On Apr 13, 2002 Patrick Stockton wrote: > When sitting at a text login at the actuall box for example I'll enter the > username and password and it'll stop moving. So I'll hit ALT+F3 to get a > different terminal and I get a black screen, no prompts. So I hit ALT+F7 to > get to my X windows and still get the black screen.
That's one of the worst things that can happen! Does the caps-lock light on the keyboard blink when you press the capslock key? If it does, /something/ is still running in there. The "magic sysrq" key is your friend when the screen is blank. It's not hard to set up and use. You could at least sync the filesystem before rebooting. Check out sysrq.txt in /usr/src/linux/Documentation. Maybe the last bufferfull of the system logs has important clues but sadly are gone by the time you can get the system restarted. Some people hook up a serial console to get at these messages. Sometimes the serial console keeps talking even after vga-consoles and network access are dead. Docs for setting it up: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/serial-console-txt You can make a 2nd system pretend to be a serial terminal for example using a null modem (it's just a cable) and minicom. Maybe someone can lend you a small linux box for a few days. Getty (or mgetty) could be freaking out? I've spent many hours tracking down getty problems, but I can't remember anything that would help without a live console. Ingo Molnar used to have a crash-dump patch to the kernel, might even be incorporated with newer kernels? (kmsgdump if memory serves) Lastly, you might be able to tweak the log-level of messages that show up on the console. Best of luck. -- Code seen in the rear mirror may look better than it is. _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
