Well, I can force OS X 10.2.4 into a kernel panic, *nearly* at will. That said, OS X 10.2.4 *can* be extremely stable, but only if the right settings are used. Remember I posted a problem with dial-up internet access where my Pismo would go into kernel panic if it tried to dial out without a connection to the phone line, or if the connection to the ISP was unstable? (& the solutions offered up invariably involved doing a reinstall of the OS ;).
The solution seems to be much simpler than that: turn off 'Connect automatically when needed' in the Advanced PPP dialogue box. Out of curiosity I just ran my machine for 9 days straight and threw everything I could at it (VPC, stats packages, browser wars, etc.) (sleeps interrupting this of course) without having to restart once. The conclusion I can draw from this experience is that OS X can be _very_ stable (can being the operative word). After I'd proved to myself that the machine itself was stable and without any obvious hardware flaws (any problems with memory should've manifested in the nine days) I decided to see if I could cause a kernel panic by changing *one* preference. 20 minutes later, voila there was the k.p.!!! Here's output from w (modified who) at 8 days (I ran it for another 30+ hours after this; I replaced my login name with username and computername as my computer's name): 1:08PM up 8 days, 15:34, 3 users, load averages: 1.65, 1.24, 0.95 USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT username co - 27Feb03 8days - username p1 - Fri09PM 0 - username p2 - Fri12PM 24:57 - [Computername:~] username% And output from top: Processes: 41 total, 2 running, 39 sleeping... 124 threads 13:07:49 Load Avg: 0.83, 1.60, 1.51 CPU usage: 14.1% user, 5.3% sys, 80.6% idle SharedLibs: num = 110, resident = 22.6M code, 1.86M data, 7.04M LinkEdit MemRegions: num = 5085, resident = 99.7M + 6.44M private, 120M shared PhysMem: 54.4M wired, 245M active, 154M inactive, 453M used, 58.6M free VM: 2.72G + 64.6M 84081(0) pageins, 107851(0) pageouts (yes, I threw a lot at VM ;) All I can say about OS X is: WOW. Damn it's slick (provided you don't use the unstable parts of the OS)! So, what I did last night was turn on "Connect automatically when needed" and left Chimera (Camino), Safari and Entourage (Classic) open and disconnected the phone line. I walked away for 10 mins and: wham, bam, crash! [Entrouage was set with scheduled e-mail checks every 2 mins (on purpose b/c I thought Entourage was the problem)] Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies): com.apple.driver.ApplePMU(1.7.8)@0x196f5000 This morning I did a more scientific test of the k.p. and it seems that Chimera (Camino 7) had to be open, perhaps with Entourage (Classic) open too to induce the k.p. I ran Entourage alone for at least 1/2 hour without a k.p. (the computer had never connected to the inet that particular restart, or run any apps other than Apple Sys Profiler, Classic & Entourage). I then opened Camino, clicked on a few links to induce it to try to connect to the web, left the computer alone for a few minutes, and then came back to find the words "sconnect" frozen in the Internet Connect menu bar thingy and the k.p. screen up with a whole bunch of FFFFs at the bottom (this was done while I was having breakfast which is why I was willing to experiment). I don't have much spare time on my hands to do more experimentation but it seems that at the very least you need Chimera/Camino open. I cannot say whether or not Classic + Entourage is needed as well since my starting assumption was that Cl + En were at fault. I also don't know if Safari can cause the same problem. The following was part of the 2nd kernel panic I induced this morning as described above (and, exactly like all the k.p.s that plagued me earlier before I turned off 'connect automatically'): Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies): com.apple.driver.AppleSCCSerial(1.2.3)@0x14e79000 dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily(6.0.1d19)@0x14e6e000 Continued in next message (conclusions). Eric -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
