what is this core icon face thingy?!

[Baranohell]

I recently re-booted to be welcomed by a bomb with a smiley face on it on my desktop. WHAT IS IT?! I'm assuming its not good. Especially since everything is running much slower now. All replies are appreciated.

[demian]

You didn't change anything, did you? Any software installs, major updates,...
Could you post a screenshot?

[DMR]

Congratulations, you've just had your first core dump!

From the Jargon File:
[common Iron Age jargon, preserved by Unix] 1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of core, produced when a process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error. 2. By extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or registering extreme shock. "He dumped core. All over the floor. What a mess." "He heard about X and dumped core." 3. Occasionally used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great length; esp. in apology: "Sorry, I dumped core on you". 4. A recapitulation of knowledge (compare bits, sense 1). Hence, spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. brain dump), esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam question. "Short, concise answers are better than core dumps" (from the instructions to an exam at Columbia). See core

Basically, when a system burps, it tries to write the contents of its memory to a file called "core!" as a debugging aid. Sometimes the contents of the file can help a debugger/troubleshooter determine the cause of the problem. The "bomb" icon is a link to the file.

The data won't be in any user-friendly format;
you can delete it if you don't need it.

[ 05 April 2001: Message edited by: DMR ]

[Baranohell]

Thanks, for the replies...I'll just delete it since I don't know enough yet to benefit from any debugging info :D