Xorg segfaulting and other problems

[Jukka Salmi <j+nbsd%2009.salmi.ch@localhost>]

Hello,

after successfully running XFree86 on a NetBSD/i386 current system for
years I recently decided to give the in-tree Xorg a try.  Using binaries
built from sources as of 2009-01-02 I noticed several problems:

- With XFree86 I'm using a Matrox G450 card with a dual head setup.
  This works fine.  Of course I want to do the same with Xorg.  Thus
  the first thing I did was running xorgconfig(1) and manually porting
  various parts like the dual screen configuration from XF86Config(5) to
  xorg.conf(5).  But running startx(1) afterwards resulted in Xorg dumping
  core; a gdb bt shows:

    [...]
    #13 0x0809769d in ddxGiveUp ()
    #14 0x0809769d in ddxGiveUp ()
    #15 0x08179f07 in AbortServer ()
    #16 0x0817a345 in FatalError ()
    #17 0x080a46f9 in xf86SigHandler ()
    #18 0xbba49d20 in setusershell () from /usr/lib/libc.so.12
    #19 0xbb68fc49 in ?? ()
    #20 0xbb72a800 in ?? ()
    #21 0x00000000 in ?? ()

  After removing xorg.conf startx was successful.  Xorg also started
  successfully after just removing the second screen configuration part
  from xorg.conf.  However, more problems followed (see below).

- Starting xterm(1) resulted in

    Failed to open input method

  being printed, and then it took several seconds until xterm eventually
  appeared.  This was probably due to `LC_CTYPE' being set to `en_US.UTF-8';
  at least the message was not printed and the delay went away after I
  set LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1.

- Starting twm(1) failed with

    unable to open fontset "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"

  while `LC_CTYPE' was `en_US.UTF-8'; xlsfonts(1) showed fonts matching
  the above pattern.  However, setting it to `en_US.ISO8859-1' worked
  around this problem, i.e. it made twm start.

- When using another window manager where moving windows is done
  "opaque" (i.e. not just their borders are shown as with twm),
  moving windows was extremely slow (CPU intensive!).  Furthermore,
  xterm generally was slow, e.g. a visual bell was more like a black
  waterfall than a dark flash...  But rxvt-unicode was fast as usual.
  Hmm...

Unfortunately I didn't have much time debugging these problems and had
to revert to XFree86 almost immediately.  Is anybody seeing similar
problems?  Any hints what could cause the problems I'm seeing?

In the hope that this would be helpful I put several files online:  my
old XFree86 [1]configuration file; the XFree86 [2]log file when running
my old configuration; the newly created [3]xorg.conf; the Xorg [4]log
file when running Xorg with that xorg.conf; the Xorg [5]log when after
commenting out the second screen; and the Xorg [6]log after removing
xorg.conf altogether.

HTH, but please tell what information I should provide if it doesn't!


TIA, Jukka

[1] http://salmi.ch/~jukka/nbsd/X11/XF86Config
[2] http://salmi.ch/~jukka/nbsd/X11/XFree86.0.log
[3] http://salmi.ch/~jukka/nbsd/X11/xorg.conf
[4] http://salmi.ch/~jukka/nbsd/X11/Xorg.0.log
[5] http://salmi.ch/~jukka/nbsd/X11/Xorg.0.log_no2ndscreen
[6] http://salmi.ch/~jukka/nbsd/X11/Xorg.0.log_noconf

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