Bug#506506: Another very similar phenomeno Update on gdb work...

[Paul E Condon]

My attempt to run gnome-terminal under gdb has come to a stage where a
"progress" report is appropriate.

I tried several ways to initiate gdm and gnome-terminal from a console
(which is outside of Xwindows and therefore outside of Gnome. I tried
to install and get working 'bug-buddy' Using aptitude to install new
packages needed to be done carefully since it was pretty determined to
replace my gnome-terminal with debugging symbols, with its own package
that does not have the symbols. A reboot seemed require. Wnen the
computer came back up Gnome had new behavior that made it effectively
an unusable environment, at least for me. Everything I tried seemed to
reduce the usability of Gnome. I lost my ability to send and receive
email. I decided to make a clean new install of Lenny since that, at
least, was something that I knew how to do.

The install was delayed by a breakdown in service. I have spent most
of today fixing up things that don't happen automatically in an
install, getting my fstab, and hosts right, etc. During this I was
constantly using gnome-terminal and frequently adjusting color schemes
and there has been not a single crash. (Aside: I need to adjust color
because the command line interfaces to aptitude, dpkg-reconfigure,
mutt, all make color high-lighting choices that are unreadable by
me. It is not an esthetic issue. I simply can't read dark blue letters
on a black background and other strange combinations.) 

So whatever was there was, to say the least, made far less easy to
detect. Based on the experience today, I do not expect to be able to
reproduce the problem with sufficient frequency to justify further
work on it. My initial Lenny installation was done months ago, well
before the official release. A clean new install may have cleaned
out some cruft that somehow managed to accumulate. 

The old Lenny that I abandoned is still on my HD in a separate 
partition. If anyone has the skill and the interest, they can
have a copy, bit-for-bit, for a forensic investigation. I'm keeping
it in case I discover that I need to retrieve something that I
forgot to copy over to the new Lenny. (I was rather restrictive in
what I copied because I knew there was toxic waste, or software 
prions, or something else really bad in it.)

Thanks for your help, and please don't ask me to close this bug.  I
would probably screw it up, and in the process make someone cranky.
-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon at mesanetworks.net