Re: Sig 11 on switching from X to console

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:06:23 +0000 Michael <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
| I have posted something almost identical to this in the nVidia forum - I
| am sorry if that counts as a cross-posting here. Also, I do feel that I
| need the nVidia binary driver - it would be nice if no-one responds just
| to tell me not to use closed source (it is the only closed-source software
| I have).
|
| Ok here goes :
|
| Can anyone help me to get a handle on this problem - it may turn out to be
| distro-specific (Arch Linux), but at the moment the distro forum is not
| producing any ideas.
|
| I have a GeForce FX 5500. I have just updated to my distro's packages of
| the 169.09 driver and utils running under kernel 2.6.24 and X.Org X Server
| 1.4.0.90. I boot into a console and start X with "startx". Everything runs
| perfectly until I drop back into a console while X is running (ctrl-alt-
| f1). Usually (not always), this crashes X on a Sig 11 :
|
| Backtrace:
| 0: /usr/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x7e) [0x80baf4e]
| 1: [0xb7fc1420]
|
| Fatal server error:
| Caught signal 11. Server aborting
|
| I am not the only person to have this problem, but others don't see it at
| all.
|
| I upgraded the kernel at the same time as the nVidia stuff, so I have no
| experience of the current driver under my previous kernel.
|
| I don't know where to begin even in working out a test for how to isolate
| or narrow down the problem.
|
| Any ideas please?

It sounds like a bug in the driver for that particular card. X is handling
the switch since it has to restore the video card register state back to
what it was as a console.

Does the switch to the console finish (e.g. the console is displaying in
the right console mode) before X crashes?

I switch in and out of X frequently (100 times or more a day) and I do not
see this problem. But my video card is different (Matrox MGA driver).

If you have a very different video card available, maybe you can test it
and see if it works better when that one and its driver is used. If it
still fails, the problem could be elsewhere.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / spamtrap-2008-02-13-0958@xxxxxxxx |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|
.

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