I've just had an interesting experience in which my system had a load
of about 50, with 98% idle time.
I was in the process of updating my system when dpkg froze (it went
'D'). From this point on, I was unable to start a new xterm, log into
a virtual console, or terminate any running applications to gain
control of an xterm.
When this first started I was able to run ps on my one working xterm,
which showed 15 processes in the 'D' state. I never regained control
of that xterm. The load just continued to rise.
Gradually, most of my processes entered the 'D' state. It was not
possible to telnet into the box (fortune hung), though pppd was still
working.
I was forced to alt-sysrq-b.
Several fscks later, I found that nothing had been logged (in any
file) since before dpkg hung. As far as I can tell, there was no
filesystem activity at all from the time that dpkg hung.
The system in question is a P2-300/128Mb running 2.2.0final. It had
been up for about 40 hours. I have never seen anything like this
happen before on any previous kernel.
.config available on request.
Allow me to apologise for the lack of any useful information :-/
Linux zzaover 2.2.0-final #1 Fri Jan 22 19:07:47 EST 1999 i686 unknown
Kernel modules 2.1.121
Gnu C 2.7.2.3
Binutils 2.9.1.0.19
Linux C Library 2.0.7
Dynamic linker ldd: version 1.9.10
Procps 1.2.9
Mount 2.9g
Net-tools (1998-03-02)
Kbd 0.96
Sh-utils 1.16
Cheers,
--Andrew
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