Solaris 2.6 x86 problem: X server loops (Netscape related?)

Solaris 2.6 x86 problem: X server loops (Netscape related?)

Post by Robert A. Lerc » Thu, 05 Nov 1998 04:00:00



I recently started running Solaris 2.6 x86 on an IBM ThinkPad 765L
(not on the official "supported hardware" list, but seems to work
fine).  The display is XGA, driven by the Trident *9385,
compatible with the 760ED (_is_ on the supported list).

Window system configuration: OpenWindows (CDE turned off), twm.

Symptom: display freezes mid-update, mouse cursor disappears, no
response to keyboard.

The system is still up, and I can telnet in from another machine.  Top
shows that the X process is in a loop.  I kill the X process, no
response (X keeps running, eating up the CPU).  "kill -9" and of
course the X process and all its children go away, but the display is
still stuck and the keyboard is ignored.

This has happened about 4 times and each time I've been running
Netscape (version 4.07 for Solaris x86, fetched from Netscape's ftp
server).  I _think_ it has never happened when Netscape wasn't running
but I'm not 100% sure.

Further info: I learened from the FAQ's about multiple virtual
terminals, and I did a little experimentation.  Pressing "Alt-SysReq
H" when the system is normally up switches to the text screen for the
shell used to launch OpenWindows, and a control-C kills OpenWindows.

When the loop occurs, pressing "Alt-SysReq H" does _not_ switch the
screen, there's a few seconds' pause, and then a "beep" comes out the
speakers.

I've applied the recommended patches as of 10/23/98.  I notice that
there's a big OpenWindows patch #106248 coming, but it's not available
as part of the recommended patches yet and also isn't on
sunsite.unc.edu, so I can't try it.

Has anyone else seen something like this?  Thanks.

 
 
 

1. can't read Solaris 2.6 x86 hard disk on Solaris 2.6 Ultra-1 ?!?

I was going to use this hard drive to move large files from my
Ultra to my Pentium PC for CD-R backup, but upon "boot -r" on
the Ultra I saw an error about "invalid geometry" on sd3, the
drive I had formatted on my PC to be ufs.  And now of course
I can't even "prtvtoc" this disk ("Unable to read Disk geometry"),
so mounting it is seemingly out of the question.

What's the problem?  Was I naive to assume the a ufs on a Solaris
system would be the same regardless of CPU type?  I really don't
want to use Ethernet to transmit potentially gigabytes of data
on a regular basis :-(...

Please reply via email (and post here, of course), as I don't
get a chance to keep up with the newsgroup as regularly as I
would wish.  Thanks.

--
--
Mark J. Kaufman             Sun Microsystems, San Diego

2. Unsupported Depth -- 16bpp

3. Benchmarks x86 Solaris vs Linux and Solaris 2.6 x86 vs sparc

4. Q: Why am I not authorized to use efnet irc servers

5. Netscape for Solaris 2.6 x86

6. DNS/DHCP/IP Management software

7. How to install Netscape Communicator 4.06 on Sun Solaris 2.6 x86

8. fstream and socket not working

9. DNS Server on Solaris 2.6 x86

10. No response from PPP server on SOlaris 2.6 x86

11. FTP Server Solaris 2.6 x86

12. Web server on x86 Solaris 2.6?

13. pthread_exit() endless loop on Sol 2.6/x86