[NTLUG:Discuss] Weird INIT behavior.

[Mark Bickel]

> From discuss-admin at ntlug.org Tue Feb 22 07:03 CST 2000
> Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 06:37:33 -0600
> From: Stephen Klein <jaguar at cyberramp.net>
 
> Anyone have and idea as to what is causing this to happen:
> 
> Sometimes when I exit out of X-Win, I notice that things seem to be
> moving a little slower than they should.  I run TOP and it shows the
> INIT process to be hogging processor time (95%-99%).  I've let it run
> like this for hours once, so I know that it's not a temporary thing. 
> I've tried several things, but nothing short of a reboot seems to fix
> it.  The system is stable, and everything seems to run just fine, just
> slower.
> 
> I've upgraded X-Win a couple of times since I initially installed Linux,
> and I've recompiled the kernel more times than I care to count.  I cat
> tell you if this problem existed from the start, or if it's something
> caused by the upgrades.  This problem appears to be completely random,
> although it occurs more frequently when X-Win crashes (swtich from
> console to X mouse problem).

What effect does switching run-levels have when this problem occurs?
Try switching to 3 and then back to 5 - or even init 1 to single-user.
Try to find something short of a reboot that "fixes" the symptom.
What does your memory allocation look like when this problem occurs?
Are there any processes that are left in a "zombie" state?

Mark.Bickel at ericsson.com