Re: X Server Problems: 100% CPU usage, no keyboard

On 8/23/07, Maxim Khitrov <mkhitrov_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm not exactly sure how to best proceed in my situation, so thought
> I'd ask here. I'm running FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT on my Fujitsu P7010
> laptop. I installed xorg and gnome2-lite ports, configured the X
> server, and am now trying to get gnome to run.
>
> The problem is this; if I boot using the GENERIC kernel and run
> startx, everything works great. I get my gnome desktop and can
> continue working there. However, when I switch to my own kernel,
> starting the X server causes CPU usage to go to 100% (permanently) and
> my keyboard stops working. I can't even do Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to kill
> the server. The mouse still works, so I can logout back to the console
> at which point CPU goes to idle and keyboard works again.
>
> I looked through my kernel config and don't see anything wrong there.
> The keyboard-related options are the same as GENERIC. My only guess is
> that it's something that I've added to the kernel that is causing
> these problems, but I don't want to go removing one thing at a time at
> random to see if it makes a difference. My config is posted on
> pastebin (URL below). Can you please take a look at it and see if you
> can spot what could be causing the problem?
>
> My configuration file: http://pastebin.com/m1a39ace1
>
> Thanks,
> Maxim Khitrov

Well it took a while, but I was able to figure out what was causing
the problem. And yes, it was my mistake :)

In my configuration I set MAXCONS to 4, but I made an error when
editing /etc/ttys and left 4 of the consoles turned on. The original
idea was to have three text-mode consoles and one for X. All the
allowed consoles were taken, so the X server was starting on ttyv4
instead of ttyv3. I still have no idea why it behaved the way it did
(100% CPU and no keyboard), but marking ttyv3 as off in /etc/ttys
solved the problem.

I would have expected the server to tell me that there are no
available consoles to use, but at any rate... Glad I was able to fix
it. And it only took 12 kernel recompilations (good thing I use ccache
:)

- Max