Re: KDE crashes on startup
On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 21:16:00 -0700, Doug Holland <meldroc@frii.com> wrote:
On Tue 13 Jan 2004 7:51 pm, Jim Higson wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 02:03:29 -0000, Jim Higson <jh@333.org> wrote:
> Hi. I've been having a few problems with getting debian woody working,
> it must be about 2 weeks now since I first installed it. Thanks to
> google and guys over at the debian-user list I've gotten X at least
> starting now (with the vesa drivers, it still won't start with the
> nvidia ones)
>
> The computer still isn't working correctly, when I log in KDE crashes
> just after it gets to the initalising peripherals stage. I can start
> sawfish and gnome and ok so I think this is a problem with KDE.
>
> I'm not sure what details to post here. When X wasn't working I'd put
my
> XFree86.log online, but I don't know what the KDE equivalent is. This
> seems like a KDE bug, but I don't think I have enough information to
> make a bug report.
>
> Hardware: Gigabyte GA-7VAX mobo (uses via KT400), GeForce Ti 4200
video
> card, Hauppauge wintv, AthlonXP, Logitech MX700 usb mouse,
SoundBlaster
> live! soundcard
>
> Regards,
Forgot to mention - the error I get is:
"Caught signal 11. Server aborting" which i think is to do with memory
segmentation.
and I've put a few relevent-looking files up here
http://users.aber.ac.uk/jqh1/x/
--
Jim Higson
Hmmm. I took a look at the log files you put on your web site (which are
useful), and it looks like XFree86 itself is crashing.
FYI, as far as signal 11, aka segmentation faults... Linux uses a
feature
found in most modern CPUs called protected memory. Each program
(including
KDE's programs and XFree86) running in Linux is allocated it's own memory
space. The program can do whatever it wants in it's memory space, but is
forbidden from stepping outside it's memory space, or segment (I'm
oversimplifying, but hear me out.) Sometimes, due to bugs, a program
tries
to illegally access a memory address outside it's allocated area. The
CPU
and kernel will catch the the program and terminate it with extreme
prejudice, leaving you with a segmentation fault error. This is a Good
Thing, because if a program was allowed to address memory outside of it's
allocated area, it could scribble all over other programs or the kernel
itself, which could crash your entire system.
Ok, this confirms my suspisions, thanks.
Now, as to why XFree86 is crashing... You've already had problems with
the
nvidia drivers, so you switched to the vesa drivers. According to the
XFree86.0.log file, it crashed soon after you try to load OpenGL related
stuff, which won't work very well because the vesa drivers won't give you
hardware-accelerated 3-d.
Things to try:
Comment out or remove the lines 'Load "GLcore"' and 'Load "glx"' under
Section
"Module" in your XF86Config-4. OpenGL will be dog slow without NVidia's
accelerated drivers anyways, so if you won't be using them, get rid of
them.
Without them, OpenGL programs probably won't work at all. You may also
want
to uninstall nvidia's glx drivers (the nvidia-glx package) so the system
goes
back to using the generic glx libraries.
Ok, I will try this when I get home and let you know if it helps.
Another alternative if you want accelerated 3-D for games and such is to
get
the nvidia drivers working, which is definitely tricky, but may solve
your
segfault problems. It requires compiling and installing nvidia's kernel
driver (and it looks like you already have nvidia's glx libraries which
may
be trying to do their thing but can't talk to the nvidia driver).
Let us know what happens. If you want to get nvidia's driver working,
let me
know. I've had to wrestle with them a couple times (though in sid, not
woody), so I might be able to help you get them working.
That's the idea, I've done a fair bit of programming in OpenGL via java
[1],
so it's pretty important that I have 3d in debian if it's to take over from
windows as my main OS.
I've downloaded driver NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5328-pkg1.run and installed it
following
the instructions to the letter, having first installed my kernel headers
so it can
build a kernel interface.
[1] see http://users.aber.ac.uk/jqh1/maze.html for example, and yes, it's
a university assignment!
--
Jim Higson
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