Hi,
So I tried to collect as much information as I can about this freezing
bug.
First I am running with a Debian testing/unstable (Sid). To 'celebrate'
the bug, I compiled two kernel 2.4.16, one smp and one mono (to see if
it was SMP related).
My hardware is:
- Dual-proc PentiumII@450MHz
- Motherboard P2B-DS Asustech
- Soundcard SoundBlaster PCI128 (Ensoniq 1370)
- Alsa: I get the Alsa from the CVS today (11/27/2001)
(Okay, just right now it was yesterday)
So, now the bug:
I first noticed the bug when using the OSS emulation. I was using xmms
and suddenly I wanted to lower the volume... Freeze.
After a lot of tests I noticed that even without X, on consoles, two
alsamixer were giving exactly the same result (but I have to say now
that I had put the oss modules in /etc/modules.conf so they were active
all during my following tests, I don't know if it is important).
I get also a funny freeze at some point. I was trying to run mpeg123 and
alsamixer in console mode. At some point, mpeg123 was playing an mp3 and
I was moving the volume of Master to get a freeze. Of course, I get a
freeze and the funny thing was that mpeg123 was looping on a short
sample of the song. But I wasn't able to reproduce it after this.
So the minimal configuration make it crash was, one alsamixer on ttyS1
and ttyS2 and then I try to change the volume on either Master, PCM,
PCM1, Line, CD, Mic, Aux, Mon, Mono1 (a lot of fsck, I can tell you).
Master M, Mic Boos, Aux Input and AD Input were just fine (don't ask me
why).
My BIG problem was that I really can't get any log from this problem.
No ooops, no strace output (the file was existing but was empty), no
syslog, nothing ! :-/
Then I tried on an mono-proc kernel (I also compiled the alsa-driver
against the sources of the mono-proc kernel of course).
Everything was fine !!!!!
Huuum, interesting ! So, I don't know exactly what to do now ! :-/
I'm strongly suspecting something related with SMP (race condition?).
But I have nothing to prove it (except that it is working without the
SMP option).
Moreover, I don't know WHERE it is freezing. It must definitely be
somewhere in the kernel (you can't blow up Linux like this without being
directly in the kernel), but where precisely ??? Dunno.
So, Heeeelp ! :-)
--
Emmanuel
I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of
my life... Procrastinating and rationalizing.
-- Calvin & Hobbes (Bill Waterson)
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