Troubles with 1.3.17/1.3.16

Mark Orr (penmarko@tyrell.net)
Thu, 10 Aug 95 01:50:58 -0500

> Re: 1.3.16 breaks X
> "David C. Niemi": "1.3.16 breaks X" (Aug 9, 9:00):
>
> > On both my home and work machines there are major problems with X
> > and 1.3.16. At work it comes up with the background and cursor and
> > is hung solidly (not sure if it can be rlogged into). At home X came up
> > and was about to run the window manager (fvwm) and then died, going back
> > to the prompt. I noticed there were some UNIX socket changes, perhaps
> > they are the problem. I expect this is *very* reproduceable because my
> > two machines are totally different hardware and versions of X.
>
> This should hopefully be fixed in 1.3.17 - there were quite a number of
> small problems in 1.3.16, and I made a quick patch17 to fix the worst.
> I'm sure alan will continue to fix this for the next few releases..
>
> Linus

I built the 1.3.17 kernel this evening, and I got what looks like a
reproducible kernel panic while trying to connect with my ISP
using PPP and CSLIP.

Problems I've seen with the last 2 kernel versions:

1.3.16 -- a long delay (10-20 secs) between entering password
and getting a bash prompt (first time logging in)
-- many X apps produce segmentation fault.
(Netscape, Mosaic, xarchie, xgalaga, lots of the
slackware XAP applets)
1.3.17 -- corrects delay problem, and the X applications will
run, but SLIP/PPP doesn't seem to work at all.

I was able to connect with my ISP using dip and chat/pppd 2.12d, but
once the IP addresses were sorted out and it returned me to the prompt,
I tried to ftp to ftp.funet.fi, and bang! Instant kernel panics in both
cases (first with PPP, then CSLIP) First I've seen in 10 continuous
months of running Linux.

I've configured a very minimal kernel. I have no networking cards.
SLIP/CSLIP and PPP with 16 channels. Tried it both with "Alpha test
drivers" and without.

Not complaining...just reporting :-)

Mark Orr
penmarko@tyrell.net