Created attachment 38268 [details]
log from a crashed system

Why did you disable KMS?

(In reply to comment #2)
> Why did you disable KMS?

KMS used to be broken:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25681

I've since re-enabled it, but when I started having this new problem, one of my flailing-around troubleshooting steps was to disable it and see if that made a difference.  I'm pretty sure that I've seen the crashing both before disabling as well as after re-enabling it, but if you suspect that I've messed up here, I can try to get a log with KMS enabled.

> --- Comment #3 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-29 11:35:45 PDT ---
> I'm pretty sure that I've seen the crashing both before disabling
> as well as after re-enabling it, but if you suspect that I've messed up here, I
> can try to get a log with KMS enabled.
> 
Yes, please.

(In reply to comment #4)
> > --- Comment #3 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-29 11:35:45 PDT ---
> > I'm pretty sure that I've seen the crashing both before disabling
> > as well as after re-enabling it, but if you suspect that I've messed up here, I
> > can try to get a log with KMS enabled.
> > 
> Yes, please.

I'm still pretty confused about how I can determine, in a given case, whether KMS is active.  On my current system, my config shows:

CONFIG_DRM_I915=m
# CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS is not set

but running the code provided by Chris Wilson here:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25681#c9

shows:

~# a.out 
/dev/dri/card0: GEM enabled

How can I be sure that I'm running KMS?  I've commented out the line in /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf that had disabled it

#options i915 modeset=0

and (I'm pretty sure) rebuilt my initramfs.  I suppose I'll have to rebuild the kernel now and turn on DRM_I915_KMS?

> --- Comment #5 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-29 12:29:24 PDT ---
> How can I be sure that I'm running KMS?  I've commented out the line in
> /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf that had disabled it
> 
> #options i915 modeset=0
> 
> and (I'm pretty sure) rebuilt my initramfs.  I suppose I'll have to rebuild the
> kernel now and turn on DRM_I915_KMS?
> 
Change that line to 'options i915 modeset=1', or pass i915.modeset=1 on
the kernel command line in grub.

(In reply to comment #6)
> > --- Comment #5 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-29 12:29:24 PDT ---
> > How can I be sure that I'm running KMS?  I've commented out the line in
> > /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf that had disabled it
> > 
> > #options i915 modeset=0
> > 
> > and (I'm pretty sure) rebuilt my initramfs.  I suppose I'll have to rebuild the
> > kernel now and turn on DRM_I915_KMS?
> > 
> Change that line to 'options i915 modeset=1', or pass i915.modeset=1 on
> the kernel command line in grub.

Okay, so now I'm running X successfully, after having changed the 'options' line as per above.  I suppose it's possible that I really had KMS disabled all along ...

Do you want me to see if reverting to KMS disabled reenables the crashing?

> --- Comment #7 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-30 06:16:41 PDT ---
> Do you want me to see if reverting to KMS disabled reenables the crashing?
> 
Don't bother, I'm fairly sure it will crash..

(In reply to comment #8)
> > --- Comment #7 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-30 06:16:41 PDT ---
> > Do you want me to see if reverting to KMS disabled reenables the crashing?
> > 
> Don't bother, I'm fairly sure it will crash..

Boy, testing bleeding edge X is not really that much fun :/  With KMS enabled, my system is unstable again, as it used to be here:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25681

I thought that that had gone away, but I may have simply mistakenly thought that KMS was enabled when really it wasn't.

In any event, what I'm seeing now is X starting up fine, but then freezing (frozen screen, no response to mouse, keyboard).  This seems to happen shortly after starting to watch a video (Flash), but that may be a coincidence.  OTOH, I've gone for several hours doing just word processing, email and simple CLI stuff.

I may be able to get ssh access into a crashed system; if so, I'll see if I can get i915_error_state.

Anything else that would be useful?

(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> > > --- Comment #7 from celejar@gmail.com 2010-08-30 06:16:41 PDT ---
> > > Do you want me to see if reverting to KMS disabled reenables the crashing?
> > > 
> > Don't bother, I'm fairly sure it will crash..
> 
> Boy, testing bleeding edge X is not really that much fun :/  With KMS enabled,
> my system is unstable again, as it used to be here:
> 
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25681
> 
> I thought that that had gone away, but I may have simply mistakenly thought
> that KMS was enabled when really it wasn't.

Update: I actually haven't had any more crashes for several days now, and at the time I was experiencing other flakiness that was unrelated to X (possible hardware issues).  If I see any more X problems, I'll report back.

I'm no longer even contemplating bringing back the broken code for broken systems...