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07-01-2004, 07:00 PM
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#1
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Birmingham, Alabama (USA)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 351
Rep:
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Slack 10 is *CRASHING* - <<UPDATED>>
Thanks to the help of several fine Slack folks, I have received answers for quite a few questions I had. Unfortunately, I am encountering a fairly new chronic problem.
When I start up my system and log in and type "startx", X and KDE loads and everything is fine. When I am done, I click the "log out" option in the K-menu and then click "log out" again. It logs me out and returns me to a prompt. Unfortunately, the computer is then FROZEN at the prompt. The cursor blinks, but I can't type anything. NONE of the keys on the keyboard work. So, as a last resort...I cringe...and then hit the power button. When the system reboots, it says partitions weren't unmounted properly (to be expected), and it boots up as normal. When I "startx" again and logout again....same problem. Then I hit the power button. I rebooted the system again, same errors. This time I logged in as root and did a normal shutdown.
I just restarted the computer, logged in as root, did startx (KDE loaded), then logged out of KDE and was returned to the root prompt. YEY, I can type again. I then logged out as root and then logged back in as "todd". I did "startx", logged out and I was returned to the user prompt. I was able to log out of that user and I was returned to the login prompt. When I tried to type again I managed to type 3 letters and it FROZE up again.
What the heck is going on? I've had this Slack machine up for almost a week now and this has JUST started. Ugh!
I need HEEEEEEEEELLLLPPPPP!!!
Edit: I probably should have mentioned that when I am running KDE, nothing appears to be wrong. I can launch apps, open a terminal, surf the net, type anything I want, etc. The keyboard ONLY freezes after I have logged out of that X/KDE session. HELP....please! 
Last edited by tubatodd; 07-02-2004 at 12:01 PM.
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07-01-2004, 08:07 PM
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#2
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Senior Member
Registered: Oct 2002
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,348
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I can't even begin to tell you why this might be happening, but I would like to suggest a couple things.
1. When your system seems to freeze, type Ctrl-Alt-F2. This will get you to a new terminal where you can log in as root and reboot cleanly (if needed)
2. Instead of typing startx to load X try typing kdm or gdm as root. This will start one of the login managers. You may have less issues using this approach.
As for why things are not no good at the moment I havent a clue.

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07-01-2004, 08:31 PM
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#3
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Birmingham, Alabama (USA)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 351
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally posted by Franklin
I can't even begin to tell you why this might be happening, but I would like to suggest a couple things.
1. When your system seems to freeze, type Ctrl-Alt-F2. This will get you to a new terminal where you can log in as root and reboot cleanly (if needed)
2. Instead of typing startx to load X try typing kdm or gdm as root. This will start one of the login managers. You may have less issues using this approach.
As for why things are not no good at the moment I havent a clue.
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Thanks for your reply!!!
1- I'm about 90-95% sure I tried Ctrl-Alt-F2 and nothing happened. I tried Ctrl-Alt-Del which should have shutdown and restarted my system, but it didn't work. I might as well have had a brick in front of me and not a keyboard.
2- I will try KDM and see if this helps ease the problem. The main thing I am noticing is that this problem ONLY happens when I am returned to a CLI withOUT X running.
I noticed that when I typed "startx" some lines (maybe about 5-10) of messages flash by the screen before X loads. It could just be some lines saying what is loading. It goes by too fast. Once I have logged out of the KDE session. There are some messages on the screen above the prompt. The messages have to do with ALSA having some sort of failure and then some "StartKDE" messages talking about KDE shutting down. None of the "StartKDE" messages mention any kind of error. Only the ALSA lines report something wrong. What is weird about that is that ALSA appears to be working. When KDE loads I hear the little funky music. When ever I get a little error window it makes a sound. So, my sound "appears" to be working.
I'm REALLY digging Slack, but I'm afraid to bootup my computer. I can't guarrantee that I will be able to shutdown cleanly.
HELP!!! 
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07-01-2004, 08:38 PM
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#4
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Member
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: Oxford, England
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 70
Rep:
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Are you running a 2.6.x kernel or the standard 2.4.x one?
If it's a 2.6 kernel, I've been there. Thanks to the fine folks on this forum, I found out that you'll need to either update the NVIDIA drivers (new ones released a couple of days ago) or recompile your kernel to use 8k stacks instead of 4k stacks.
If it's 2.4.x then I don't know. Sorry.
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07-01-2004, 08:55 PM
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#5
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Senior Member
Registered: Oct 2002
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,348
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Quote:
If it's a 2.6 kernel, I've been there. Thanks to the fine folks on this forum, I found out that you'll need to either update the NVIDIA drivers (new ones released a couple of days ago) or recompile your kernel to use 8k stacks instead of 4k stacks.
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While this may be true, the OP stated he was in X already and running fine. I don't think I saw any mention of nvidia, but I may be wrong.
Quote:
I noticed that when I typed "startx" some lines (maybe about 5-10) of messages flash by the screen before X loads.
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This is normal.
I seem to remember having a similar problem (in another distro) I don't remember what caused it, but it had to do with a program crashing. If I remember I'll post something, but I most likely won't (remember that is  ).
As root, you can edit /etc/inittab to load in run level 4 instead of 3. This will bring you gdm automagically. If of course you find less headaches using the gdm/kdm work arround (not solution yet).
Before logging out, you can run top to see if any processes are running amok before logging out of X.
Also take a look at /var/log/xorg.0.log to see if there are any error messages of interest.
HTH
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07-01-2004, 09:41 PM
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#6
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Birmingham, Alabama (USA)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 351
Original Poster
Rep:
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The system is a Toshiba 1625CDT laptop. It has an AMD K6-2 475Mhz CPU a 12.1" monitor and an ATI Rage LT Pro video card. I am truly amazed at how well this little machine performs using Slackware.
To answer a couple of the previous posters. I am running Slack 10.0 with the default 2.4.X kernel. As stated above, the machine has an ATI video card and not Nvidia.
Could ALSA be causing this problem? If I don't "startx" and stay in a CLI environment everything works fine. I can log in and out of users. The crashing ONLY happens when I log in as any user, type "startx", play around in KDE for a while, click "log out" and return to a CLI screen. To me, this sounds like something is getting messed up when the KDE session ends or when the X session ends. The only "errors" I recall seeing have to do with ALSA failures. Can I disable ALSA temporarily and see if that solves the problem? If so, how do I do that?  (I'm still a newb)
Thanks!
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07-01-2004, 10:19 PM
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#7
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Member
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 386
Rep:
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do you have sound while in KDE? alsa has everything muted by default. at the CLI login as root and type "alsamixer" and you can configure the sound volumes or mute and unmute different settings. hit escape when you are done. then at the cli again, type "alsactl store" to save the settings and then log out of root and in as todd, see if sound works and then log out
the lines you see when you type startx can be seen after kde is up and running, hit ctrl-alt-f1 to see the messages. this is where you logged in from. to get back to kde hit ctrl-alt-f7
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07-01-2004, 11:13 PM
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#8
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Birmingham, Alabama (USA)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 351
Original Poster
Rep:
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I have sound with KDE. From the very first time I started KDE with Slack 10, the sound has been working and audible. It was not muted at all. From the first time i booted it up, I could hear the little music when the splash screen is still up. Whenever I tried to save a file that was right-protected or I did something incorrect, I would hear a little alert sound. So, ALSA appears to be working under KDE.
I will try booting up and logging in as root and start KDM. That sounds like an extra step or 2 from just logging in as the appropriate user and typing "startx". BUT, if it will fix my problem then I guess that is the way to go.
How do I disable ALSA from loading on startup? Perhaps if I can isolate the problem to ALSA (or NOT ALSA) I may be one step closer.
Thanks!
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07-02-2004, 12:04 AM
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#9
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Birmingham, Alabama (USA)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 351
Original Poster
Rep:
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Ok, I decided to boot up my Slack PC. I logged in as root, logged out, logged in as todd, (sounds like the start of the Hokie Pokie) logged out as todd. Then I logged in as root and did startx. I logged out of KDE session. I launched kdm. I logged in a KDE session via kdm. I logged out. So KDM seems to fix the problem.
***EDIT***
Well, I tried doing ctrl-alt-f1 during my KDE to see what messages were running and it brought me to a prompt where the last command above that prompt was "kdm", which makes sense. Unfortunately, it CRASHED again!!!!!! No key combinations would work. I couldn't restore KDE with ctrl-alt-f7.
I think something may have happened when I installed some software from source. The last thing I installed before this mess started was "Noteedit" for music notation. Noteedit and TSE3 (it's main dependency) work with ALSA (I believe). Perhaps something happened when I did the install to mess up ALSA. I will try wiping my Slack system and start from scratch. If this crap starts again, I will post again. I will have to wait until Friday evening to redo the system. Wish me luck.
BTW, I am thinking of going back to ext3 from reiserFS. Any thoughts on the 2 systems?
Thanks!
Last edited by tubatodd; 07-02-2004 at 12:22 AM.
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07-02-2004, 12:51 AM
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#10
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Senior Member
Registered: Jun 2004
Location: Argentina (SR, LP)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 3,145
Rep:
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Hi tubatood, maybe you should try to isolate the crash, run /usr/X11R6/bin/xwmconfig as root, and choose a different window manager, play a little with it and then logout and see if it stills crashes.
I don't use KDE right now, but when i used it i remember to disable arts, the KDe sound manager (trough it's config panel) because it caused me some strange behaviors.
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07-02-2004, 12:09 PM
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#11
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Birmingham, Alabama (USA)
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 351
Original Poster
Rep:
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I did a fresh install this morning. I got my internet running, edited a couple system files and BAM it crashed again. I restarted the system, restored the files I edited and logged out of KDE...no crash....at least for now. Perhaps what I edited is what screwd me over. The following 3 edits reflect the changes that I made. All 3 were restored back to their default setting.
1- Edited fstab to allow USER access to floppy and CD mounting
2- Commented out the last 2 of the 6 getty's as per a suggestion I read on optimizing linux
3- Edited x11org.conf (I think that was the name) and manually changed the file to reflect my video card. Changed "vesa" to "ati" and kept the default monitor settings. I have a strange feeling that was what did it. Changing BACK to the "standard" display resolution of the CLI from the 800x600 (max res of my laptop) X session. This is just my guess. I'm probably wrong.
I put a couple lines in rc.local to get my internet working. I did NOT remove these lines. I gotta have my network card working!!
By the way, I still don't have ALSA configured. So, ALSA was NOT the cause of my previous crashes.
I don't know if this is permanently fixed, BUT any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Could the x11org.conf file resolution deal be the cause?
Last edited by tubatodd; 07-02-2004 at 12:11 PM.
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