Date:   Sat, 14 Aug 1999 01:33:20 +0100 (BST)
From:   Alex Buell <alex.buell@tahallah.demon.co.uk>
To:     Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Cause of mysterious lock-ups with 2.2.x kernels discovered!

Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, 

I wish to share with you all my latest discovery which I just made a few
minutes ago, but I must explain the background first. 

For quite a while, since I returned from the States in Feb, I had been the
victim of a recurring but random lock-ups with Linux in all incarnations
of the 2.2.x series kernels, and have in fact reported several. The
strange thing was that I never had these lock-ups in the States. 

All that was a mystery until tonight. I had left the keyboard for a short
period of time, and returned to find one of my six cats SLEEPING on the
keyboard! I shooed the cat away and sat down to continue my editing. I was
completely thunderstruck when I realised that the machine was locked up
tighter than a chastity belt on a virgin, X11 was still on the display,
just completely frozen. Then a light went on in my tiny brain, somehow my
cats must have discovered quite by accident the best way to annoy me; that
is, pressing keys at random until the reboot/sync/meminfo key sequences
(i.e alt-r, alt-s I think) kicks in and machine locks up as a result.

I propose four solutions to this problem.

1. Keep cats out of room.
2. Disable the keyboard with a sequence of key-presses, and re-enable by
   pressing a different sequence of key-presses. Of course, it should be
   cat-proof. 
3. Unplug the keyboard.
4. Put cat-repellent on keyboard. 

I hope this helps those of you with cats in the house and experiencing
strange happenings. 

Cheers, 
Alex 
-- 

Legalise cannabis today!

http://www.tahallah.demon.co.uk


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