Re: [tlug] What is a core dump?

[YAMAGATA Hiroo <hiyori13@example.com>]

To make a short story long....

Once upon a time, computers used core memory. This looks like a wire net,
with a small black ring in all of the criss-cross of the wires. This was
the core memory. The rings were the core, and it magnetized during the
operation of the computer. The direction of the magnetization showed the
bit of the memory.

When the computer died, the cores stayed magnetized, so you can
see the final state of the computer memory before it died. This was
quite useful in analyzing what went wrong, so programmers made the
computer to "dump the (contents of the) core (memory)" whenever the
computer died.

And then history went by, the Beatles came and went, Echo and the
Bunnymen came and sort of went, Nirvana came and went but the Stones and Nine
Inch Nails still remain, and now we no longer use core memories, but the
terminology remained. Core dump is the record about the state of the
machine right before it died. You can use that to analyze what happened
to it. 

If you want to see it, you can still get it by making the system die
(use Gnome and do some complicated operation). You'll find "the core
dump" in the root directory. Poke it around with a debugger, and you'll
get some info out of it.

Best,
Hiroo



-- 
NRI Social System Consulting #1
YAMAGATA Hiroo <hiyori13@example.com>