Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Gabriel Ricard]

Well, I've got a 6GB HD,  192MB RAM, and I use a USB
IntelliEye Explorer or whatever those mice with the
red lights are called. Heh. I am using LinuxPPC 2k and
the -stable tree from the rsync server. My symptoms
include a wandering mouse pointer: i.e. when I am
typing rapidly, X will occasionally think I've clicked
the mouse button and the focus goes to where the
pointer was located. I also have strange problems with
my lombard locking up when I leave it in the screen
saver overnight or turn the brightness all the way
down. I haven't had any problems related to massive
network activity. If I don't boot into MacOS enough to
just get the initial grey screen and then reboot and
let yaboot load, I get some really funky effects in X.
Specifically, lines that should be vertical turn
diagonal and stuff like that.


As for the USB->serial adapter, I have one from
Keyspan which several people are working on developing
drivers for. Search the list archives for more detail
on that.


--- Mario Scarpa <m.scarpa@mondonet.net> wrote:
> Michael Schmitz wrote:
> >
> > > I am wondering if any of the developers who do
> kernel
> > > related work on LinuxPPC have any suggestions
> for us
> > > on how to deal with this. If I knew how to do
> the
> > > debugging work and trace the problem to its root
> I
> > > would.
> >
> > It's a bit tough to debug kernel stuff on a
> machine like the Lombard if it
> > has no serial port to attach a console terminal or
> even a kernel debugger
> > to. It's even harder to remote debug such a
> machine over a mailing list
> > :-)
>
> Indeed ;-)
>
> Here's my setup: Lombard with 6GB HD and 64MB RAM
> (just like yours
> I guess); my probs started with USB support compiled
> in the kernel:
> even if it does not lead to a total freeze so often
> (would say very
> seldom indeed), I still get mouse freeze under X
> when heavy network
> activity is being made (last time 5 mins ago getting
> a big attachment).
> Some other times I get a kernel panic during the
> boot when initializing
> the serial interfaces (no, I have NOT support for
> standard serial
> but only MAC serial compiled into the kernel).
> This is why I was thinking about some USB/serial
> code problem but I
> agree we need some debug output to work on.
>
> Using Debian 2.2 and XF86_FBDev with kernel
> 2.2.15pre20 from Paul's
> tree.
>
> Thinking about the debug way you suggest, it comes
> to my mind another
> question not so related to the prob: is there a
> USB->serial converter
> around ? Is there one of this devices supported by
> Linux ? On PPC ?
>
> Ciao,
>
> --
> Mario Scarpa
>
> Mondonet NOC
> Phone: +39 06 52.47.37.02
>

=====
Gabriel Ricard
g_ricard@yahoo.com


** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Mario Scarpa]

Gabriel Ricard wrote:
>
> My symptoms
> include a wandering mouse pointer: i.e. when I am
> typing rapidly, X will occasionally think I've clicked
> the mouse button and the focus goes to where the
> pointer was located.

Same for me. And it is really annoying to write the
emails two or three times ;-)
My mouse is a brand x 5$ usb mouse with three buttons...

> I also have strange problems with
> my lombard locking up when I leave it in the screen
> saver overnight or turn the brightness all the way
> down.

Yes, I used to have this too but I solved it using 2.2.15pre20
X 3.3.6 and booting without specifying "no video options"
in BootX. As for the video opts I am using let me know if
you need them and will mail to you.
Same for the .config.

> I haven't had any problems related to massive
> network activity.

Bah, this seems to be my own problem...

> As for the USB->serial adapter, I have one from
> Keyspan which several people are working on developing
> drivers for. Search the list archives for more detail
> on that.

Many thanks I will do it.

Bye,

--
Mario Scarpa

Mondonet NOC
Phone: +39 06 52.47.37.02

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Michael Schmitz]

> > include a wandering mouse pointer: i.e. when I am
> > typing rapidly, X will occasionally think I've clicked
> > the mouse button and the focus goes to where the
> > pointer was located.
>
> Same for me. And it is really annoying to write the
> emails two or three times ;-)
> My mouse is a brand x 5$ usb mouse with three buttons...

That's Xpmac or FBDev? I'm using FBDev on 2.2.15pre9 and have no such
problems. And I can't imagine mouse data ending up as keyboard data except
for Xpmac (where mouse data are fed to the X tty prefixed by a special
escape char. Make X choke and drop the escape char, and you probably get
what you described. Or get a garbled keyboard char, similar effect).

	Michael


** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Mario Scarpa]

Michael Schmitz wrote:
>
> > > include a wandering mouse pointer: i.e. when I am
> > > typing rapidly, X will occasionally think I've clicked
> > > the mouse button and the focus goes to where the
> > > pointer was located.
> >
> > Same for me. And it is really annoying to write the
> > emails two or three times ;-)
> > My mouse is a brand x 5$ usb mouse with three buttons...
>
> That's Xpmac or FBDev? I'm using FBDev on 2.2.15pre9 and have no such
> problems. And I can't imagine mouse data ending up as keyboard data except
> for Xpmac (where mouse data are fed to the X tty prefixed by a special
> escape char. Make X choke and drop the escape char, and you probably get
> what you described. Or get a garbled keyboard char, similar effect).


Indeed it was my Xpmac try...cannot remember (or be sure) about
it happening under FBDev (which I am currently using)...good to
know.

Cheers,

--
Mario Scarpa

Mondonet NOC
Phone: +39 06 52.47.37.02

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Gabriel Ricard]

I am wondering if any of the developers who do kernel
related work on LinuxPPC have any suggestions for us
on how to deal with this. If I knew how to do the
debugging work and trace the problem to its root I
would.

--- Bernhard Reiter <bernhard@intevation.de> wrote:
> On Tue, May 02, 2000 at 01:22:21PM +0200, Albrecht
> Dress wrote:
> > > my problems with the hard freezes still
> continue.
> > > I have not come to any idea what is causing it.
> > > Several methods of trying to encircle the
> problem area failed.
> >
> > Sorry, I am afraid I lost some messages of this
> thread.  Hope this is not
> > too outdated ;-)
>
> You can look it up in the webarchive.
>
http://lists.linuxppc.org/listarcs/linuxppc-dev/200004/threads.html
>
>
> > I _have_ a Lombard running without problems.  So
> just some ideas which
> > might give you some more information.  Maybe you
> should try to work from
> > the first virtual (text) console (ctrl-opt-F1).
> If the kernel panics
> > (which is does very likely) it will emit this
> information there, but you
> > will NEVER see it if you are in X, and it does not
> necessarily go into
> > /var/log/messages.
>
> The hard freeze's low temperature prohibits all
> output.
> Never got any error message.
>
> > Did you check the serial port drivers?  I rember
> there were some problems
> > if you use the serial.c under LinuxPPC.  You do
> not need it, the right one
> > is macserial.c.  I could trigger panics on the
> Lombard and on my old 7300
> > by just typing "cat /dev/ttyS0 > /dev/null".
>
> Yes I check the serial driver, built a kernel
> without usb and
> serial support at all. But the symptoms are still
> there.
>
> I have 192 MB of RAM though and a 10 Gb drive ,
> these are the only
> differences which I think my machine might have to
> other lombards.
>
> 	Bernhard
>
> --
> Professional Service around Free Software
>     (intevation.net)
> The FreeGIS Project				            (freegis.org)
> Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure
>           (ffii.org)
>

> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature


=====
Gabriel Ricard
g_ricard@yahoo.com

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Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Michael Schmitz]

> I am wondering if any of the developers who do kernel
> related work on LinuxPPC have any suggestions for us
> on how to deal with this. If I knew how to do the
> debugging work and trace the problem to its root I
> would.

It's a bit tough to debug kernel stuff on a machine like the Lombard if it
has no serial port to attach a console terminal or even a kernel debugger
to. It's even harder to remote debug such a machine over a mailing list
:-)

There's a few things that can be tried though. You can use the modem port
as serial console if you hook it up to another modem, and make the two
modems connect (ata on the one, atd on the other). On the Lombard,
console=ttyS0 in the kernel options at boot plus actually initiating the
connection from a shell with cu or minicom is all it takes for that. Once
the kernel is logging to the modem port, try to force a freeze and check
for messages on the connected system. If I remember right, xmon will
accept input via the serial console port in this situation so you can go
aboout poking around after a panic threw you into xmon. I'm not familiar
with xmon, but the modem-connected serial console helped me track down the
XFree 4.0 Mach64 problems just by looking at the panic logs.
If the kernel just hangs without producing any panic messages, this method
won't work though.

A maybe more sophisticated way to debug in that case would be to use kgdb
instead of xmon, and enter the kernel-side debugger stub when the system
appears frozen. This requires the remote machine to run gdb with support
for the PPC binfmt, as well as working serial interrupts on the machine
being debugged. If the kernel just deadlocked somewhere with interrupts
still enabled, this should work (but so should timeouts, keyboard and the
like). Otherwise, you're out of luck. I should add that I haven't been
forced to resort to kgdb so far ...

I haven't seen the result of one of the suggestions here to stay in the
text consoles instead of X. This experiment should tell about the state of
interrupts when the system freezes. One thing I notices that makes the
Lombard in question different from mine (which hasn't frozen on me in
ages despite extensive number crunching and compiling) is that it's got a
lot more RAM (64M here only) and a bigger disk (6GB here). Both combined
might account for higher power consumption, higher heat dissipation, you
name it. Batmon should tell just how much more power is drawn by that
configuration.

Just a few ideas. From the problem descriptions, I have no idea what part
of kernel or hardware to blame. The kernel needs to get caught in the act
now ...

	Michael


** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Mario Scarpa]

Michael Schmitz wrote:
>
> > I am wondering if any of the developers who do kernel
> > related work on LinuxPPC have any suggestions for us
> > on how to deal with this. If I knew how to do the
> > debugging work and trace the problem to its root I
> > would.
>
> It's a bit tough to debug kernel stuff on a machine like the Lombard if it
> has no serial port to attach a console terminal or even a kernel debugger
> to. It's even harder to remote debug such a machine over a mailing list
> :-)

Indeed ;-)

Here's my setup: Lombard with 6GB HD and 64MB RAM (just like yours
I guess); my probs started with USB support compiled in the kernel:
even if it does not lead to a total freeze so often (would say very
seldom indeed), I still get mouse freeze under X when heavy network
activity is being made (last time 5 mins ago getting a big attachment).
Some other times I get a kernel panic during the boot when initializing
the serial interfaces (no, I have NOT support for standard serial
but only MAC serial compiled into the kernel).
This is why I was thinking about some USB/serial code problem but I
agree we need some debug output to work on.

Using Debian 2.2 and XF86_FBDev with kernel 2.2.15pre20 from Paul's
tree.

Thinking about the debug way you suggest, it comes to my mind another
question not so related to the prob: is there a USB->serial converter
around ? Is there one of this devices supported by Linux ? On PPC ?

Ciao,

--
Mario Scarpa

Mondonet NOC
Phone: +39 06 52.47.37.02

** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Bernhard Reiter]

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Hi Linux/PPC world,

my problems with the hard freezes still continue.
I have not come to any idea what is causing it.
Several methods of trying to encircle the problem area failed.

Therefore I have to assume it is an hardware error.
So testing software under MacOS did not reveal any hardware problems to
far.

The only way to reliably prove this would be to exchange the RAM
or something and test. This has to wait a couple of days until
the person in my local apple store is back from vacation again.

As I understand it, there are a couple of Lombard user who do not
ave this kind of stability problems. At least three cases seem to
be similiar to mine, but that does not prove much.

As you can see this problem is nagging me. :(
I thought I just let you know, maybe somebody still has some
advice to offer.

Thanks,
	Bernhard
-- 
Professional Service around Free Software                (intevation.net)  
The FreeGIS Project				            (freegis.org)
Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure            (ffii.org)

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Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Albrecht Dress]

> my problems with the hard freezes still continue.
> I have not come to any idea what is causing it.
> Several methods of trying to encircle the problem area failed.

Sorry, I am afraid I lost some messages of this thread.  Hope this is not
too outdated ;-)

I _have_ a Lombard running without problems.  So just some ideas which
might give you some more information.  Maybe you should try to work from
the first virtual (text) console (ctrl-opt-F1).  If the kernel panics
(which is does very likely) it will emit this information there, but you
will NEVER see it if you are in X, and it does not necessarily go into
/var/log/messages.

Did you check the serial port drivers?  I rember there were some problems
if you use the serial.c under LinuxPPC.  You do not need it, the right one
is macserial.c.  I could trigger panics on the Lombard and on my old 7300
by just typing "cat /dev/ttyS0 > /dev/null".

Hope this helps, Albrecht.


** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: Lombard hard freeze (still there)

[Bernhard Reiter]

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On Tue, May 02, 2000 at 01:22:21PM +0200, Albrecht Dress wrote:
> > my problems with the hard freezes still continue.
> > I have not come to any idea what is causing it.
> > Several methods of trying to encircle the problem area failed.
> 
> Sorry, I am afraid I lost some messages of this thread.  Hope this is not
> too outdated ;-)

You can look it up in the webarchive.
http://lists.linuxppc.org/listarcs/linuxppc-dev/200004/threads.html


> I _have_ a Lombard running without problems.  So just some ideas which
> might give you some more information.  Maybe you should try to work from
> the first virtual (text) console (ctrl-opt-F1).  If the kernel panics
> (which is does very likely) it will emit this information there, but you
> will NEVER see it if you are in X, and it does not necessarily go into
> /var/log/messages.

The hard freeze's low temperature prohibits all output.
Never got any error message. 

> Did you check the serial port drivers?  I rember there were some problems
> if you use the serial.c under LinuxPPC.  You do not need it, the right one
> is macserial.c.  I could trigger panics on the Lombard and on my old 7300
> by just typing "cat /dev/ttyS0 > /dev/null".

Yes I check the serial driver, built a kernel without usb and 
serial support at all. But the symptoms are still there.

I have 192 MB of RAM though and a 10 Gb drive , these are the only 
differences which I think my machine might have to other lombards.

	Bernhard

-- 
Professional Service around Free Software                (intevation.net)  
The FreeGIS Project				            (freegis.org)
Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure            (ffii.org)

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