What causes a segmentations fault?

[Brandon N <bneill@yahoo.com>]

My box recently locked up twice, I believe due to static shock.  

Now when I start gnome it says gnome-panel could not start due to
segmentation fault.  A couple of other applications also got
segmentations faults.  

Is this likely due to a hardware problem (memory) or did something get
corrupted due to the two hard reboots (library perhaps).


Is there a way to compare an installed package with the package
contents to see if something does not match what was installed from the
package?

Thanks,
Brandon


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com