I have a newly built drive with 5.2 fresh install (that I will be cloning shortly) in my DECtop and it is failing with X the same way the upgrade from 5.1 drive did (not too supprising there).
In 5.1 X worked. I could startx from init 3 and get into GNOME. Also VNC into the box and have a GNOME screen. With 5.2, I get a kernel panic. Well I guess it is a kernel panic because once I run startx from the console, my SSH session to the box from my notebook is frozen.
From /etc/sysconfig/hwconf I have:
class: VIDEO bus: PCI detached: 0 desc: "National Semiconductor Corporation Geode GX2 Graphics Processor" vendorId: 100b deviceId: 0030 subVendorId: 100b subDeviceId: 0030 pciType: 1 pcidom: 0 pcibus: 0 pcidev: 1 pcifn: 1
the /etc/X11/xorg.conf has
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display
Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "single head configuration" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" EndSection
Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" EndSection
Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" ModelName "Monitor 1024x768" ### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC: HorizSync 31.5 - 57.0 VertRefresh 50.0 - 70.0 Option "dpms" EndSection
Section "Device" Identifier "Videocard0" Driver "vesa" EndSection
Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection
Now the way I got this working in 5.1 and 5.2 (5.1 install died for some reason or other, forget which and for 5.2 this unit has the powerk8 patch requirement), I install on an old compaq and change to init 3. I then move the drive and run system-config-display to get the unit to read the hwconf file and reset xorg.conf. This worked fine in 5.1. In 5.2, the system hangs. What to do? btw, i tried pci=noapci with no change.
A couple other facts about this system. No accessable bios. When the system is booting (in character mode) the video frequently goes off then back on; some refresh problem. I have also seen this at times in a session on the console when I enter some commands. It would be nice to fix this. It might also tie in with the X problem.
Thank you for your continued help.
.
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I have a newly built drive with 5.2 fresh install (that I will be cloning shortly) in my DECtop and it is failing with X the same way the upgrade from 5.1 drive did (not too supprising there).
In 5.1 X worked. I could startx from init 3 and get into GNOME. Also VNC into the box and have a GNOME screen. With 5.2, I get a kernel panic. Well I guess it is a kernel panic because once I run startx from the console, my SSH session to the box from my notebook is frozen.
<snip>
Try 16bit X instead of 24bit (replace the 24 in xorg w 16) and see if that helps ... also, you can boot the older kernel from 5.1 and see if that helps.
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I have a newly built drive with 5.2 fresh install (that I will be cloning shortly) in my DECtop and it is failing with X the same way the upgrade from 5.1 drive did (not too supprising there).
In 5.1 X worked. I could startx from init 3 and get into GNOME. Also VNC into the box and have a GNOME screen. With 5.2, I get a kernel panic. Well I guess it is a kernel panic because once I run startx from the console, my SSH session to the box from my notebook is frozen.
<snip>
Try 16bit X instead of 24bit (replace the 24 in xorg w 16) and see if that helps ...
OK. I will try this shortly.
also, you can boot the older kernel from 5.1 and see if that helps.
I did try that on the system I upgraded from 5.1. No difference still paniced.
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I have a newly built drive with 5.2 fresh install (that I will be cloning shortly) in my DECtop and it is failing with X the same way the upgrade from 5.1 drive did (not too supprising there).
In 5.1 X worked. I could startx from init 3 and get into GNOME. Also VNC into the box and have a GNOME screen. With 5.2, I get a kernel panic. Well I guess it is a kernel panic because once I run startx from the console, my SSH session to the box from my notebook is frozen.
<snip>
Try 16bit X instead of 24bit (replace the 24 in xorg w 16) and see if that helps ...
OK. I will try this shortly.
Did this work.
also, you can boot the older kernel from 5.1 and see if that helps.
I did try that on the system I upgraded from 5.1. No difference still paniced.
If it still panics then it does not seem to be a kernel module issue, but something else. That would be very strange.
I guess some kind of compile issue in xorg could do this, though not sure.
Nope...
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I have a newly built drive with 5.2 fresh install (that I will be cloning shortly) in my DECtop and it is failing with X the same way the upgrade from 5.1 drive did (not too supprising there).
In 5.1 X worked. I could startx from init 3 and get into GNOME. Also VNC into the box and have a GNOME screen. With 5.2, I get a kernel panic. Well I guess it is a kernel panic because once I run startx from the console, my SSH session to the box from my notebook is frozen.
<snip>
Try 16bit X instead of 24bit (replace the 24 in xorg w 16) and see if that helps ...
OK. I will try this shortly.
Did this work.
Nope.
I first edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf and set the screen depth to 16. That did not work.
Then I tried system-config-display --reconfig that failed.
I added --set-depth=16 --set-videoram=0 and still failed.
also, you can boot the older kernel from 5.1 and see if that helps.
I did try that on the system I upgraded from 5.1. No difference still paniced.
If it still panics then it does not seem to be a kernel module issue, but something else. That would be very strange.
I guess some kind of compile issue in xorg could do this, though not sure.
Am I going to have to build a 5.1 system and see what device driver it is using???
Have some important (I hope) data points Johnny,
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I have a newly built drive with 5.2 fresh install (that I will be cloning shortly) in my DECtop and it is failing with X the same way the upgrade from 5.1 drive did (not too supprising there).
In 5.1 X worked. I could startx from init 3 and get into GNOME. Also VNC into the box and have a GNOME screen. With 5.2, I get a kernel panic. Well I guess it is a kernel panic because once I run startx from the console, my SSH session to the box from my notebook is frozen.
<snip>
Try 16bit X instead of 24bit (replace the 24 in xorg w 16) and see if that helps ...
OK. I will try this shortly.
Did this work.
also, you can boot the older kernel from 5.1 and see if that helps.
I did try that on the system I upgraded from 5.1. No difference still paniced.
If it still panics then it does not seem to be a kernel module issue, but something else. That would be very strange.
I guess some kind of compile issue in xorg could do this, though not sure.
I just built a new Centos 5.1 install (I picked up 5 40Gb Hitachi 2.5" drives last week, tired of not having enough drivers for different tests).
I am using the vesa_drv.so driver. This works just fine on 5.1.
In the Centos 5.2, this driver is unchanged. Same date and filesize. Now a number of the video driver files are unchanged from Centos 5.1, but Generic VESA compliant is how Centos is handling the National Semiconductor Geode video in my DECtops.
I noticed there is a vesa.h file with a filesize of ZERO. But in the case of the system upgraded from 5.1 to 5.2, it had this file for the 5.1 kernel as well as for the 5.2, so I don't think this is important.
One more fact: When I do a startx, I see some messages, but they are not written to any file I can find, nor are they visible when the system hangs.
Other oddities about this system. It has 2 sets of 2 USB ports. In 5.1 you MUST have the KVM USB keyboard plugged into the USB port labled for the keyboard (otherwise no keyboard detected). This is not necessary for 5.2. But if you put the keyboard into some other USB port (say the one with the printer icon), if you do not have the KVM 'focused' on the system while it is booting, it appears hung with no video (for either 5.1 or 5.2 if it is plugged into the keyboard USB, it can boot while the KVM is 'focused' on another system). Wierd.
-
Johnny Hughes -
Robert Moskowitz