From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Nov 20 2:56:59 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E433337B418 for ; Tue, 20 Nov 2001 02:56:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id fAKAu8R20079; Tue, 20 Nov 2001 02:56:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Anthony Atkielski" , , "Chip" Cc: Subject: RE: home pc use Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 02:56:08 -0800 Message-ID: <006901c171b1$f549f760$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <00cd01c171ac$ca0fa0e0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Anthony >Atkielski >Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 2:19 AM >To: RoKlein@roklein.de; Chip >Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: home pc use > > >Robert writes: > >> Perhaps this was due to your buggy VIA >> Southbridge, mentioned in another >> thread, IIRC? > >That same "buggy" hardware runs Windows flawlessly. > >> Though KDE crashing possibly indicates a faulty >> memory module / memory timing problems... > >The most likely cause is poorly written code. > This is absolutely not true. If the Xserver is properly written you cannot lock up or crash your system with KDE or any other buggy window manager. Sure you can cause the window manager to dump core or whatever, but those processes don't have the rights into the hardware to lock it up. However, with a buggy Xserver you can lock up your system with even a perfect X program. Even an Xserver that isn't necessairly buggy but instead gets something back that's unexpected from the video card chipset can do this. (because maybe the OEM modified the video chipset slightly) It's not the best thing from a stability standpoint to run the Xserver on the same system that you want to run the X clients on. Due to the nature of PC video hardware, to get any kind of decent speed the X server must be written to have direct access to the video hardware. This is a violation of the idea in UNIX that only the OS has the privilige to tamper with the hardware. Thank you IBM and your crappy video BIOS routines that caused the situation. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message