[gentoo-user] Blank screen when starting or stopping X server

[gentoo-user] Blank screen when starting or stopping X server

[Simon Hunt]

Sometimes when I start or stop the X server, for instance at boot when GDM
loads, or when I logout of Gnome and GDM is restarted, the screen goes blank, 
and the monitor shows an orange light as if it were disconnected from the computer.
The computer is still on, but I think it is frozen, because I can't use ssh
to access it. I've diffed the Xorg logs from a normal server and a frozen server
and they are the same besides dates and other trivial lines, unless perhaps
the frozen server doesn't even write to a log. If you think I should try that
again, tell me. I could have done something wrong.

Re: [gentoo-user] Blank screen when starting or stopping X server

[Willie Wong]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 09:28:50PM -0400, Penguin Lover Simon Hunt squawked:
> Sometimes when I start or stop the X server, for instance at boot when GDM
> loads, or when I logout of Gnome and GDM is restarted, the screen goes blank, 
> and the monitor shows an orange light as if it were disconnected from the computer.
> The computer is still on, but I think it is frozen, because I can't use ssh
> to access it. I've diffed the Xorg logs from a normal server and a frozen server
> and they are the same besides dates and other trivial lines, unless perhaps
> the frozen server doesn't even write to a log. If you think I should try that
> again, tell me. I could have done something wrong.

How about the system/kernel logs? 

Have you built a video driver against a "wrong" kernel?

W

-- 
"Do you all understand? At this point I'll settle for quiet acquiescence."
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Sortir en Pantoufles: up 991 days, 15:48

Re: [gentoo-user] Blank screen when starting or stopping X server

[Simon Hunt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2566 bytes --]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 01:03:21PM -0400, Willie Wong wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 09:28:50PM -0400, Penguin Lover Simon Hunt squawked:
> > Sometimes when I start or stop the X server, for instance at boot when GDM
> > loads, or when I logout of Gnome and GDM is restarted, the screen goes blank, 
> > and the monitor shows an orange light as if it were disconnected from the computer.
> > The computer is still on, but I think it is frozen, because I can't use ssh
> > to access it. I've diffed the Xorg logs from a normal server and a frozen server
> > and they are the same besides dates and other trivial lines, unless perhaps
> > the frozen server doesn't even write to a log. If you think I should try that
> > again, tell me. I could have done something wrong.
> 
> How about the system/kernel logs? 
> 
> Have you built a video driver against a "wrong" kernel?

Here are the relevant lines from /var/log/messages:

Aug 25 23:38:04 gentoo-desktop sudo: skrapasor : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/skrapasor ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/sbin/reboot
Aug 25 23:38:04 gentoo-desktop sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by skrapasor(uid=0)
Aug 25 23:38:04 gentoo-desktop sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 25 23:38:04 gentoo-desktop shutdown[25368]: shutting down for system reboot
Aug 25 23:38:04 gentoo-desktop init: Switching to runlevel: 6
Aug 25 23:38:09 gentoo-desktop gdm[2404]: pam_unix(gdm:session): session closed for user skrapasor
Aug 25 23:40:11 gentoo-desktop syslog-ng[3058]: syslog-ng starting up; version='2.1.4'
Aug 25 23:40:11 gentoo-desktop Linux version 2.6.30-gentoo-r4
(root@gentoo-desktop) (gcc version 4.3.2 (Gentoo 4.3.2-r3 p1.6, pie-10.1.5) ) #8 Wed Aug 19 23:09:14 EDT 2009

Init switches to runlevel 6, then GDM closes the session for
skrapasor, and then nothing else is written until I manually reboot by
holding the power button. I also attached the Xorg.0.log.old log, which
looks to be written to at around the same time the machine froze. Any
other logs I should check? And what kernel should I build my driver
against? Actually, I doubt that's the problem because it's done this
with every kernel I've had. My video card is in the Xorg log. I'm new to
mailing lists so please tell me if I am doing something wrong. I wasn't
sure how to post the messages log because screen, or more likely vim, was automatically
adding newlines where I didn't want them, so sorry if it's too wide. I love
this line by the way:

> On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 09:28:50PM -0400, Penguin Lover Simon Hunt squawked:

[-- Attachment #2: Xorg.0.log.old --]
[-- Type: application/x-trash, Size: 23157 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] Blank screen when starting or stopping X server

[Simon Hunt]

Well I think I fixed the problem by upgrading the kernel to
vanilla-sources-2.6.31-rc7 and xf86-video-intel-2.8.0 (and recompiling
against  the new kernel), and switching to the i915 module in the
kernel. I did this because of the suggestions at
http://www.x.org/wiki/IntelGraphicsDriver (I already had xorg-server
1.6.3). However, now firefox is significantly slower and I'm wondering
if that is a problem with the newer driver or the framebuffer or
something. Is that possible? Or should I rebuild firefox? Another
thing is that in menuconfig, there was no longer an option for the
framebuffer driver for my chipset, but after openrc starts the boot
process, the frame is suddenly buffered. How does that happen?