[Lust] Re: Lust Digest, Vol 7, Issue 1

[Dylan the Hippy Wabbit]

Hi All,

> We are here but do not have much to say ....

Oh, that's OK then.

Tony wrote:-

> How hard does your system lock?  How do you recover?

Pretty badly.  I'm not convinced it's a kernel panic, since the keyboard
leds don't flash.  On the other hand I've not found any graceful way to
recover.  X won't zap with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace,  and I can't switch to a
virtual console.  I've tried switching to a VC, and then logging in and
running a shutdown command 'blind,' in case it's just the display
processor that's locked, but that doesn't work either.  I don't have
another box handy to SSH in with.  I end up having to switch off.  (OUCH!)

> Is the system stable without the 3D drivers?

It's fine until I run an OpenGL program, and under certain conditions even
then.  If I've just started X I can run anything, but if I've been 'doing
stuff' then the chances of trouble increase.  I had thought that this
indicated a RAM problem, but now I think that reinitialising X is the
significant point.

Nathen asked:-

> Debian isn't my cup of tea but what driver are you using with the ati 
> card the one provided by X or 3rd party ?

It's the DRI module in the kernel.  ATI's driver download site only
mentions the newer models.

As I recall, I had no problems (well, an albino penquin in Tuxracer) with
XFree 4.0, but 4.1 and now 4.3 have given trouble.  Significantly, the DRI
module format changed as from 4.1.

Does anyone know if XOrg has diverged enough to be worth a try yet?  It
looks like we'll all be headed that way soon anyway.

A couple of you mentioned Nvidia.  Squaring their proprietary driver with
Debian's strict policy makes it a lot of extra trouble to install.  I
jumped through all the hoops once, but then thought that I didn't want to
mess about like that every time I updated the kernel.

Thanks for your suggestions anyway.

-- 
Dave Spacey

Hung like Einstein, smart as a horse.