Strange and mysterious Linux crash

[der.hans]

Am 11. Apr, 2002 schwätzte Matt Alexander so:

> So my Linux box just locked up.  I was running VMWare, AIM, Konq, KMail,
> and quite a few Konsole sessions.  I couldn't kill X.  So, I grudgingly
> rebooted, but I got a message about a kernel panic and not finding init.
> Odd.  So I booted from a floppy and mounted my filesystem.  Here's what I
> found:
>
> /bin, /lib, and /opt are no longer directories.  /bin is now a copy of my
> passwd file.  /lib is now a copy of my group file.  And /opt is another
> copy of my passwd file.  /usr/local/lib is now a copy of something that
> looks like a sound config file, with entries like "synth:64:64:R" and
> "pcm:64:64:P".

Don't do that. It's bad for your system :).

Sounds like file system corruption. What filesystem are you using? What
kernel version? There have been a couple of issues recently and there are
others on the list who might be able to help you with that info.

Another cause of this is bad RAM. I went through that a couple of months ago
with 'new' RAM from Fry's. Have I mentioned on this list that one of the
stupidest things I've ever done was buy RAM at Fry's?

You can use memtest86 to test your RAM. I think it can run off a floppy.

cioa,

der.hans
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