irregular freezeups on my
>> computer.  for instance, today i was reading the nytimes via
>> chrome, and suddenly the mouse ceased to function, nor would
>> the touchpad on my keyboard.  the screen content remained
>> unchanged, the mouse pointer visible but stationary.
>> neither ctl-alt-del nor ctl-alt-f2 had any effect.  i
>> attempted to ssh in from another computer and got "no route
>> to host", nor could i ping.  a hard reset restores apparent
>> normalcy -- at least for a while.  times vary.  i have yet
>> to experience a freeze w/o the browser running (which of
>> course is seldom the case).
>>
>> the computer is an intel nuc-10 running fc27.
>>
>> any suggestions would be appreciated.

> By definition you have an intermittent problem here. Although it's
> always nice to find the exact root cause, time constraints might not
> permit that. In that case, you might do prophylactic things to possibly
> lessen the chance of it happening.

> If you're using the Chrome (or for that matter Chromium) browser,
> you're using a pig. Not as piggy as Firefox, but piggy enough to add
> instability to your system. Consider switching to Surf, vimb, Midori,
> or qupzilla.

> The fact that you're using Fedora makes me suspect that you're not
> using a lightweight window manager. I don't think Fedora offers
> lightweights, but you can build them yourself. I've used both LXDE and
> Openbox, and recommend them highly. I also highly recommend IceWM,
> except that its menu system is so worthless that you'll need to provide
> an additional menu system (dmenu comes to mind). At this time in
> history, Xfce is NOT a lightweight, and in the past I've had it get
> intermittent on me.

> My guess would be that with a lighter weight browser and a lightweight
> window manager or desktop environment (wm/de), there's a 50% chance of
> your eliminating this symptom or relegating it to "too rare to care"
> status.

moylan 2018[1022] sudo dnf install surf.x86_64

   .
   .
   .
   .

Installed:
  surf.x86_64 2.0-3.fc27  xorg-x11-fonts-misc.noarch 7.5-18.fc27 dmenu.x86_64 4.8-1.fc27 st.x86_64 0.8.1-2.fc27
  xterm.x86_64 330-3.fc27 xterm-resize.x86_64 330-3.fc27

Complete!
moylan 2018[1023] which surf
/bin/surf
moylan 2018[1024] surf&
[3] 4451
moylan 2018[1025] xkbcommon: ERROR: Key "<CAPS>" added to modifier map for multiple modifiers; Using Control, ignoring Lock

(surf:4451): Gdk-WARNING **: gdkwindow-x11.c:5573 drawable is not a native X11 window
X Error of failed request:  BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request:  18 (X_ChangeProperty)
  Resource id in failed request:  0x0
  Serial number of failed request:  11
  Current serial number in output stream:  12

[3]+  Exit 1                  surf

i tried chrome to search for a little info on surf and
froze-up immediately.  firefox is running at the moment and
i did find a manual of sorts at:
http://troubleshooters.com/linux/surf.htm

i just need to get it running and then play with it a bit.
have i missed something essential?  what do i need to do
to get started and try it out?

tia,
ole dan

j. daniel moylan
84 harvard ave
brookline, ma 02446-6202
617-777-0207 (cel)
jdm at moylan.us
www.moylan.us
[no html pls]