solved 7 hard-crashes,

[corazon]

edit apparently kde4 desktop fx are the culprit. They are gone, and the random crashes are gone.
kde 3.5.10 is on the way. And its the weekend 


I have now had seven total hard crashes in about 13 hours usage, with the screen locked up and filled with colorful confetti-like garbage,
once when selecting an item in Konqueror, once when clicking a link in Opera web browser,
the third one clicking the 'back arrow' in an opera session. Two crashes were using kwrite, and timemachine.
Crash #6 was after pressing the submit button on a forum post. All tips appreciated.

So I installed firefox, in case opera was part of the problem. Crash 7 was during a firefox session, so much
for that theory. I looked in some logs earlier, but did not see any mention of impending doom. Time to check again.

Post-install I have used synaptic to install

k3b, audacity, ardour2, zynaddsubfx, linuxsampler, fluidsynth, qjackctl, hydrogen, lame, opera, kde-utilities, streamripper, lastfm, and alien.

Any insights greatly appreciated!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following issue was solved:  

Trying to launch konqueror from a root shell, gets this error:

konqueror(4807): Session bus not found

KCrash: Application 'konqueror' crashing...
sock_file=/root/.kde4/socket-localhost.localdomain/kdeinit4__0
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
KCrash cannot reach kdeinit, launching directly.
drkonqi(4809): Session bus not found

It does start OK using the menu-item for konqueror super-user mode
(dolphin menu lacks that option)

Trying dolphin from the same root shell gets a different error:

<unknown program name>(5189)/: KUniqueApplication: Cannot find the D-Bus session server:  "Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken."

<unknown program name>(5188)/: KUniqueApplication: Pipe closed unexpectedly

kwrite gets this one:

kwrite(5294): Session bus not found

KCrash: Application 'kwrite' crashing...
sock_file=/root/.kde4/socket-localhost.localdomain/kdeinit4__0
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
KCrash cannot reach kdeinit, launching directly.
drkonqi(5295): Session bus not found.

Synaptic starts fine from the same root shell.

Any insights greatly appreciated!

[exploder]

konqueror -Super User Mode in the menu will solve your first problem. The command has changed for opening KWrite and Dolphin with root privileges, unfortunately I have not used it enough to remember it yet but dbus or something like that is part of it.... Maybe someone can remember the command and provide the answer. 

[exploder]

I figured it out.

In the konsole type su, enter your root password, then type dbus-launch kwrite  and press enter. Dolphin should work with the same basic command.

[corazon]

I figured it out.

In the konsole type su, enter your root password, then type dbus-launch kwrite  and press enter. Dolphin should work with the same basic command.

Hi, and thankyou so much for the nearly instantaneous solution! I'll have to read up on dbus, hal, and more

[exploder]

You are welcome. Everything I read said that this is a security feature.

[corazon]

Fourth hard-crash just occurred during simple web browsing of a site used every day.
None of this occurred in pclos 2007, 2009,  2009 minime, lxde, rocXshop, and with several kernels
including a realtime kernel, all of which I used with kde 3.5.10. This is using nvidia 6100, a known-to-be-lousy video chip, debian
support for it is appalling, at least it was useable on most rpm based distros. Could it be some flaw in
video hardware memory management that crept in?

[corazon]

5th hard crash occurred a moment after opening timemachine, kwrite and opera and qjackctl were open at the time,
There are 2  gig system ram, 32 meg goes to video. This amount can't be upped (the hardware is broken)
Short of incoming advice, I may delete opera and go with firefox to see if the crashes vanish.

[corazon]

I have now had seven total hard crashes in about 13 hours usage, with the screen locked up and filled with colorful confetti-like garbage...

So I installed firefox, in case opera was part of the problem. Crash 7 was during a firefox session, so much
for that theory. I looked in some logs earlier, but did not see any mention of impending doom. Time to check again.

[Old-Polack]

I have now had seven total hard crashes in about 13 hours usage, with the screen locked up and filled with colorful confetti-like garbage...

So I installed firefox, in case opera was part of the problem. Crash 7 was during a firefox session, so much
for that theory. I looked in some logs earlier, but did not see any mention of impending doom. Time to check again.

What kernel are you using?

[corazon]

Hi, thanks for checking in!  The kernel is
2.6.32.11-pclos2.bfs #1 SMP PREEMPT

This is from the Minime 2010 install. No extra modules, only two apps added fom outside
the repos due to newness (rakarrack and phasex -sound fx and synthesizer). Despite
the 32 meg video ram and nvidia 6100 motherboard  chip, this problem has never appeared in any distro,
in the 4 years I've had it. I used the e17 pclos 2010 beta, and the Minime 2010 beta without this problem.

I switched to the QT version of Opera today, and have not had the crash, in about 6 hours up-time.
I also turned off as much kde4  eyecandy as I could find, and set up four desktops,
 and I added a hardisk temporarily to copy data from my rocXshop setup. Had to modprobe the pata_amd module
for that to work. Before I hit the sack, I'll try and cook up some torture test.

In turning off kde4 eyecandy, the application menus stay pinned open til final selection now, no
out-of-bounds closures, I love that! 
Right-click addition of icons to the panel, and free placement of icons on a fully transparent panel
are eluding me. But those are off-topic grunts and groans.   

Cheers

[Old-Polack]

Hi, thanks for checking in!  The kernel is
2.6.32.11-pclos2.bfs #1 SMP PREEMPT

This is from the Minime 2010 install. No extra modules, only two apps added fom outside
the repos due to newness (rakarrack and phasex -sound fx and synthesizer). Despite
the 32 meg video ram and nvidia 6100 motherboard  chip, this problem has never appeared in any distro,
in the 4 years I've had it. I used the e17 pclos 2010 beta, and the Minime 2010 beta without this problem.

I switched to the QT version of Opera today, and have not had the crash, in about 6 hours up-time.
I also turned off as much kde4  eyecandy as I could find, and set up four desktops,
 and I added a hardisk temporarily to copy data from my rocXshop setup. Had to modprobe the pata_amd module
for that to work. Before I hit the sack, I'll try and cook up some torture test.

In turning off kde4 eyecandy, the application menus stay pinned open til final selection now, no
out-of-bounds closures, I love that!  
Right-click addition of icons to the panel, and free placement of icons on a fully transparent panel
are eluding me. But those are off-topic grunts and groans.    

Cheers

I was crashing every 45 minute with the betas. Using the final MiniMe release, with the 2.6.33.2-pclos1.bfs kernel I've been running for over 4 days now, without a freeze or crash. Been trying to push it hard too, but so far it's holding up very well.

I'm showing 1658 packages installed, and have effects turned on. Not crazy about the effects, but wanted to see if they'd bring the system down. They didn't.

[corazon]

I have turned off all ked4 eyecandy/desktop effects, and the random crashes have vanished.
Good thing I save all the 3.5.10 era rpms 

Lets call it solved.