Re: Okular locked up my system and left no evidence

[Borden <borden_c@tutanota.com>]

10 Feb 2023, 10:53 by didi.debian@cknow.org:

> On Friday, 10 February 2023 07:46:36 CET Borden wrote:
>
>> which may be more productive.
>>
>
> What would be even more productive is the following:
> - log in remotely before doing another test and open a screen/tmux session (or 
> open several distinct remote logins) and start:
>  - htop
>  - tail -f ~/.xsession-errors
>  - journalctl --user -b -f
>  - any other program which may be useful IYO
>
> Then start okular from Konsole, but give it a lower priority with `nice` (and 
> `ionice`). Possibly useful to `tee` the Konsole output to a file too.
> If it behaves so bad again, you should be able to kill okular (f.e.).
>
> And then file a bug report with a sample PDF as Alex suggested and provide any 
> info you obtained which may help to solve this issue.
>
> You didn't specify which Debian and Okular version you had this issue with.
> In case of Testing or Sid, the "/topic" from #debian-next comes to mind:
> "testing → bookworm | you may need to debug sometimes | ..."
>
Sorry for the delayed response, and thank you for the suggestions. Unfortunately, I couldn't file a bug report because the PDF in question had very sensitive information, so I ended up just working around the problem  in Windows.

I think the point of my complaint got lost. It's not so much  that Okular had a major, semi-reproducable bug. It's that, in 2023,  userland software still cripples  systems.  I would hope that, by now, a kernel can  determine whether an application is being too greedy and stop marshalling resources to it to the point of a total lock-up.

It's analogous to how the Ford Pinto could explode if it got rear-ended. Yes, I'm sure someone nursing second-degree burns after a collision would benefit from better adjusted mirrors and regular  circle checks while driving. However, the real issue  is that no car should catch fire in a fender-bender.

And that's what I want to know: how do I stop Linux and KDE from exploding during an otherwise minor mishap?