Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

[nmeyers-BigylZdZcsdmcu3hnIyYJQ at public.gmane.org (Nathan Meyers)]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> There are complaints that Linux is becoming more Windows-like :-)
> What happens when you do ctrl-alt-f2. Do you get a prompt? If so, then
> log in and force the X server to reload. Ctrl-alt-backspace is now
> turned off by default. 
>   
No such luck. The GPU is locked up and the only way out is the power 
button as far as I can tell.

The info from Laura's response 
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/554835) 
is pointing in a productive direction. It's a kernel bug that can be 
worked around by setting a boot-time flag. It affect the Intel 855 
graphics chipset (which hardly anyone uses :-). As best I understand it:

- The Kernel mode-setting for that driver has stability problems, so 
they disabled it by default in the kernel released with Lucid.
- Starting up a system with kernel mode-setting disabled (at least if it 
needs to prompt for encrypted filesystem passphrases, or maybe always) 
leads to GPU lockup when the X server starts

which leads to a conundrum - enabling kernel mode-setting is bad, and 
disabling kernel mode-setting is bad. But I daresay that disabling it is 
badder, and the workaround for now is to burn a change into initramfs 
that enables kernel-mode setting.

Nathan

>
> On 05/01/2010 06:15 PM, Nathan Meyers wrote:
>   
>> Bad news on my Averatec laptop - the X server is out of order. It
>> appears to be coming up - the text display is gone - but I'm getting a
>> black screen with no cursor and no desktop. I'm poking around to see
>> what it will take to set it right; haven't found anything about this
>> so far online.
>>
>> Nathan
>>
>>
>> Jerry Feldman wrote:
>>     
>>> I was able to upgrade to Lucid Lynx on Thursday night on my laptop with
>>> virtually no apparent issues. I was surprised that VirtualBox was able
>>> to run after the upgrade. Additionally, the wireless connected
>>> flawlessly although I have a Broadcom chip The fw-cutter dialog box
>>> asked if I wanted the firmware. I was a bit surprised that the wireless
>>> came up automatically since after my reinstall of Karmic, I've had to
>>> manually massage it. I have not really performed any other tests yet,
>>> but it did come up with no problems.
>>>
>>>     
>>>       
>
>   
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