> On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> > Kragen writes:
> > > On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Tigran Aivazian wrote:
> > >> Yes, it *is* very much a kernel issue. What happens if you
> > >> kill -9 the X server? The machine hangs because the kernel
> > >
> > > (It would be nice if someone had already written a small wrapper for X
> > > that would sanify the console when X crashes, as Linus suggested. Has
> > > someone? My X crashes every few months.)
> >
> > That was beat to death too: you can't do it. If you'd like to try,
> > I have a "nice" Cirrus Logic clgd5430 card you can try to restore.
> > . . . I can even
> > hit the reset button and boot into an OS with official drivers,
> > but it doesn't do any good. Only the big red switch works.
>
> Does that mean X can't restore it either, if it exits properly?
'Properly' is the keyword here. It cannot exit properly if it is
killed by a signal.
> Does
> it mean that some information which would enable us to reset the card
> is lost when X dies?
Yes.
> Or does it just mean that the card has crashed,
> and nothing short of cutting power to it will get it into a sensible
> state?
That can also happen. It is rarer than the above, but the end
result is that the big red button is necessary. The system won't have
locked up, but unless you have a serial terminal or use the joystick
reboot daemon you still have to do a hard reset because X also handles the
keyboard to be able to trap VC switches and when it crashes you are stuck
on your current VC.
> If the latter is the case, GGI/KGI won't help either!
It will help because it will be possible to ensure that the
hardware cannot ever get into such a state.
Jon
--- 'Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God.' - Scientist G. Richard Seed
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