3 different distros, same outcome

[reed9]

Hmm. Looking around, it might be that your RAM is bad.
Arch Linux Forums / arch64, RAM: 5gb of 6gb usable

From this bug report.

The bug occurs when the driver tries to allocated some memory and fails to do so, causing the oops. Maybe your system hit this error, which generally 99.999% of the time does not happen.

I will put a fix in to catch this corner case anyway to make the driver more robust.

Colin

EDIT: Have you run a memtest?

[jettlagg]

From this bug report.
Quote:

The bug occurs when the driver tries to allocated some memory and fails to do so, causing the oops. Maybe your system hit this error, which generally 99.999% of the time does not happen.

I will put a fix in to catch this corner case anyway to make the driver more robust.

Colin
EDIT: Have you run a memtest?

This link looks suspiciously similar to my experience. I'm still wondering if it is a problem with my memory.
/proc/meminfo... reveals "MemTotal: 124360 kb", though I should have 128 mb.

I couldn't get memtest to work properly.
I compiled the memtest86 boot image and loaded it via grub menu.lst, as instructed from memtext86 README.(i dont have a cd burner)

All that happens is a 1 line output (something i believe related to video resolution that I've seen with other distros on boot), and a second or two later the computer reboots and ends up back at the grub menu.

I have puppy 4.2.1 installed to the HD, so I also tried the memtest through puppy, but I don't believe it is working correctly, it only spent about 4 seconds before being sent back to command prompt.

I couldn't get it to save a log file, so I typed it up(where "..." represents line similar to "Unable to malloc 4293918720 bytes."--- with different byte number).

I also included output from "cat /proc/meminfo" and "dmesg" incase anyone would like to take a look at them. meanwhile ill be looking into memtest more, and hopefully locate a cd burner.

memtest all

memtest v. 2.93.1
Current limits:
 RLIMIT_RSS 0xffffffff
  RLIMIT_VMEM 0x8000
Unable to malloc 4293918720 bytes.
...
...       //There are pages of these.
...
Unable to malloc 232783872 bytes.
Allocated 231735296 bytes...trying mlock...Killed

MemTotal: = 124360?.. could this indicate a problem? i have 128 MB RAM(or so i thought), and a 128MB swap space

cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal:       124360 kB
MemFree:         91204 kB
Buffers:          1136 kB
Cached:          22216 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:           7584 kB
Inactive:        17652 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       124360 kB
LowFree:         91204 kB
SwapTotal:      128512 kB
SwapFree:       128512 kB
Dirty:              16 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
AnonPages:        1884 kB
Mapped:           2240 kB
Slab:             6240 kB
SReclaimable:     2780 kB
SUnreclaim:       3460 kB
PageTables:        212 kB
NFS_Unstable:        0 kB
Bounce:              0 kB
CommitLimit:    190692 kB
Committed_AS:     7268 kB
VmallocTotal:   901112 kB
VmallocUsed:      1348 kB
VmallocChunk:   899644 kB

dmesg

 Linux version 2.6.25.4 (root@zenwalk) (gcc version 4.2.3) #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 16 14:10:46 CEST 2008
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f400 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000009f400 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000d0000 - 00000000000d4000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e5400 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000007e70000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000007e70000 - 0000000007e7fc00 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000007e7fc00 - 0000000007e80000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000007e80000 - 0000000008000000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fff00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
126MB LOWMEM available.
Scan SMP from c0000000 for 1024 bytes.
Scan SMP from c009fc00 for 1024 bytes.
Scan SMP from c00f0000 for 65536 bytes.
Scan SMP from c009f400 for 1024 bytes.
Entering add_active_range(0, 0, 32368) 0 entries of 256 used
Zone PFN ranges:
  DMA             0 ->     4096
  Normal       4096 ->    32368
  HighMem     32368 ->    32368
Movable zone start PFN for each node
early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
    0:        0 ->    32368
On node 0 totalpages: 32368
  DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
  DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
  DMA zone: 4064 pages, LIFO batch:0
  Normal zone: 220 pages used for memmap
  Normal zone: 28052 pages, LIFO batch:7
  HighMem zone: 0 pages used for memmap
  Movable zone: 0 pages used for memmap
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI: RSDP 000F66E0, 0014 (r0 PTLTD )
ACPI: RSDT 07E7BBD7, 002C (r1 PTLTD  	 RSDT    6040000  LTP        0)
ACPI: FACP 07E7FB64, 0074 (r1 INTEL  OSPREY2   6040000 ROYZ        1)
ACPI: DSDT 07E7BC03, 3F61 (r1  PTLTD   L2 1.3  6040000 MSFT  100000C)
ACPI: FACS 07E7FFC0, 0040
ACPI: BOOT 07E7FBD8, 0028 (r1 PTLTD  $SBFTBL$  6040000  LTP        1)
ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x1008
Allocating PCI resources starting at 10000000 (gap: 08000000:f7f00000)
PM: Registered nosave memory: 000000000009f000 - 00000000000a0000
PM: Registered nosave memory: 00000000000a0000 - 00000000000d0000
PM: Registered nosave memory: 00000000000d0000 - 00000000000d4000
PM: Registered nosave memory: 00000000000d4000 - 00000000000e6000
PM: Registered nosave memory: 00000000000e6000 - 0000000000100000
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 32116
Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda3
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- you can enable it with "lapic"
mapped APIC to ffffb000 (0110c000)
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Initializing CPU#0
Preemptible RCU implementation.
PID hash table entries: 512 (order: 9, 2048 bytes)
Detected 897.293 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
console [tty0] enabled
Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Memory: 123928k/129472k available (2525k kernel code, 4988k reserved, 746k data, 252k init, 0k highmem)
virtual kernel memory layout:
    fixmap  : 0xfff80000 - 0xfffff000   ( 508 kB)
    pkmap   : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000   (4096 kB)
    vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xff7fe000   ( 879 MB)
    lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc7e70000   ( 126 MB)
      .init : 0xc0438000 - 0xc0477000   ( 252 kB)
      .data : 0xc0377596 - 0xc0431f08   ( 746 kB)
      .text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc0377596   (2525 kB)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode...Ok.
CPA: page pool initialized 1 of 1 pages preallocated
SLUB: Genslabs=12, HWalign=32, Order=0-1, MinObjects=4, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 1795.63 BogoMIPS (lpj=897819)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
Compat vDSO mapped to ffffe000.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
Freeing SMP alternatives: 14k freed
ACPI: Core revision 20070126
ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 0220)
CPU0: Intel Celeron (Coppermine) stepping 0a
SMP motherboard not detected.
Local APIC not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.
Brought up 1 CPUs
net_namespace: 448 bytes
xor: automatically using best checksumming function: pIII_sse
   pIII_sse  :  1728.000 MB/sec
xor: using function: pIII_sse (1728.000 MB/sec)
NET: Registered protocol family 16
No dock devices found.
ACPI: bus type pci registered
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd9ca, last bus=2
PCI: Using configuration type 1
Setting up standard PCI resources
ACPI: EC: Look up EC in DSDT
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S4 S5)
ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: EC: non-query interrupt received, switching to interrupt mode
ACPI: EC: GPE = 0x1c, I/O: command/status = 0x66, data = 0x62
ACPI: EC: driver started in interrupt mode
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)
pci 0000:00:1f.0: quirk: region 1000-107f claimed by ICH4 ACPI/GPIO/TCO
pci 0000:00:1f.0: quirk: region 1180-11bf claimed by ICH4 GPIO
PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:1e.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.HUB_._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs *10)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs *5)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs *5)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs *5)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 9 10 12 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 9 10 12 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 9 10 12 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs *5)
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI init
ACPI: bus type pnp registered
 00:01: mem resource (0xd0000-0xd7fff) overlaps 0000:02:04.0 BAR 2 (0x0-0xfffff), disabling
pnp: PnP ACPI: found 11 devices
ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered
SCSI subsystem initialized
libata version 3.00 loaded.
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq".  If it helps, post a report
system 00:01: ioport range 0x1000-0x107f has been reserved
system 00:01: ioport range 0x1180-0x11bf has been reserved
system 00:01: ioport range 0x4d0-0x4d1 has been reserved
system 00:01: ioport range 0xfe00-0xfefe has been reserved
system 00:01: iomem range 0xff800000-0xffffffff could not be reserved
PCI: Bus 3, cardbus bridge: 0000:01:03.0
  IO window: 0x00001400-0x000014ff
  IO window: 0x00003000-0x000030ff
  PREFETCH window: 0x10000000-0x13ffffff
  MEM window: 0x18000000-0x1bffffff
PCI: Bus 7, cardbus bridge: 0000:01:03.1
  IO window: 0x00003400-0x000034ff
  IO window: 0x00003800-0x000038ff
  PREFETCH window: 0x14000000-0x17ffffff
  MEM window: 0x1c000000-0x1fffffff
PCI: Bridge: 0000:01:0b.0
  IO window: 2000-2fff
  MEM window: 0xf4100000-0xf42fffff
  PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:1e.0
  IO window: 2000-2fff
  MEM window: 0xf4100000-0xf42fffff
  PREFETCH window: 0x0000000010000000-0x0000000017ffffff
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1e.0 to 64
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 5
PCI: setting IRQ 5 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:03.0[A] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:03.0 to 64
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:03.1[B] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:03.1 to 64
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 4096 bind 4096)
TCP reno registered
Simple Boot Flag at 0x37 set to 0x1
SGI XFS with no debug enabled
SGI XFS Quota Management subsystem
async_tx: api initialized (sync-only)
Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 254)
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
pci 0000:00:02.0: Boot video device
pci 0000:02:04.0: Firmware left e100 interrupts enabled; disabling
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 0
intel_rng: FWH not detected
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
00:09: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
brd: module loaded
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.12
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.1 to 64
scsi0 : ata_piix
scsi1 : ata_piix
ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0x1800 irq 14
ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x1808 irq 15
ata1.00: ATA-6: IC25N020ATMR04-0, MO1OAD0A, max UDMA/100
ata1.00: 39070080 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata2.00: ATAPI: TEAC CD-ROM CD-224E, 3.7C, max UDMA/33
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      IC25N020ATMR04-0 MO1O PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 39070080 512-byte hardware sectors (20004 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 39070080 512-byte hardware sectors (20004 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
 sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 >
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM            TEAC     CD-224E          3.7C PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 24x/24x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
usbcore: registered new interface driver libusual
PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:KBC0,PNP0f13:MSE0] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1,12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0
md: linear personality registered for level -1
md: raid0 personality registered for level 0
md: raid1 personality registered for level 1
md: raid10 personality registered for level 10
raid6: int32x1    281 MB/s
raid6: int32x2    289 MB/s
raid6: int32x4    261 MB/s
raid6: int32x8    242 MB/s
raid6: mmxx1      800 MB/s
raid6: mmxx2     1011 MB/s
raid6: sse1x1     574 MB/s
raid6: sse1x2     988 MB/s
raid6: using algorithm sse1x2 (988 MB/s)
md: raid6 personality registered for level 6
md: raid5 personality registered for level 5
md: raid4 personality registered for level 4
md: multipath personality registered for level -4
device-mapper: ioctl: 4.13.0-ioctl (2007-10-18) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
device-mapper: multipath: version 1.0.5 loaded
device-mapper: multipath round-robin: version 1.0.0 loaded
cpuidle: using governor ladder
cpuidle: using governor menu
usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
drivers/hid/usbhid/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
TCP cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1, fw: 5.7, id: 0x8146b1, caps: 0x804793/0x0
serio: Synaptics pass-through port at isa0060/serio1/input0
input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad as /class/input/input1
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: Scanned 0 and added 0 devices.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 252k freed
dcdbas dcdbas: Dell Systems Management Base Driver (version 5.6.0-3.2)
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:01:03.0 [1028:00c9]
Yenta O2: res at 0x94/0xD4: ca/00
Yenta O2: enabling read prefetch/write burst
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0898, PCI irq 5
Socket status: 30000006
Yenta: Raising subordinate bus# of parent bus (#01) from #02 to #06
pcmcia: parent PCI bridge I/O window: 0x2000 - 0x2fff
cs: IO port probe 0x2000-0x2fff: clean.
pcmcia: parent PCI bridge Memory window: 0xf4100000 - 0xf42fffff
pcmcia: parent PCI bridge Memory window: 0x10000000 - 0x17ffffff
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:01:03.1 [1028:00c9]
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0898, PCI irq 5
Socket status: 30000006
Yenta: Raising subordinate bus# of parent bus (#01) from #06 to #0a
pcmcia: parent PCI bridge I/O window: 0x2000 - 0x2fff
cs: IO port probe 0x2000-0x2fff: clean.
pcmcia: parent PCI bridge Memory window: 0xf4100000 - 0xf42fffff
pcmcia: parent PCI bridge Memory window: 0x10000000 - 0x17ffffff
Linux agpgart interface v0.103
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[D] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1f.2: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1f.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1f.2: irq 5, io base 0x00001820
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] enabled at IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.4[C] -> Link [LNKH] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.4 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1f.4: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1f.4: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1f.4: irq 5, io base 0x00001880
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
agpgart: Detected an Intel i815 Chipset.
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
i810_smbus 0000:00:02.0: i810/i815 i2c device found.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 5
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.3[B] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C3[C3])
ACPI: ACPI0007:00 is registered as cooling_device0
ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports 8 throttling states)
input: Power Button (FF) as /class/input/input2
ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
input: Lid Switch as /class/input/input3
ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]
input: Sleep Button (CM) as /class/input/input4
ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.5[B] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.5 to 64
ACPI: AC Adapter [AC] (on-line)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)
intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 50214 usecs
intel8x0: clocking to 48000
input: Video Bus as /class/input/input5
ACPI: Video Device [GCH0] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)
eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin <saw@saw.sw.com.sg> and others
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:04.0[A] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
eth0: OEM i82557/i82558 10/100 Ethernet, 00:20:e0:70:09:39, IRQ 5.
  Receiver lock-up bug exists -- enabling work-around.
  Board assembly 727095-002, Physical connectors present: RJ45
  Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.
  General self-test: passed.
  Serial sub-system self-test: passed.
  Internal registers self-test: passed.
  ROM checksum self-test: passed (0x04f4518b).
  Receiver lock-up workaround activated.
Marking TSC unstable due to: TSC halts in idle.
Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -863062538 ns)
fuse init (API version 7.9)
Adding 128512k swap on /dev/sda2.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:128512k

[jettlagg]

well Ive now tried to install Slackware 12.2 and ran into problem as in:
Detecting Adaptec I20 RAID controllers... - LinuxQuestions.org
Theres no apparent fix to that one, he lists a few comps that it has affected, and whatdaya know my comp is in there.

I guess im just on a bad luck streak.

[reed9]

You are having a bad run. I've seen a lot of problems with Toshiba's in general and Toshiba's with linux. I have an old Toshiba Satellite and it took me forever to get linux working on it properly. It suffered abrupt shutdowns moments after booting with almost all distros. Debian Lenny kinda of worked on it, but I had kernel panics almost every day. Fortunately, Arch Linux runs perfect on it.

Which is to say, if you're comfortable trying Slackware, Arch is no harder and might work. Or try Slackware 13 and see if the problem is fixed in a newer kernel.

[Jonathan183]

You are having a bad run. I've seen a lot of problems with Toshiba's in general and Toshiba's with linux.

I have a Toshiba Tecra8000 just upgraded RAM to 256MB from 92MB. Before the upgrade I could only get Gentoo to run, but compile time was a real problem ... after the upgrade I played around trying to get Arch to work on the system, removed sata in hooks and Arch now works on the system (didn't remove the RAM again to check if that was the problem with less RAM but it probably was). Arch and Gentoo runs with Fluxbox or IceWM and is not too bad - Firefox and OpenOffice take a while loading ... and you can forget playing Video. Other than that system works OK.

If your still light on RAM then I would stick with a binary based distro unless you have another system you can build binary packages on - in which case I'd suggest Gentoo.

[jettlagg]

i'm still trying to diagnose this, albeit slowly due to school.

I got memtest to run, 4 passes, 2+ hours running, and NO errors.
its a dell inspiron 2500 btw.

I'm still trying to get past this, b/c it is seriously limiting my linux distro exposure.
so far:
puppy 4.2.1
zenwalk core 5.2
zenwalk standard 5.2(though lots of bugs) (6.2 had same error defined in thread)

are so far the ONLY distros i have gotten to work on said dell, ALL others(or nearly) have run into same problem described in thread.