Mysterious crash/freeze in X11 with newcons

[Thomas Mueller]

from Jean-Sébastien Pédron with parts of my previous message:

> On 17.04.2014 14:39, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> > Timing of crashes/freezes and /var/log/messages indicates the
> > messages were at crash time.
        
> As Christian said, "VGA-1: EDID block 0 invalid." means that the kernel
> driver couldn't understand what the monitor reported about its supported
> modes. But do you use this VGA connector?

> > I ran
> >  pkg info -a | grep "mesa"
> > and got nothing, also tried with "Mesa".

> Mesa is split in multiple ports. You should at least have:
>   graphics/libGL
>   graphics/dri

I use HDMI connector as opposed to VGA.  New motherboard has only HDMI and DisplayPort connectors for integrated graphics.

pkg info -a | grep "dri" shows

dri-9.1.7_3,2                  OpenGL hardware acceleration drivers for the DRI
dri2proto-2.8                  DRI2 prototype headers
xdriinfo-1.0.4                 Query configuration information of DRI drivers
xf86-input-keyboard-1.8.0      X.Org keyboard input driver
xf86-input-mouse-1.9.0_1       X.Org mouse input driver
xf86-video-ati-7.2.0_1         X.Org ati display driver
xf86-video-mach64-6.9.4_1      X.Org mach64 display driver
xf86-video-nv-2.1.20_2         X.Org nv display driver
xf86-video-openchrome-0.3.3_1  X.Org openChrome display driver
xf86-video-r128-6.9.2_1        X.Org r128 display driver
xf86-video-vesa-2.3.3_1        X.Org vesa display driver
xf86driproto-2.1.1             XFree86-DRI extension headers
xorg-drivers-7.7               X.org drivers meta-port

pkg info -a | grep "libGL" shows

libGL-9.1.7                    OpenGL library that renders using GLX or DRI
libGLU-9.0.0                   OpenGL utility library

So I don't have Mesa by that name but have the parts of interest.

I could check "man xorg.conf" and see what mode lines to add to xorg.conf.intel .

LG monitor documentation advises 1920*1080 as preferred mode.

xorg.conf.vesa doesn't work at all with newcons, immediately plunges me into darkness.  Then I have to go to root command prompt and type "shutdown -r now".

I wonder if FreeBSD 10.0-STABLE would be any stabler than 11-current with the new Xorg, think the problem is with Xorg getting along with FreeBSD.  I really need something less crash-prone to use on a regular basis without fear of trashing the file system.

On getting a root window, besides sudo, I could use su.

Using uxterm or xterm, and adding parameters for geometry such as
uxterm -fn 8x16 -geometry 120x52 -title whatever -e login  (from IceWM)
I can login as nonroot, but as root I get "login incorrect" even with the correct root password.

But this worked for root login when running from OpenBSD 5.4 live USB with fvwm (liveusb-openbsd.sourceforge.net), and not from my old installation of FreeBSD 8.2 i386 with IceWM.

I can find my way around IceWM better than fvwm or GNOME 3, don't like what I've seen on GNOME3 so far.

I succeeded by putting, instead of "-e login",
-e /bin/tcsh -c su -

That would work even in a situation where exiting X immediately plunges into darkness.

I still have to be careful what I type, since Ctrl-Fn (n=1,2,3 or 4) in Xfce or Ctrl-Alt-n (n=1,2,3 or 4) in IceWM changes virtual desktops, and it is easy to type Ctrl-Alt-Fn (n=1,2,3 or 4) by mistake and trash my X session unless I am using newcons with FreeBSD.

Tom