Hi together, Hi Carl!
On another note, I was thinking that, since the 'decision' to crash isn't consistent but the timing of each crash *is* (approaching/at the KDE greeter) it might be worth testing a two stage boot: change the default to run level 3 and, after it boots, log in as root and run init 5.
I did that and - do you want to have a guess - the system does not crash anymore.
- If the frequency and timing of the crashes remains the same, i.e. approaching/at the KDE greeter, this points towards a problem in the X configuration or in the graphics subsystem, itself (config, hardware.)
So I think KDE / Graphic driver can be excluded from the list of possible problems...
- If it stops falling over, then the problem can be isolated to the boot process, itself. It could be the module loading sequence... or a module selection/blacklisting 'tweak' is needed... or a timing conflict, as in some hardware sometimes being too slow to initialize... or marginal hardware that is 'landing' in one of two states when it is initialized *during boot* (Um, how big is the power supply and have you done any tests to rule it out?)
So... does anyone have any hints about how to approach this issue? The funny part is: All was fine with Suse 9.2 and 9.3... Nothing changed since - except the Suse release. So I would tend to put hardware-issues to priority 2. Let's start with the boot process and module order. How do I influence the boot/load-order of modules. Do I have to tweak the init.rc-scripts / links? I remember that there was a SUSE-Script that takes care of these... how was it named... can't remember :-( Am I completely free in changing the order? Do you have any suggestions about what to try first? I would assume it has to do with the last modules in runlevel 3 and the additional ones for level 5. Correct? And finally: To me it still seems to be a race condition. Is there a way to proove this? Do you know race conditions about SUSE boot / KDE modules / Runlevel 5? thank you very much and kind regads, Martin