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problems with KDE/XFCE/Fluxbox and graphical interfaces....

Hi, had a lot of time without coming to the forum, am having problems with the Desktop Environments(KDE, Fluxbox, XFCE) after i upgraded from 2.3.26 kernel to the 2.3.45, i want to make clear that am not getting any black screen, everything is ok until i execute startx on the console or i try to use any application like firefox,mplayer or libreoffice...

The system gets frozen and the only thing that stays working is the mouse pointer... i can't even open any TTY.

greetings,
NaTTaN

Quote:

Originally Posted by NaTTaN (Post 4960407)

The system gets frozen and the only thing that stays working is the mouse pointer... i can't even open any TTY.

Hi,

that's what happened to me, among other things, after upgrading. You probably looked at this thread already, but I suggest you to go back there and skip the first 3 pages, starting reading from ruario's post #48: in fact the topic changed slightly, as several of us had a different issue that could be solved with kernel 3.4.47 (using config from testing) or kernel 3.8.13 from current.

Best regards,
Philip

Yep that sounds exactly like the problems I and several others where facing. It looks like Pat is considering another kernel update.

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi (Post 4960858)

Is this with Intel graphics again?

I've been pointed to another suspicious commit and might be forced to do a third build. Giving much credit to whether a kernel series is designated LTS isn't looking like it matters as much as we may have thought. If 3.2.x had been dead, we'd have patched the CVE and had it right the first time.

You might want to comment in that thread as well and confirm if you do have an Intel graphics card as Pat appears to be actively following that thread but may not have seen this one.

If you cannot wait for a fix I would do as Philip suggests and try with either the 3.4.47 or 3.8.13 kernels. If you have never built a kernel before you should read "Building a Linux Kernel from Source" from the Slackware Documentation Project.

You can get Pat's config files for the 3.4.X series of kernels in slackware-14.0/testing/source/config-testing-3.4.11/. Alternatively the 3.8.X series of kernels config files can be found in slackware-current/source/k/.

Kernel source packages for both of these kernels can be obtained from www.kernel.org.

By the way you could use the binary kernel packages from -current directly on 14.0 but keep in mind this comment

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi (Post 4958924)

You can, but if you use the kernels in -current you'll be unable to compile kernel modules for it, since the kernel won't load modules compiled with a different version of gcc. If this is a concern, it is pretty easy to install the kernels from -current and then recompile the kernel and modules from one of the config files and switch to the newly compiled versions.

As it happens I was able to use the binary kernel packages from -current on 14.0 and successfully recompile the VirtualBox kernel module (which even worked) but I wouldn't count on being able to do so.

If you don't need to compile your own modules however, this won't be an issue.

From the other thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi (Post 4962341)

This might be the cause:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/ke...dc11b95adc339c

I'm considering doing a third build. If anyone who is running into problems still could revert this patch and rebuild to see if it fixes the issue, then I'd do it for sure. The only Intel graphics I have here are the trusty GM945, and there's no problem there.

This does indeed appear to be the cause as both Philip and myself have rebuilt 3.2.45 with that patch removed and the issues have gone away. If you are not sure how to revert the patch by fetching it from kernel.org and issuing a reverse patch command, in this particular case you can easily do it manually (since it is only additional code added in one block). Philip explained how in the other thread. Basically you open /usr/src/linux-3.2.45/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_ringbuffer.c in a text editor, locate and then remove the following section:

Code:

        /* Required for the hardware to program scanline values for waiting */

        if (INTEL_INFO(dev)->gen == 6)

                I915_WRITE(GFX_MODE,

                          GFX_MODE_ENABLE(GFX_TLB_INVALIDATE_ALWAYS));

A quick summary to rebuild the kernel would be to first make sure the very latest Slackware provided 3.2.45 kernel-source package is installed, switch to root, cd into /usr/src/linux-3.2.45, correct the drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_ringbuffer.c file (as explained above), then issue the following:

Code:

make oldconfig

make bzImage modules

make modules_install

When this is complete, copy arch/x86/boot/bzImage into boot with an appropriate name (and optionally do the same with System.map and .config), then make an initrd as per /boot/README.initrd and rerun lilo (possibly after first editing /etc/lilo.conf if needed). You should now be able to reboot into your patched kernel.

If you want to make your own packages for your patched kernel have a look at the SlackBuilds in the packaging directories in slackware-14.0/source/k/ (a quick read through will show you how they work).

Finally, if you want to clean up your /usr/src/linux-3.2.45/, cd back into it and issue the following:

Code:

make clean

make prepare

rm .version