Kernel panic? kernel panic??

[Beartooth]

	Having seen much mention of it in many places, I finally
got around to trying to google it -- and merely brought up a
plethora of incomprehensibilities. What is it? Why does it happen?
What is to do about it?

	Everything I looked at presumed I knew a lot more than I
do. :-(

	Coincidentally, I finally got a look at what is otherwise
presented as an illegible little box in the upper left corner of my
ibook, once the gui interface takes my logon & password, before and
instead of kde opening -- not every time, but mostly -- on the
first try.

	Sure enough, it says something avout kernel panic, and
about trying to stop something not running, and failure to synch --
whatever all that means -- and then "rebooting in 180 seconds."

	It does indeed reboot in about that time, and again I have
to tell it L to keep it from defaulting to OSX; and then it runs.

	In case it's relevant, at shutdown I always get failures to
shut ntpd down. I'm running YDL 2.2, installed by Terrasoft at
shipping.

	Clue, please? Maybe start with a url -- or a book ...
	TIA!
-- 
Beartooth the Stubborn <karhunhammas (at) lserv.com>
Double Retiree, Linuxer's Apprentice, Curmudgeon On Line
Keep in mind that I have little idea whereof I speak.