Am Mittwoch, den 02.03.2005, 22:34 +0100 schrieb Alexander Nyberg: 
> > I recently upgraded from linux kernel v2.6.10 to v2.6.11.
> > Some programs like evolution 2.0 and leafnode2 crash the whole system
> > immediatedly now.
> 
> You mean when you run evolution the box hangs up completely? (you can't
> kill X, switch to another console etc.)

Thank you for your hints.

When I looked into that problem recently, I remarked that the system
does not actually crash but is locked totally:

I use the device-mapper modules for encrypting files (loopback devices
with aes-i586-encryption). They can be set up in the usual manner, but
filesystem operations now lock the accessing processes, which cannot be
killed afterwards.
If the kernel has been compiled with preemption the system slows down
considerably after those operations; enabling prempting The Big Kernel
Lock locks the whole system at filesystem access (that looked like a
system crash). That's why I could not find any messages in the logs.

If I use a non-preemptive v2.6.11-kernel (vanilla, by the way) the
system keeps on running the normal way, but every process which tries to
work with files in device-mapped directories is unkillable locked.

It seems to be a problem with the dm-*- or loop-modules.

I enclosed the ouput of dmesg and ver_linux.

Kind regards
Steffen