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kpep01
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:24 pm    Post subject: Build 32 bit Xorg/KDM on ADM 64 Reply with quote

Greetings,

I've had a bit of a problem ever since I went to a 64-bit system. The predominant problem is that the computer locks up for no apparent reason. Typically, this will occur when I make a mouse gesture or when the only thing running is the screensaver (i.e. when I'm asleep).

I've seen similar complaints in this forum, as well as I've not seen any solutions.

Another problem that I've noted in various threads is that when a lot of file transfering is going on, the system slows down. This too has been my experience.

In one thread I noted the writer stated that he had no problems when Xorg and a WM weren't running. This too has been my experience. The problems occur only when xdm is loaded.

I've been through my configurations, my BIOS, etc many times. I've had my machine bench tested (everything is top drawer on the hardware side).

The guy who ran the bench tests for me said that the problem is more than likely related to 64-bit drivers.

Since this box has hard-crashed so many times, the SATA drive is starting to fade away (no problem, my files are well back up, as are all of my configurations). So, it's time to bootstrap a new hard drive.

My plan is to try to emerge 32-bit Xorg and KDM.

Any advise on how to best accomplish this while ensuring compatibility with the other applications on my system (which, perhaps should all be 32-bit?) would be greatly appreciated.

Let me know what config files you need to see, if any.

Thanx

Kurt
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xaviermiller
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello,

I don't think that you can compile those packages in 32 bits and the rest in 64 bits. If your system freezes, you have to find the source of the problem : kernel configuration, filesystem, hardware faults, ...

You can try to build an other 32 bit system along the 64 bit (in an other partition), run it and see if it goes better.

IMHO you will also have problems in 32 bits. The "number of bits" is not responsible of system freezes.
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kpep01
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanx for the reply, Xavier.

The problem has been precisely in tracking the source of the problem down. When the system freezes, there is nothing in any log that indicates the reason.

My assumption based upon observation is that it is either within Xorg or KDM. If neither are running, the box will run forever.

Not being a programmer, I wouldn't know where to begin in tracking a bug of this nature. The fact is, however, this is a bug that has appeared in numerous threads, and (to the best of my knowledge) hasn't been resolved.

It sounds like, though, I might want to set my make.conf file to compile everything in 32-bits, and see if that solves the problem.

In so doing, my question would become "how would I set my make.conf file in this manner?"

Thanx.

Kurt
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kpep01
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I should include my current make.conf for reference:

Code:
CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -mtune=athlon64"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -mtune=athlon64"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before changing.
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR=/var/tmp
PORTDIR=/usr/portage
DISTDIR=${PORTDIR}/distfiles
PKGDIR=${PORTDIR}/packages
PORT_LOGDIR=/var/log/portage
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=/usr/local/portage
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_RETRIES="3"
RSYNC_TIMEOUT=180
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PORTAGE_NICENESS=3
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
PORTAGE_TMPFS="/dev/shm"
USE="3dnow 3dnowext X aac acl alsa ao apache2 arts audiofile bash-completion berkdb bidi bzip2 cairo calendar cdparanoia cdr cgi cracklib crypt cscope css cups curl dbus dga dv dvb dvd dvdr dvdread encode esd exif expat fastcgi ffmpeg firefox fontconfig ftp gd geoip gif gimp -gnome gpm gtk gtkhtml hal java jbig jpeg jpeg2k kde kerberos lcms libcaca midi mmap mmx mng mozilla mp3 mpeg mplayer multilib mysql mysqli ncurses nsplugin opengl pcre pda pdf perl png prelude profile pulseaudio python qt3 qt4 quicktime raw readline ruby samba sasl seamonkey slp snmp sockets spell spl svg svga symlink syslog tcpd tiff truetype unicode usb v4l v4l2 vcd wmf Xaw3d xcomposite xine xml xprint xpm xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc zeroconf"
LINGUAS="en"
VIDEO_CARDS="nv nvidia"
INPUT_DEVISES="keyboard mouse"

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loftwyr
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In short, you don't. The only way to compile a 32 bit system on a 64 bit system is in chroot.

However, have you checked your hardware? Run memtest for a few hours? Do you have smartmontools installed and running?

What hardware are you running?
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kpep01
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanx for the reply, loftwyr.

Quote:
However, have you checked your hardware? Run memtest for a few hours? Do you have smartmontools installed and running?


I've allowed memtest86 to make several repetitions a couple of times, it's never produced an error. As stated above, I had several other parts of my hardware bench tested recently. Everything checks out.

As to smartmontools - I have it installed, but, it's one of those things I haven't taken the time to learn. At your suggestion, I will take time to learn about this tool and utilize it better. Thank you for the pointer.

Any suggestions you might give in that regard would be appreciated.

As to my hardware, I'm running AMD64 6400+ dual-core on an Asus M2N-SLI motherboard. I'm only running 1G of memory according to cat /proc/meminfo (funny, I thought I had 2G).

If there is more information that you require in understanding the issue, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanx again for your reply.

Kurt
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loftwyr
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you have two gig installed and your system is saying you have one, you have memory issues. Likely as soon as X tries to access a certain spot of memory on one chip, it crashes.
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cjubon
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My personal opinion is that you can savely forget about any possible hardware issues. My box (Athlon X2 3800+ @ 64bit) is haunted by the same problem, and as you said, there are a lot of similar forum reports with no solution so far.

I initially suspected the xorg-ati drivers for being responsible for the issue, but you have an nvidia card, so is has to be something different.

Another possible reason may be an issue with the cpu schedulers that can be activated / deactivated in the kernel config (Power management and ACPI options > CPU frequency scaling). I had the impressions that the troubles began when I began to use more than the performance governor, but I didn't test this out so far. Anyhow, this is what the discussion here https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-793263.html is centered around.

So I'm sorry to not being able to really help you out. However, I want to draw your attention to your /etc/make.conf, which can be improved IMHO (this is a bit out of topic, though).

First, I'd add mmxext to your use flags; second, it's likely that your cpu supports sse3, although this only shows up as the 'pni' flag in /proc/cpuinfo, so you may either add '-msse3' to your CFLAGS or change '-mtune=athlon64' to '-mtune=k8-sse3' instead. See the gentoo wiki for that: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Safe_Cflags/AMD#Athlon_64_X2.
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depontius
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Back in the early days of my current amd64 system, I had lots of 64-bit compatibility problems. In particular, flash on firefox - back then nspluginwrapper just wasn't doing a good job. I tried several workarounds, like 32-bit mozilla-firefox-bin, etc, but for various reasons it was all frustrating and my wife still wasn't happy.

One of those workarounds that worked better than the others was to have a 32-bit chroot. Then I tweaked the init scripts so that when I started xdm, it started in the 32-bit chroot instead of the 64-bit system. Essentially my entire GUI userspace was 32-bits on a 64-bit system. At the same time, I had a 64-bit kernel and I had 64-bit command line sessions available to me. What's more, with a little fiddling, the 64-bit command lines could use the 32-bit X server started by the 32-bit xdm/gdm. It actually was quite a good arrangement at the time.

If it was so good, why did I stop?

Back when I was messing with this, the xdm init scripts were changing drastically between releases. It got to be a bear to re-reverse-engineer the init scripts every time, and re-fit the 32-bit chroot into them. Finally I just moved kernel, userspace, and all to 32-bit, and all was well. A few years later, I had an "accident" with rsync, trying to back my /etc to my server. Instead of backing up /etc to the server, I restored a blank backup from the server to my /etc. My whole configuration was wiped. I reinstalled a 64-bit kernel and userspace, because by that time the 64-bit stuff was good enough. That's where this system is, today. The 32-bit chroot is still there, I think, but it's got such horrible bit-rot that I should probably just scavenge the disk space for my MythTV /media partition. I haven't used any of that space in over a year.
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bugmenot
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:58 am    Post subject: BIOS update? Reply with quote

Hi,

Just thought I'd mention that I had some stability problems with my amd64 system related to cpufreq, showing up as crashes sometimes when the on-demand-thing thought it a good idea to raise the frequency. Updating the BIOS solved that one, so that might be something worth trying for those that haven't.
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