can't kill -9 Xorg

[Anton Shterenlikht]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 02:13:17PM +0200, Hans Ottevanger wrote:
> On 06/12/12 10:24, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> >On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 09:13:06AM +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> >>On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 12:07:06AM +0530, Subhro Sankha Kar wrote:
> >>>Hello
> >>>
> >>>What happens if you run without a xorg.conf? Xorg has become pretty good 
> >>>at guessing correct settings these days.
> >>>
> >>
> >>No change.
> >>I removed /etc/X11/xorg.conf completely.
> >
> >Anyway, I can understand my X setup is fucked, no problem.
> >
> >What worries me more is the the fact that a process ignores
> >kill -9. Doesn't it indicate a problem with the OS?
> >I think potentially this is a security vulnerability.
> >
> 
> I had a similar issue with my desktop system a while ago, also using a 
> Radeon adaptor. In my case the system ended up with a frozen image or 
> black screen and was only accessible remotely. It appeared that the X 
> server took 100% of a CPU and was looping in the driver in kernel space 
> and thus unkillable. If a remember well a PCIE register seemed to be 
> inaccessible after returning from the screen saver and the driver kept 
> looping on this.
> 
> I finally worked around the problem by removing the (barely documented) 
> option DynamicPM from my xorg.conf. This could have consequences for 
> power saving on a laptop however, but it could be worth trying.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Hans

Thank you for the explanation.
I my case

 Option "DRI" "off"

helped. With DRI off I get X working (nearly) as expected.

However, I'm now thinking that DRI not
working is perhaps a bug? I'm using
 xf86-video-ati-6.14.3_1
with

Driver      "radeon"
VendorName  "Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI"
BoardName   "RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]"

Maybe I should ask in x11@?

-- 
Anton Shterenlikht
Room 2.6, Queen's Building
Mech Eng Dept
Bristol University
University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
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