I’m using an XPS 13 9350 with 16GB of RAM and the Intel Graphics 540. I am using Fedora KDE spin. When I am using computer, either randomly or when I start a program, my computer will slow down and quickly fully freeze. In this state, the only thing I can do is shut it down. Is there any way to make it so that a program is killed, or something else that doesn’t fully stop my system?

    • @Limonene
      7•1 day ago

      Yeah, try pressing Alt+[PrintScreen, F] to invoke the OOM killer. It kills the memory-hoggingest process, usually the web browser.

      Fedora documentation says this sysrq functionality may be disabled by default. You can enable it once by typing at a terminal: echo 1 | sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq or permanently with echo 'kernel.sysrq = 1' | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/90-sysrq.conf

      If it turns out that memory overconsumption is the problem, you can sometimes fix this lag by disabling swap. 16GB is easily enough RAM to do all normal desktop things.

      • @mvirts
        1•1 day ago

        Even if the sysrq key is disabled, most systems automatically invoke the oom killer. If your work is super important, just let your system sit for a day or two the problem may resolve itself.

        If you don’t get any logs about why it locked up I recommend enabling kernel message logging to disk.