Re: Sig 11 on switching from X to console

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:06:41 +0000, phil-news-nospam wrote:

<snip>

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?

Thanks for that Phil. Yes the switch to console finishes and it can be a
few (say 2 - 5), seconds before the Sig 11 hits. I then see the usual
error reports as all my running X applications lose their connection to
the server. I can do startx immediately from the same console and X comes
back to life.

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).

I do a lot of switching too. I use console mode as an elementary security
precaution (to stop casual observation of what I was doing), every time I
leave my desk. It won't be 100 times a day, but it must be at least 10 -
20 and I have never seen this problem before the upgrade. I have had this
same card for a couple of years now.

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.

I could drop an old card in there is another nVidia lying around
somewhere, the problem is that just at the moment the box needs to be on
24/7. I wish that the kernel and nVidia upgrades had not been
simultaneous - maybe its some interaction between them.

Thanks again,

/M

.

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