Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:29:38 -0700 From: David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org> To: current@freebsd.org Subject: xdm & syscons failing to get along ... sometimes? Message-ID: <20060413182938.GB692@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
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I've been tracking RELENG_6 (on slice 1) and HEAD (on slice 4) of
my laptop (currently a Dell Inspiron 8200) for a while now. And
while I've been fairly pleased with the overall behavior for both,
there's one issue that shows up a lot more often in CURRENT than
6.x, and it's getting to the point where I'm about to start poking
around to try to figure out what's going on so I can fix it.
But before I do, I thought it might make sense to describe what I'm
seeing & ask if other folks are seeing it or if other folks are trying
to fix it (so I can work with them, vs. at cross-purposes).
Briefly:
* I start xdm via a script in /usr/local/etc/rc.d.
* In the past (since FreeBSD 2.2.x or so), this has worked without any
problems at all.
* More recently, sometimes after the machine boots, the virtual terminals
provided by syscons(4) don't seem to work. Symptoms include:
* Typing my login on the xdm login screen fails to echo, but the
information does appear to be read by getty(8).
* Indeed; I am actually able to login, though seeing that is almost
impossible, because the various Ctl+Alt+Fx chords don't show any
vtys, either. But after I enter my login & password, I can (blindly)
type "sudo reboot" followed by my password, and the machine then
reboots (if I typed everything correctly). Thus, it appears that
there's a bit of a "disconnect" between what process is actually
accepting keyboard input vs. what process is controlling the display.
* I have tried tinkering with the rcorder(8) keywords, as well as
creating an additional "startup script," the job of which is to
insert a "sleep" before xdm starts up. Although I've been able
to make the symptoms rarer, I have not been able to make them
stop completely. I tweaked that extra script to add more delay for
7.x; that seems to help somewhat, but even adding 12 more seconds
doesn't prevent the problem from recurring.
* Usually a reboot does not exhibit the same symptoms. Sometimes, it does.
* As noted above, it's more common in 7.x than in 6.x. I don't recall
ever seeing the problem in 4.x or earlier. (I didn't spend enough
time running 5.x to recall.)
* I have not seen the problem on my desktop at work, where I also
track RELENG_6 & HEAD, and also run xdm via a script in
/usr/local/etc/rc.d.
As noted, the laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8200; here's some salient info
about the hardware, taken from dmesg:
FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT #47: Thu Apr 13 10:14:06 PDT 2006
root@localhost:/common/S4/obj/usr/src/sys/LAPTOP_30W
...
Calibrating clock(s) ... i8254 clock: 1193216 Hz
CLK_USE_I8254_CALIBRATION not specified - using default frequency
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
Calibrating TSC clock ... TSC clock: 1594832736 Hz
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 Mobile CPU 1.60GHz (1594.83-MHz 686-class CPU)
Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0xf24 Stepping = 4
Features=0x3febf9ff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM>
Instruction TLB: 4 KB, 2 MB or 4 MB pages, fully associative, 64 entries
Data TLB: 4 KB or 4 MB pages, fully associative, 64 entries
1st-level data cache: 8 KB, 4-way set associative, sectored cache, 64 byte line size
Trace cache: 12K-uops, 8-way set associative
2nd-level cache: 512 KB, 8-way set associative, sectored cache, 64 byte line size
real memory = 268312576 (255 MB)
...
/var/log/Xorg.0.log tells me the video card is a "nVidia Corporation
NV11 [GeForce2 Go] rev 178;" I'm using the X.org "nv" driver.
My current work desktop is a Dell Dimension 3000; its video card is
shown as "Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller rev
2;" I'm using the X.org "i810" driver.
Here's a corresponding exerpt from dmsg.run (running 6.x):
FreeBSD 6.1-RC #41: Sun Apr 9 06:21:31 PDT 2006
root@localhost:/common/S2/obj/usr/src/sys/CATMINT
ACPI APIC Table: <DELL 3000 >
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2793.01-MHz 686-class CPU)
Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0xf41 Stepping = 1
Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,C
MOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE>
Features2=0x441d<SSE3,RSVD2,MON,DS_CPL,CNTX-ID,<b14>>
real memory = 535232512 (510 MB)
avail memory = 514396160 (490 MB)
Hints, pointers, suggestions, or fixes would be welcomoe.
Peace,
david
--
David H. Wolfskill david@catwhisker.org
Mail filters, like sewers, need to be most restrictive at the point of entry.
See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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