Corrupted or Virus in User Directory

[James McKenzie]

  On 10/15/10 7:48 AM, Jim wrote:
>    Fc13 - 14 / KDE
>
> I have three users on this box
>
> root
> jim
> jan
>
> 'Jim' user directory is corrupted or virus in it.
Check the drive.  smartctl and the logs in /var will help.  Viruses are 
rare for Linux and would do more than just cause your system to freeze 
with one user.

> You can be clicking on different windows, apps and the the screen
> freezes and no matter what you click on , nothing happens,
> in seconds or minutes it unfreezes and you can get back to work.
Sounds like a hard drive problem where SMART is moving sectors or you 
ran out of physical memory and now the system is swapping around mightly 
(called thrashing) to get what you need to run the program in the 
foreground.

> But !! , the Mouse cursor  can be moved around the screen during freeze
> time.
>
Yes.  Mouse to screen usually works.  Nice feature.

Before you go through a lengthy process, take a look at what is 
happening with the hard drive.  If it is being accessed continuously 
during the freeze period, you might want to consider adding more 
physical memory, if possible.   Also, check your hard drive for errors 
(soft and hard) with smartctl.

BTW, what are you running when this happens?  Many large programs 
running at one time, may cause your system to run out of physical memory 
and start to use swap.  Clicking through several windows will actually 
make this worse rather than just waiting until the system 'comes back' 
to you.

Let us know what you find.

James McKenzie