MEPIS Community Forum

My system freezes whenever I try to run a parallel session or when I try to log out of X with ctrl + allt + F1 on my Toshiba Satellite L650 2M ram with ATI RAdeon Mobility HD 4500 and Mepis 32bit.

Any thought would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michel

Are u able to reboot the system with Magic Sys Request?
http://www.brunolinux.com/01-First_Thin ... hants.html

Or Ctrl-Alt-Bksp (try that before you try Raising Skinny Elephants)?

Is there anything in the logs to help you determine the problem?

Is it a true kernel panic? (system is still frozen after trying both of the above and Num Lock and Caps Look lights are flashing)?

Even if it is a true kernel panic (very unlikely) there may be something in the log files to diagnose the problem. You give us no diagnostic info, no one will be able to help you.

You may want to try changing xorg.conf or using a different kernel.

Mike

You might try using the boot cheatcode radeon.modeset=0
Some ati chipsets have issues with the version of radeon driver that ships with MEPIS 11. If the cheatcode works but causes other issues (such as an incorrect resolution) you may need to upgrade your kernel & xserver.

Thanks,

I tried ctrl + alt + esc and alt + prtrsc + K but not ctrl + alt + backspace or the skinny elephants protocol. But my issue is not how to get out of the freeze but rather how to avoid freezing in the first place.

Michel

I already have that boot line cheat code and everything was running fine. It's either an upgrade or the fact that I installed virtual box that caused the problem.

Is it better to upgrade kernel and xserver (don't know how to do that!) or just roll back and use the non proprietary driver (I was trying to do that by loging out of X to run sgfxi -! -32 but the system keeps freezing!) Or just hold on until Mepis 12 comes along and I re-install the OS?

Thanks,

Michel

I managed to boot in command mode by adding "3" at the end of the command line in Grub. ran Sgfxi and now my system is stable. It was all a video issue.

I hope Mepis 12 will help us deal with all the Nvidea, Ati and Intel video driver problems.

Michel

Add a "me too" as it would be a great relief not to worry about xorg updates messing things up, video-wise.

That's what pinning is for.

The key word for me was, updates. :)

And that's what backing up /etc/X11/xorg.conf is for.

A side note: If your system is working properly, installing a new video driver is more likely to cause harm than good ... just based on my experience.