[arch-general] Gnome Shell freezes

[Roman V.Leon.]

> Hey, thanks for your responses.
>
> @Gan Lu: ATI canceled support for the proprietary driver for X1400.
> Using the vesa driver won't work because gnome shell requires hardware
> acceleration.
>
> @Simon: Actually I will try killing gnome-shell next time. I always
> killed gnome-session or the xserver. or simply stopped gdm. We seem to
> have different problem though. I use CTRL+ALT+{UP,DOWN} quite a lot and
> it never hung up when switching between workspaces.
>
> @Roman: Doing vmstat 2 > vmstat.log & now. Actually I don't know what to
> do with the information after a crash but it will provide more insight.
>
> If anybody else experiences similar problems, please comment.
>
> On 03.11.2011 12:38, Roman V.Leon. wrote:
>>
>>> Dear arch users and developers,
>>>
>>> I have posted this issue also in the archlinux forum [1]. I didn't get
>>> much feedback there. So I'm hoping some people here might have an idea
>>> of how to resolve the problem.
>>>
>>> Problem:
>>> gnome shell freezes from time to time (actually daily).
>>>
>>> Freezing:
>>> "Freezing" means, the screen becomes unresponsive but everything seems
>>> to continue working (sound and videos continue playing; even the mouse
>>> pointer can still be moved). Most of the time I'm able to switch to a
>>> virtual console although sometimes it takes 10-20 seconds after
>>> CTRL+ALT+F1 to show up. Then, however, everything is running smoothly.
>>> It's not possible to restart X since it will freeze again at the gdm
>>> login screen, or even without using gdm when loading the desktop.
>>>
>>> What triggers the problem:
>>> Usually it happens while scrolling on websites or pdfs. I feel like it
>>> happens more often if there are large images.
>>>
>>> Hardware:
>>> IBM T60
>>> ATI X1400
>>>
>>> I think it's an issue with the open source radeon drivers. However, this
>>> problem doesn't occur using other desktop environments. I tried to look
>>> into some log files but I couldn't find noticeable error messages.
>>>
>>> Looking forward to your suggestions,
>>> Max
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=129481
>>>
>>
>> Hi Max. Try to use system diagnostics tools like `vmstat 2`(2 is a
>> timeout) for example, probably you will find the key to resolve you
>> problem. By the way did you fill /etc/hosts with your PC's hostname ?
>>
>

Max, i have ASUS F3Ke laptop with ATI X2300 and i do not have such
problems with xf86-video-ati driver, but if be honest i'm a kde user. Try
to compare vmstat output when system behavior is normal and when it's
freezes and post it here if there will be any difference.

-- 
Cheers,
Roman V.Leon.