Ctrl + Alt + F1 always locks up 5.3-STABLE machine ( Was Re:5.3-RELEASE crashes during make buildworld (and other problems))

[Doug White]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Rick Updegrove wrote:

> Rick Updegrove wrote:
>
> When I finally got 5.3-STABLE built after several mysterious failed
> attempts the machine basically runs fine until...
>
> I try to "Ctrl + Alt + F1" (or any of the F keys) that will now
> consistently locks up the machine.
>
> If I am quick enough with "Ctrl + Alt + Backspace" or
> "Ctrl + Alt + Del" (or ssh from another machine) I can at least get it
> to reboot without a fsck on startup.  Unfortunately, if I am too slow it
> hangs indefinitely.  I have had to just power it off several times now
> and of course it then complains about / not being unmounted properly
> etc. etc.
>
> Yes, this probably contributes to some of my problems earlier but when I
> was running make buildworld from single user mode it still crashed and
> despite all the help I have gotten here I still have not managed to
> capture a crash dump.
>
> So, I am running 5.3-STABLE (from yesterday) and all my ports/packages
> are up to date and if I forget I cant switch to a terminal while I
> experiment with fluxbox or KDE I will always lock up the machine.

Are you starting xdm, kdm or some other display manager on boot? THere's a
race you can lose that will appear to lock up the console if the display
manager and getty start up on ttyv0 simultaneously. I usually insert a
5-10s sleep in the display manager startup script to avoid this.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite at gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org