Ever since I sync'd back up to current a month or so ago (from
~1.6W), I've been able to crash my i386 laptop consistently with
linux emulated applications. Opera causes a lock on extremely
rare occasions, java will at times, especially when using a GUI
application while running xmms, and Firebird will do so
consistently and with very little effort.

I don't see anything interesting in gnats nor on the lists. Have
anybody else experienced similar stability problems? Each crash
has occurred within X, so I can't get to ddb. I've tried booting
over serial, but I couldn't access the debugger there either. I'm
not even sure where to begin with this. I don't believe that this
is due to any sort of flux as it's been happening for weeks
across many re-syncs. 

Any insights or suggestions as to what I should do to begin
tracking this down would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Steve