Instability in Gnome1.0/gmc?

[Geoff Romer <gromer neglekt lwhs org>]

I have been encountering an intermittent problem with Gnome 1.0.3. I am
running a pretty straightforward gnome-session with the file manager and
panel, with E in the background. The problem is that occasionally the
system will seemingly lock up. It, or rather E, I suppose, responds
perfectly well to keyboard commands such as switching workspaces, but
nothing anywhere will respond to the mouse. Often, when I use Ctrl-Alt-F1
to escape and kill the session from the console, I find the console
display getting screwed up in various ways (typically, a few characters
will start picking up extra pixels, occasionally to the point of
illegibility). Rebooting seems to be the only way of correcting this
(reset and clear don't work).

I have a suspicion that the problem relates to the file manager, as the
problems seem to happen when I am working with the file manager, or at
least when it is open. I am running gmc version 4.5.27.

If anyone has any idea how to fix this, it would be much appreciated. I am
trying to impress my father with Linux's newfound user-friendliness, and
this is costing me some credibility :-)

---
Geoffrey M. Romer
gromer@lick.pvt.k12.ca.us
http://www.lick.pvt.k12.ca.us/~gromer
---
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right"
                                                          -Salvor Hardin
 
"It's not the pot of gold, it's the rainbow I'm after!"
                                                          -Unknown

"I can't leave you alone with this man! He might be a tenor!"
                                                          -Fred Astaire