Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 08:43:13 +0900 From: Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> To: Donn Miller <dmm125@bellatlantic.net> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG, yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp Subject: Re: netscape/swap_pager causing problems with syscons Message-ID: <199802022343.IAA10089@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 02 Feb 1998 13:38:53 GMT." <Pine.NEB.3.96.980202132937.222A-100000@myname.my.domain> References: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980202132937.222A-100000@myname.my.domain>
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When the X server crashes badly, there is no way for syscons to recover the screen. The X server manipulates various registers on the video chip to get acceleration. Syscons knows only about the standard VGA registers, thus, it is impossible for it to set appropriate values to all those extended registers and get the video card back into the text mode. Syscons could program the standard registers and pretend the screen came back to the text mode in the event of X crash. But, this would be disastrous not only that the screen wouldn't probably be restored because of extended registers, but also that leaving the video chip in an arbitrary state (the standard registers programmed to the text mode while the extended registers programmed to the graphics mode) might damage your hardware (monitor)! That's my understanding. I don't think we would like to break the user's monitor by running a piece of code which is known to be insufficient. I guess it's time to ask XFree86 people to write a utility to restore video state after the X server crash. Afterall, information is there in XF86Config; which video chip we are dealing with... # When I find time, I might do it myself. But, I don't promise :-) Kazu >This problem was alluded to before. When running X windows, say you start >netscape. Then you run out of swap space. What happens next is that X >windows lock the computer solid, or X windows crashes, leaving me with a >blank screen. None of the virtual terminals work then, but I know the >system is still running, because ctrl+alt+delete reboots (shuts down) the >system. But I still see nothing on the screen. > >Jordan hinted to this as a problem with syscons in one posting I saw. I >would have to agree. In general, running out of swap space with netscape >and X running wrecks havoc on syscons. I was wondering if anyone has >experience with this problem and a possible solution as to how to get >syscons responding again. I can't login by way of serial console so I >guess the only choice is to just ctrl+alt+delete > >Thank you > > Donn
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