RE: problems with XFree

["Harold Hunt" <huntharo at msu dot edu>]

Tom,

I bet that you either have two copies of cygwin1.dll on your system, or that
you have a really old version of cygwin1.dll.  For more information see:

http://xfree86.cygwin.com/docs/faq/cygwin-xfree-faq.html#q-status-access-vio
lation

I run XDMCP sessions for several hours with no slowdowns or lockups.  I also
log off and back on to XDMCP sessions all the time.  A couple of days ago I
did identify and fix a memory leak that happens when the X server resets,
which happens when you logoff an XDMCP session.

I think that Windows 2000 and Windows XP do not show a bluescreen anymore by
default.  You can change that option in the Control Panel.  You mention that
this also happens on Windows 95/98/Me, which seems to be about the level of
information that you can expect from those OSes when they crash.

Harold

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-xfree-owner@cygwin.com
> [mailto:cygwin-xfree-owner@cygwin.com]On Behalf Of Tom Bozack
> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 10:32 PM
> To: cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: problems with XFree
>
>
> I think Cygwin/XFree86 is a great product  -- but there is nothing so
> good that it can't be improved.  I agree with all of you comments,
> although I haven't had the system reboot experience.
>
> One persistant problem that you didn't mention (manybe you haven't run
> into it yet) is a very persistent and repeatable lock-up when used to
> login to another host using XDMCP.  The symptom is of a sudden large
> memory leak after 15-30 minutes of use.  XFree86 becomes unresponsive,
> system memory and swap resources are rapidly used up, and finally
> XFree86 crashes with a seg fault.  This also happens immediately (you
> don't have to wait 15-30 min) when you logoff the host and login again.
>   I've experienced this under Windows 98/98SE/ME.
>
> For me this is a showstopper since it makes Cygwin/XFree86 unusable as
> an X server platform.  It's fun to play with, but this "bug" makes it
> unacceptable for routine use as an X server.
>
> Tom
>
> gsroka@mmsa.com wrote:
> > (last email I sent complained about HTML MIME. i hope i'm not
> > double-posting)
> >
> > I started playing with XFree last week. It's been a few years
> since I've
> > used UNIX, so you can call me a newbie, if you like. I'm
> running Windows
> > 2000 Pro on a P4 1.7 GHz with 768 MiB of RAM and 10 GB free on my hard
> > drive. I (eventually) did a full Cygwin/XFree86 download and install
> > (binaries, not source).
> >
> > Please don't flame me if I'm out of line. I didn't know if I
> should break
> > this up into several emails or have one big one. Also, please send
> > responses to me by email.
> >
> > Here are my obervations/problems.
> > Showstoppers:
> > 1) The very first time I brought up the X server, I had modified
> > startxwin.bat
> > to use wmaker instead of twm. It crashed because /home
> > hadn't been created yet. This was "fixed" by running the text-mode bash
> > icon first.
> > 2) when I run Xman, it says "No App-Defaults File". If I run
> "Xman -notop"
> >
> > instead, I can browse one man page, and then it stops working.
> (it gives a
> >
> > "likeToSave" message box with yes and no buttons that don't seem to do
> > anything.) It seems to be related to missing a locale binary.
> Is there a
> > way to get this to work?
> > 3) within the first few hours of usage, I ran a "find / -name
> abc -print"
> > from the command-line, and my trusty Windows 2000 box
> restarted. no blue
> > screen, no error. it was like someone pulled the power plug and
> plugged it
> >
> > back in. after it came up, i tried the same command and it worked fine.
> > 4) i had a similar "restart" to #6 when I ran setup.exe while
> cygwin was
> > up. of course, bad user, i should have stopped cygwin before running
> > setup, but i'm still amazed at how easily my robust kernel, based on NT
> > Technology, came down.
> >
> > Nice-to-haves:
> > 5) it'd be nice if setup.exe showed the size (in bytes or
> megabytes, etc.)
> >
> > of each package (it's in setup.ini). on my 56 Kb/s modem, downloading a
> > large, unnecessary file takes a painfully long time, but a small
> > unnecessary file is not so bad.
> > 6) on that note, how about displaying those nice descriptions from
> > setup.ini in setup.exe so we can see what the packages are before
> > downloading them. a resizable window would come in handy for this.
> > 7) the first time I downloaded (a partial download, not full), i picked
> > "more" and "clear", but next time I went into setup.exe, it had
> > "forgotten" that. perhaps if I can unrust my C, I can fix some of these
> > bugs myself. give me a few weeks.
> > 8) the XFree86-fnts package is 16 MiB. it's kind of big. the
> first time i
> > downloaded from http:uiuc, it got 98% and stopped responding--1 hour
> > wasted (at 56 Kb). the second time (no joke) it got 99% and
> > stopped--another hour wasted. so i copied it from somewhere else.
> > 9) my X clients on an AIX box didn't work because i didn't use the -kb
> > switch on XWin. but i found that one on the faq. a possible
> enhancement to
> >
> > setup.exe?
> > 10) using K (or Ki) and B for byte on setup.exe is always nice.
> make sure
> > to leave a space between the number and the unit. 10 KB, not 10KB. how
> > about estimated download time in addition to % ?
> > 11) also, what's all that /b stuff about in startxwin.bat?
> gotos, etc. but
> >
> > there is no /b ! (there is no spoon either ;-)
> >
> >
> > Please no one take offense at all this. I'm not trying to throw
> blame. It
> > seems like a great product, so far (except for the deadly
> restarts). These
> >
> > are perhaps suggestions for doing it better. I know some coworkers who
> > tried to get this to work, but gave up because of the problems. So will
> > the average newbie or the busy IT pro who doesn't have time to
> read lots
> > of faqs and will buy Exceed instead. I hope my observations will help
> > others.
> >
> > Gabriel Sroka
> > gsroka at mmsa dot com
> >
>
>
>