It started freezing maybe a month or two ago. It happens anytime between a few seconds after the OS loads, to hours or days later. I do not recall downloading anything around when this issue began that could be suspect.
I’ve put off fixing this because I have no idea how to even begin troubleshooting it. Internet searches for “Linux freezes” returns practically countless potential problems.
What are some recommendations? I have my root directory on a 30 GB partition separate from my home directory, which I think makes reinstalling my base image (Debian) easy without losing personal data, so that’s an option. Maybe there’s a system log file that would provide some insight?
I’m Linux dumb so please teach me how to fish!
I’ll add that my Windows install (on a separate drive) doesn’t freeze, and my Linux install is on a new Samsung drive that didn’t report issues, so the problems unlikely hardware related.
You could try to ping your machine from another device and see if it responds. I had issues with older nvidia card on a old system where it would lock up keyboard/mouse and video but the underlying system was still running and I could ssh into the machine and debug the problem that way. Another computer is obviously preferred but in a pinch a cellphone is better than nothing.