my system keeps crashing

[trulan]

Open Synaptic, you should see 'Pinned' in the column on the left-hand side.  Like this:

These packages are 'Pinned' so you can't upgrade them.  Upgrading these could mess up your system.

Please post back with the names of any packages that are pinned on your system that are not pinned in my screenshot.

[oNNogitaar]

Thanks again! there are none...

[trulan]

Oh bother...something else is blocking it then.  I do remember having a bit of trouble installing gcc-4.5 on my system but I didn't keep record of exactly how I did it.

In the meantime, until I think of something else to try, you could try installing the 2.6.31-rt kernel from the AVLinux ftp:
http://www.bandshed.net/kernels/2.6.31.12-rt21-rev4-PAE.zip
It's an old kernel I know, but it was an awfully good kernel.  You may need to run sgfxi and install the NVidia binary drivers to get your graphics card working well on this kernel.

Sorry it is taking so long to help you resolve this...

[oNNogitaar]

...hmm, well. I think I rather wait for the new release. Thanks anyway!