In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bruce Perens writes: >From: Glenn Bily <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> I have a hard time believing that RAM goes bad as much as you guys/gals >> claim. Nor do I really believe this would happen with modern machines. >I've seen these failures in my own system and have diagnosed them as being >RAM related. They went away when I changed the RAM.
With all due respect to the many (many!) people here who know more about gcc/linux/Unix/whatever than I, I feel obligated to say that while occasional SIG11 problems may have been RAM related (and I do have some experience with memory problems---I've upgraded Atari STs by hand-soldering DIPs piggy-back on existing memory. Not somerwhere you want a cold-solder joint), the current trend of automatically classifing every single SIG11 as indicative of bad memory is simply hogwash. I base my statement on my experiences of 3/28 (yesterday). I've got a brand new P150 here next to me, with 64MB RAM, a DPT F/W SCSI-2 controller all running off a Fujitsu Fast (not Wide) SCSI-2 disk. I installed the Debian base system, and just enough to compile a kernel, and then I tried to recompile. I got a SIG11s when trying to compile conmakehash.c (during make dep). I reinstalled gcc, conmakehash compiled fine, but I got SIG11s and vm errors. I increased my swap space from 8MB (top claimed it wasn't swapping, why would it need more), and I was down to just SIG11s. Then I compiled a 1.3.80 kernel on another machine, reinstalled Debian using 1.3.80, and can now do 'make -j zImage' (and there are few things more amusing than watching top while this is happening, as your entire screen will just _fill_ with gcc processes). I have done this upwards of 20 times (11 minute kernel compiles are fun, too) in the last 24 hours. Never seen a SIG11. So, I've not changed the hardware, and I'm excercising it more than I was previously (keeping the load above 6, mostly), and yet I see no SIG11s, even during the parallel compilations. That would tend to cast significant doubt on the common assertion that SIG11 = hardware problem, no? Mike. -- "Don't let me make you unhappy by failing to be contrary enough...."
