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.
My guess… you have some hardware that Linux and Windows communicate with differently.
Either the hardware or the Linux driver is potentially broken.
If you’re able to (hard with a laptop, I know), disconnect as many things as you can - even take out the Windows hardrive - and see if that helps.
For all the suggestions about the journal, you will see random things at the very end, but see if there’s anything common from earlier in the boot process.
sudo journalctl -xemay be helpful here.sudoto ensure you’re seeing the entire journalxadds additional explanationsejumps to the end (again, probably look further back)