It started freezing maybe a month or two ago. It happens anytime between a few seconds after the OS loads, to hours or days later. I do not recall downloading anything around when this issue began that could be suspect.

I’ve put off fixing this because I have no idea how to even begin troubleshooting it. Internet searches for “Linux freezes” returns practically countless potential problems.

What are some recommendations? I have my root directory on a 30 GB partition separate from my home directory, which I think makes reinstalling my base image (Debian) easy without losing personal data, so that’s an option. Maybe there’s a system log file that would provide some insight?

I’m Linux dumb so please teach me how to fish!

I’ll add that my Windows install (on a separate drive) doesn’t freeze, and my Linux install is on a new Samsung drive that didn’t report issues, so the problems unlikely hardware related.

02:05 18OCT: Thanks for all the quick responses, a lot of helpful suggestions so far. I should clarify that “my computer freezes” means it is 100% unresponsive until it is rebooted. Ctrl+alt+del spam or changing terminal sessions gets a response. The last few entries in my most recent journalctl boot outputs are different from one another, and the I did not see any errors. For now, I’ll boot a live USB and let it sit for while, see if it crashes again.

  • AnimaLibera@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    13 hours ago

    Command line is your friend. It might not seem like it at first, but it is very helpful.

    Use the journalctl command in a terminal.

    Command Purpose Example
    journalctl -u [SERVICE] View logs for a specific systemd unit/service. journalctl -u nginx.service
    journalctl -b Show logs from the current boot. journalctl -b
    journalctl -b -[N] Show logs from a previous boot (ee.g., -1 for the last boot). journalctl -b -1
    journalctl --list-boots List all recorded boot sessions. journalctl --list-boots
    journalctl -p [PRIORITY] Filter by priority level or a range. Levels are 0 (emerg) to 7 (debug). journalctl -p err…warning (shows errors, critical, alerts, and warnings)
    journalctl --since=“[TIME]” --until=“[TIME]” Filter by time range. Supports absolute (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) and relative times (1 hour ago, yesterday). journalctl --since “20 min ago”
    journalctl -n [LINES] Show only the last N entries. journalctl -n 20
    journalctl -k Show only kernel messages (equivalent to dmesg output). journalctl -k```

    I spent a couple of days trying to figure out why I couldn't install any variant of Arch Linux or Fedora Linux on my laptop.  That command helped me narrow things down.