Thinkpads Forum

Xubuntu seems to run fine on my IBM T21 for the most part. However there have been two crashes so far where it'll lock up with both the num lock & caps lock lights flashing in quick succession.

Anyone else experienced this?

Hmm, kernel panic maybe. I don't know the answer, but if it were my machine, i'd start checking for hard drive problems. If there are none, maybe a re-install.

Yes it is kernel panic, having to run old kernel as most recent unstable & also hibernation or sleep mode is a no no. As this will lead to more kernel panic. Running Hardy LTS. Jaunty is slower to start up & reliably reproduces kernel panic when entering hibernate & when resuming from sleep.

The disk has started to develop bad sectors but is under Seagate's 5yr guarantee. Only had it since 12/2007 but don't really suspect it as designed to handle some bad sectors (so they told me.) What is the Linux equivalent of CHKDSK?

fleamourian wrote:What is the Linux equivalent of CHKDSK?

fsck, but don't run it on a mounted file system (unless you have a crippling fear of your data... )

linko wrote:Hmm, kernel panic maybe. I don't know the answer, but if it were my machine, i'd start checking for hard drive problems. If there are none, maybe a re-install.

You're right, he's probably kernel panic'ing in X so it freezes during the kernel panic, what he'll want to try is to see if he can get a kdump, (kernel dump) to output to a file local of the disk. There are many ways to do this, all in the click of a google search.