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Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 20:54:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Don Lewis <truckman@FreeBSD.org>
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cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: Mozilla Firefox and firebird problems after sat
 022604upgradeof FreeBSD-current
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On  1 Mar, Robin Schoonover wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 20:23:05 -0800 (PST), Don Lewis wrote:
>> On  1 Mar, Brian F. Feldman wrote:
>> > Why in the world are you going around recompiling ports and changing 
>> > dotfiles to find a lock-up?  Either X is having problems, or the kernel
>> > is having problems.  Go to the _CONSOLE_ and execute the programs that
>> > are "causing" the "lock-up" and you will stand a chance at actually
>> > finding and fixing whatever is going wrong.
>> > 
>> > Ctrl-Alt-F1
>> > <login>
>> > DISPLAY=:0.0 firefox
>> > 
>> > (or whatever)
>> 
>> That's really a neat trick.  I think it deserves to be documented
>> somewhere.
>> 
> 
> It is.  X(1)   (man X)
> 
> You may need to install XFree86-manuals (x11/XFree86-4-manuals).

I've set $DISPLAY many times over the years, but ...

> Although, being this is really about debugging system trouble, it may be a
> good idea to document with whatever other stuff we have about the subject.

Yeah, I meant in the context of debugging the system.  It would
eliminate the need for a serial console in a number of cases.  It never
occured to me to try this trick when attempting to debug a system crash
or lockup while X is running.