Computer fixed
Jan. 9th, 2007 11:39 amMy new computer from ASL was locking up frequently, a problem traced to bad memory. They sent me new memory, I installed it shipped back the old, and now it is running reliably as a Linux box should. Obviously, you can't expect software to run reliably on broken hardware, but the interesting thing is, the program most obviously effected by the problem, the one usually-reliable piece of code transformed by intermittent memory errors into a crash-a-minute experience that often couldn't even get fully started before crashing was Firefox. Back in the old days people said that gcc was the ultimate test of memory, crashing on intermittent errors that sometimes memory test software couldn't find. Apparently these days Firefox is the most rigorous test.