hard crash

[nisse]

ok so i install planeshift,
1. md5 check matches with the one listed on the site,
2. installation goes fine albeit a bit slow,
3. i install it in home dir under Games so i don\'t need root to update etc,
4. updater works fine and tells me it has updated everything, it does tell me that my updater version is older than the servers though
5. pssetup works, but the font in it is screwed up a bit ie words with two fonts LIke THis, first part some cursive font and second part a clean sans that is a bit smaler
6. i start the game, loading screen works fine
7. the second the game finishes loading and i see a login window BAM! comp hard freezes and it is not just X that freezes but the whole system forcing me to restart, something i havent done in 8 months prior to this :/ numlock and caps lock does not light up like they usualy do in a kernel panic
8. so i try diferent setings, lower res, 16bit colours, no sound... same thing hapens every time
9. i get fed up and post here

i do have the console open runing the game and at the moment of crash it has no error message, all it is doing is connecting to some server... i would be more specific but the thing freezes the whole system so it is hard to cut n paste

system specifications:

Debian Linux
Kernel 2.6.9
P4 2.81GHz
ATI Radeon 9000

[Platyna]

How do you assume that your X server is not crashing? I bet it is, you have
described it perfectly.

I see a few possible reasons:
Kernel 2.6.9 = buggy, crashing badly, you should upgrade and the best
compile it with Magic SysRQ enabled (on workstation it is ok), see:
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysrq.txt for details of that nice thing.
ATI Drivers for Linux = buggy, crashing badly, alot of weird things happens with
X server - upgrade to latest possible version.
XFree86 - also buggy, with 3d acceleration, isn\'t Debian stable using it?

Also look for the file psclient.txt and csdebug.txt (it should be in your tmp or
game directory). It is also good to build Planeshift from source, ESPECIALLY
on Debian stable, see: http://laanx.fragnetics.com/index.php?page=build_debian


Regards.

[nisse]

i did not say my X server was not crashing, i said it was not the only thing crashing, when X crashes it is usualy at most just a mater of doing ctrl+alt+backspace since things underneeth X keep runing along, but in this case the entire system froze.

acording to one of my logs, my uptime running 2.6.9 was 72 days and 5 hours (yes my previous statement of 8 months was an exagerated emotional one ),  and it is not like i have just been keeping this comp in a corner only doing print server jobs, so buggy and crashing badly is not words i assosiate with this kernel.

I will ofcourse update it some day in the near future but i am a lazy bastard and just doing it for a slight chance of playing some game i have never played before...

sysrq can\'t help seeing how the entire comp froze up to a state where the keyboard is so out of touch one can\'t even flip numlock off.

didn\'t use the ATI drivers but the standard drivers that came with X, works perfectly since the card is old enough to be one of those ATI released the specs for

im not using debian stable but debian testing, this is not a server box afterall :p testing gives you the new stuff but not as unstable as... unstable
x is at 4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 and yes it is using xfree86, it is not as buggy as you make it sound at most i have to restart it every two months, works perfectly fine with ET for example .

Also look for the file psclient.txt and csdebug.txt (it should be in your tmp or
game directory). It is also good to build Planeshift from source, ESPECIALLY
on Debian stable, see: http://laanx.fragnetics.com/index.php?page=build_debian


Regards.

i have no such files at all, wich is resonable since the entire system crashes the second the game is past loadup screen and theres no time to log any errors or anything else game related for that mater.

i think il give compileing it a chans if i have nothing to do one day, noone with a cute lil .deb laying around?

[Platyna]

Originally posted by nisse
i did not say my X server was not crashing, i said it was not the only thing crashing, when X crashes it is usualy at most just a mater of doing ctrl+alt+backspace since things underneeth X keep runing along, but in this case the entire system froze.

Wrong, have you read the file I gave you? When X server is crashing very
offten your console is locked, and all what you can do is call the kernel using
magic sysrq keys. Read the file if you haven\'t done it yet. ;>

acording to one of my logs, my uptime running 2.6.9 was 72 days and 5 hours (yes my previous statement of 8 months was an exagerated emotional one ),  and it is not like i have just been keeping this comp in a corner only doing print server jobs, so buggy and crashing badly is not words i assosiate with this kernel.

I had nice uptimes as well, when I wasn\'t using 3d drivers and X server that
both are buggy, and it is usually not easy to marry them. Magic sysrq solves
the problem.

I will ofcourse update it some day in the near future but i am a lazy bastard and just doing it for a slight chance of playing some game i have never played before...

sysrq can\'t help seeing how the entire comp froze up to a state where the keyboard is so out of touch one can\'t even flip numlock off.

Usually when X server freezes it gives no errors, usually it happens because
conflict with the graphic driver that crashes the server.

didn\'t use the ATI drivers but the standard drivers that came with X, works perfectly since the card is old enough to be one of those ATI released the specs for

Well, don\'t expect a great FPS on it even if you will manage it to work. ;-)

im not using debian stable but debian testing, this is not a server box afterall :p testing gives you the new stuff but not as unstable as... unstable
x is at 4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 and yes it is using xfree86, it is not as buggy as you make it sound at most i have to restart it every two months, works perfectly fine with ET for example .

I was using Xfree too, and I had crashes, now I switched to X.org and it runs
pretty neat.

Also look for the file psclient.txt and csdebug.txt (it should be in your tmp or
game directory). It is also good to build Planeshift from source, ESPECIALLY
on Debian stable, see: http://laanx.fragnetics.com/index.php?page=build_debian

i have no such files at all, wich is resonable since the entire system crashes the second the game is past loadup screen and theres no time to log any errors or anything else game related for that mater.

i think il give compileing it a chans if i have nothing to do one day, noone with a cute lil .deb laying around?

It is not entire system crashing! It is X crashing! If you don\'t believe run SSH
on your box, run Planeshift, crash the server and SSH to your machine.

Regards.

[MWAAAHAAA]

I have had exactly the same problem: either the system was freezing completely, or the graphics were just locked, but the system was still reachable, or a segfault, or an illegal instruction. I was running Xorg 6.8 at the time and using their drivers for my Radeon 8500. Since the Xorg (and for that matter XFree\'s) drivers are full of memleaks, I decided to install ATI\'s proprietary drivers, and I\'m not experiencing system freezes anymore. You should try the same.

EDIT: I was running Debian until some weeks ago, I switched to Ubuntu (Debian based) you might want to check it out, it\'s much more up to date, extremely easy to install (I basically did not have to configure anything to get a running system with everything working perfectly), and it\'s Debian based, so no need to learn a new system. You might want to check it out too.

EDIT#2: The ATI drivers are also much much MUCH faster then the ones supplied with X. E.g. on the large tower in Hydlaa, I used to get a handful of frames every second, now I get 17+.