[Linux-ia64] Re: [Ia64] Netscape (32-bit) locks machine

Michael Madore
2000-08-26T00:35:42Z

On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, Marc Aurele La France wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, Michael Madore wrote:
>
> > > > > I am running into an issue where Netscape will often lock up the entire
> > > > > machine when launched. It isn't just the X Server crashing, the
> > > > > entire system is frozen. This happens on both Rage 128 and Rage XL. On
> > > > > the Rage XL, I virtually eliminated the lock ups by removing latin2 fonts
> > > > > from my XF86Config file. With the Rage 128, nothing seems to help,
> > > > > including using option "noaccel" for the driver. We are using XFree 4.0.1
> > > > > with patches (essentially the same patches that were just posted.)
>
> > > > Could be a bug in one of the font renderers. I know the FreeType
> > > > renderer has some bugs.
>
> > > Ummm. Looks like there are similar problems with the latest builds on
> > > ia32.
>
> > After doing some further testing, I have found that X seems to lock the
> > machine hard on our Lion boxes pretty much all the time. Just starting X
> > will sometimes lock them up. These boxes are all using the r128 driver.
>
> > I am going to try the latest code from CVS tomorrow and see if there is
> > any improvment. If not, what can I do to help track down where the
> > problem is coming from?
>
> Well, on the assumption that it is a font renderer problem, you can try
> whittling down your font path until the problem stops happening. Start by
> removing TrueType (or clone), then Type1, Speedo, etc. If your running
> xfs, get rid of it first.

I went ahead and cut down my fonts to pretty much nothing. The problem
still occurs. I turned off acceleration on the Lion boxes, and that
allows our install program to run without X crashing. With acceleration
turned on, the machine will hang if you use a scroll bar to move through a
large text list.

It was pointed out to me that /dev/mem needs to be opened with O_SYNC, so
that it will not be mapped write-cache. Mapping it with write cache can
cause lockups. I have a patch applied in os-support/lnx_video.c that
fixes this problem, but I still get lockups. I was wondering if there
are any other places in the code where this could be happening?