hi everyone.

i've come across a strange problem just recently. whenever i try to change to another console (e.g. CTRL+ALT+F2) OR i want to close X my pc is dead. like in windooze. well, i didnt have this problem some time ago, so i tried out to disable the experimental r200 (radeon chip) DRI support by putting # before the lines Load "GLcore", Load "glx" and Load "dri" in my XF86Config file. it didnt do nothing. same problem. i wonder if there could exist a linux program that does something like this because of bad memory handling or whatsoever or even my kernel. i get no error messages from any possible file in my /var/log/. any suggestions?

my sys:
athlon tb 1400/256mb infineon ram/80gb 7200rpm ibm hdd/radeon 8500 agp gc
i use window maker as window manager on xfree 4.2.0.

You might want to check the /var/log/XFree86.0.log file at the beginning to verify the exact XF86Config file in use.

If you are running in run level 4 try CTRL-ALT-F6 for the terminal screen. Run level 4 only has one console available on tty6. To deteremine run level try "ps -P 1" at a console prompt. I think the level would be indicated inside the square brackets (3 or 4).

If run level 3 then you should have six tty consoles available. If the console is working and you switch back to X and it is locked up, try CTRL-ALT-BKSP to restart the X server.

In either case, if you can switch back to the console or after you are able to recover, then try "tail ~/.xsession-errors" and see if there are any recent errors that might indicate the problem. If you have a functioning console you could also check the output from "dmesg" while X is locked. Perhaps you might locate something to indicate where to look.

If you are unable to detect any thing else as being related to the problem try a different video adapter if possible. Others here may post more information that might help in regard to the Radeon. I use run level 4 and switch to tty6, and then back to X without any problems. I have the ATI XPert 2000 AGP video.

Good luck.

thx for your advice. but i have one problem. my keyboard won't take any entries. it's just dead.

from the sounds of it (your keyboard locking) you have a hard lockup. This could be hardware related (something screwed with your card) but is most probably something wrong with the driver that X is using.

Try looking on the Xfree86 website for problems with this card's driver.

If there is a newer version of X then you could try that, see if the problem clears up.

If that doesn't work then you could try, for the time being, using the framebuffer device. This works with most cards (definately yours) and will bypass these driver issues. If it works with this then you will know that it is related to the driver or the card (unlikely) and not another program (the kernel or something).
This might be laborius though to get the framebuffer working.

btw, do you use mozilla at anypoint? What windowmanage/XFree86 version? it is possible that one of these might be locking it up (mozilla always does for me).

HTH

Alex

thx for the help again. my system specs are listed in my post .
the most probable thing ist the r200 experimental driver. i tried to turn it off, but i think the install substitudes the standard xfree 4.2.0 radeon.o and radeon_drv.o with it's own and that can only be bypassed by uninstalling the driver or reinstalling xfree. i'll let you know

sorry, i can't believe i missed that in your original post.......