Thanks Duncan for hints and the thorough reply, I am also pretty sure it's a kernel crash. No logs are leaved, and indeed as I read on wiki.x.org the only way is to log remotely (there is also a guide how).
in meantime i tried to use a different kernel, though the same version but vanilla source, the effect was the same. But i could run ubuntu from the life-cd, it uses the 2.6.32-21, so it seems to me you are right, and it is KMS "crashing" the kernel. I'll post the results of my trials this weekend, and many thanks meanwhile, ~levon On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Duncan <[email protected]> wrote: > Levon Ghazaryan posted on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:27:18 +0200 as excerpted: > >> on 2.6.34-r1, ThinkPad T410 with Intel Arrandale with a custom kernel >> the laptop freezes on startx or X -retro -config /root/xorg.conf.new >> (with a fresh created xorg.conf.new with Xorg -config). >> >> as this happens I'm not able to switch the tty, the laptop doesn't >> respond to ping and caps lock is constantly blinking. > > Won't even respond to ping. That's definitely a hard lockup. =:^( > > Unfortunately, such lockups often don't leave a lot in the way of logs, > because whatever triggers them panics the kernel to the point it can't > trust itself to write log entries (good thing too, at that point it's > generally so confused who knows where it might scribble on the disk, > precisely the reason it doesn't write anything if it doesn't trust itself > to do so correctly) detailing what went wrong. > > But you can tell it doesn't respond to pings, which presumably means you > have at least one other machine available. It's often possible in such > cases to take a log remotely, and sometimes get an entry with the problem > via the remote connection as the kernel's going down, since the kernel > knows that writing to a network connection can't scribble where it's not > supposed to on the disk, like trying to right a log entry to disk might do > at that point. > > Unfortunately I don't know those details, as it's only relatively recently > that I have both a netbook and a desktop, to be able to do such things, > and I've not actually done them yet. But I do know it's possible, and you > can look into it further if you find it necessary. > >> there is no error in /var/log/Xorg.0.log > > One wouldn't be expected in such a case, for the reasons I mention above. > >> and Xorg -config exits without complaining about anything. > > =:^( > >> I followed the guide at: >> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml#using_startx >> >> so I completed all steps mentioned there. >> >> at this point I have no idea how to debug, get information what is going >> an, or what causes the problem - there are no error messages and no log >> left. the only thing I see is a black screen, a blinking cursor at the >> top left corner for a moment and a completely black screen after wards >> and laptop the responds to nothing as a result. the only way that i >> could get out of this was to hard-reboot using the power button. >> >> please post here if you have any ideas what this could be or how can it >> be figured out what causes the crash. >> >> at some point i tried: >> emerge -e xorg-server >> >> but this changed nothing and startx crashes again in the same way. > > Altho my netbook has Intel graphics, I've not had it as long as my main > machine (AMD, several generations of Radeon graphics), and know rather > less about Intel graphics than I do Radeons. > > However, both the Radeon and Intel drivers now (with 2.6.34 on the Radeon > side, I believe earlier for the Intel side) default to KMS, kernel mode > setting, as opposed to the former UMS, user (xorg) mode setting. KMS runs > fine on both my main AMD/Opteron/Radeon machine and my Intel/Atom based > Acer Aspire One netbook (ICH7 family chipset, 945GME graphics, rev 03), > but I'm running ~arch on both (~amd64 on the workstation, ~x86 on the > netbook), and in fact, running the x11 overlay as well, so getting X > related packages before they're even in the main tree. With a technology > as new as is KMS, the newest versions are very likely more stable than > earlier versions. as the technology itself is still developing and > stabilizing. FWIW, xorg-server-1.8.2 (from the x11 overlay), on both > machines, here, and the xf86-video-*, drm, mesa, and other such packages, > are equally current, some in-tree already, some from the overlay. > > I'd therefore suggest you look into the KMS/UMS thing. That may well be > your problem. I believe there's a kernel parameter you can add in grub, > to turn off KMS and see if that's it. nokms or no-kms or some such, I've > not had to use it so IDR for sure. > > Actually, now that I think of it, I believe I've read about a particular > Intel chipset, the ICH-5 series, IIRC, that has had very serious problems > with KMS, and either has /just/ fixed them (would likely be with the > 2.6.35 kernel and/or xorg-1.8 or later and/or comparable xf86-video-intel > driver, the fix would be that fresh, tho of course some of us have been > running that stuff for months, now, so it's not necessarily /that/ new), > or they're still affected and won't yet work with kms at all. I've no > clue where Arrandale is relative to ICH-5, but if that's it, you're very > likely affected and need the nokms boot parameter, at least with xorg > earlier than the very latest ~arch and x11 overlay stuff, and with kernels > older than the just release 2.6.35, and might still need it with them. > > -- > Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. > "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- > and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman > > >
