Reduce the number of active programs.Stop running unnecessary (Web proxy server)
Reduce the number of active programs.Stop running unnecessary ser- vices and applications that aren t related to the problem at hand. You maymore easily figure out what s happening if other services and applicationsaren t getting in the way. Check to see whether the problem is reproducible.Does the samesequence of events produce the same problem? Suppose that when you try to print to a color printer, nothing happens. If nothing happensevery time you attempt to print, the problem is reproducible. If, instead, sometimes your information is printed and at other times it isn t, theproblem pattern isn t the same and isn t reproducible or it s causedby something more complicated than just clicking one button. Unfortu- nately, problems that are nonreproducible are more difficult to resolvebecause it seems that no set pattern of events re-creates those problems. After you ve come up with a solution, take a few moments to document thesituation. Note the symptoms of the problem, its cause, and the solution youimplement. The next time you encounter the same problem, you can call onyour notes for a solution rather than reinvent the wheel. If you don t have any problems to troubleshoot (yet), document your envi- ronment beforeyou do. Making a backup of your /etcdirectory and your/bootdirectory is a great place to start. The Linux Installer Froze When you re installing Linux, the installation may just freeze. If it does, wait a bit and make sure that the installation program really froze. (Sometimes, the software just takes a while to process information.) If the software lookslike it has frozen, there s no harm in rebooting your computer and startingover just as you would do with any operating system installation. Some- times, you can reboot and never have that problem again. At other times, theproblem may happen twice in a row and then be fine the third time. Be sureto try several times before giving up. If the installation still freezes in the same spot or close to the same spot, goto the distribution s support pages (see Chapter 2). These pages may talkabout some known problems and solutions that can help you and shouldshow you how to join discussion lists in order to get more assistance. Otherwise, diagnosing the problem can be tricky and may seem more likevoodoo than science. Here are some tips: If this problem happens repeatedly at exactly the same spot, you mayhave a bad installation disk.If you re a Fedora Core or Red Hat Enter- prise Linux user, see the next section, For Fedora Core Users, and thenreturn here if that technique doesn t solve your problem. Otherwise, trythe disk in another machine if possible and see whether the installation370Part V:The Part of Tens