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kde freezes

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Im running kde (under Etch) and it often freezes, the mouse freezes
and the keyboard dosnt respond so I cant kill the x-server with
cont+alt+bkspace. Is there a way out without needing to reboot? Can
the problem be fixed?

Thanks for any suggestions.
Andrew

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kde freezes

Submitted by pinniped on Wed, 2007-08-22 16:31.

What graphics card and driver are you using?

If you can boot from a Live CD, you can mount your root partition and have a look at messages in var/log to see if there are any clues to what's going wrong. If you see numerous messages from a driver (repetitive messages with 'DMA', 'interrupt', 'reset' and others) you can use part of the message and 'google' to find other reports of the problem and how to fix it.

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kde freezes

Submitted by whimbrel on Thu, 2007-08-23 17:49.

I think the graphics controller is ProSavage 8, Im not sure
how to find out what the driver is.
Thanks

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kde freezes

Submitted by pinniped on Thu, 2007-08-23 18:26.

The X driver will be in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and the kernel driver would be listed by 'lsmod':

lsmod|less

Issues common with onboard chips include:
1. Not enough video memory reserved
2. Very limited capability (need to select an appropriate resolution/color depth)

If you can identify the model/manufacturer of your graphics chip, you can use 'google' to see if anyone has recommended settings for it.

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kde freezes

Submitted by whimbrel on Fri, 2007-08-24 14:55.

The xorg.conf file tells me,
Section "Device"
Identifier "S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266]"
Driver "savage"

So I guess S3 graphics is the manufacturer.
The directory
/lib/modules/2.6.18-4-k7/kernel/drivers/video/savage
contains
savagefb.ko so maybe savagefb is the kernel driver?

But I've been using this computer for yrs with RH 9.0 with
24bit color with no problem so I don think video memory is
the problem.

Im not exacty sure what "Not enough video memory reserved"
means, I guess theres some distinction between memory
and reserved memory.

Thanks.

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kde freezes

Submitted by pinniped on Fri, 2007-08-24 23:43.

The "FB" driver is a framebuffer driver; it just provides a uniform method for drawing to the screens etc. You don't really need it, but if you can't get the other driver working then the framebuffer driver might work better. It's possible that even RH9 was using that driver.

Before you do anything else, try to reconfigure X:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

There are 3 "Savage" drivers - maybe you have the wrong one. (savage, S3, s3virge)

Before you do that, you might want to back up the xorg.conf file just in case things get worse.

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kde freezes

Submitted by whimbrel on Sat, 2007-08-25 19:56.

S3 and s3virge didnt work, X wouldnt start, vesa worked
but it has some drawbacks.
I guess the savage driver is buggy. I saw some similar
problems posted online but didnt see any fix yet.

Thanks

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kde freezes

Submitted by pinniped on Sat, 2007-08-25 20:23.

If your BIOS supports "Vesa 2.0" you may be able to get a very nice display (but no 2D/3D acceleration) by using the "framebuffer" device instead.

1. make sure 'vesafb' loads on boot by putting a line into /etc/modules

2. use the 'fbdev' driver for X

3. When you boot, add the parameter 'vga=ask' or try the following (1024x768 display):
vga=773 (8-bit color)
vga=791 (16-bit color)
vga=792 (24-bit color)

An alternative to that, if it works, is to use the 'savagefb' framebuffer driver. You need to make sure the kernel loads it (put it into /etc/modules, remove vesafb). In your xorg.conf you still need the same 'fbdev' driver, but you don't need to specify any 'vga=' parameters at boot.

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kde freezes

Submitted by whimbrel on Sun, 2007-08-26 12:15.

I wasnt sure where to put the vga= directives but I
tried the other option with savagefb and fbdev but that
didnt work. The bootup messages got very small and X couldnt
start, some out of sync message started floating around the
screen.

Earlier I had simply changed "savage" to "vesa" in the
xorg.conf and it worked fairly well but mplayer wasnt
able to use the xv driver. Getting mplayer working well
was 2nd on my list after trying to fix the keyboard/mouse
lockup problem.

Thanks

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kde freezes

Submitted by pinniped on Sun, 2007-08-26 20:56.

You wouldn't be able to use XV with the vesa or framebuffer devices. XV relies on hardware decompression support, and that just doesn't exist with vesa or fb.

Sometimes graphics related problems are tripped by using certain things like antialiasing. You can try the savage driver again, but in the KDE setup disable font antialiasing.

On a machine I'm currently developing for, I get hangs/reboots with a video driver unless I specify some vga mode at boot (this suggests something strange with initialization). So you might also want to try the plain savage driver but with a 'vga=' parameter on boot. If you use GRUB, then just edit your entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst to add the 'vga=whatever' parameter to your 'kernel' line.

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kde freezes

Submitted by whimbrel on Fri, 2007-08-31 22:30.

The freeze problem hasnt happened in a
while, thanks for your help on that.
Andrew

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