Re: Pixel errors - CV64

[Ignatios Souvatzis <is%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 07:07:33AM +0100, Georges Heinesch wrote:

> During night time (at #03:38), /netbsd gives out the following
> message. It's the same one which is also displayed when booting up.
> Basically, I can't remember any more what it means (there was a thread
> in this mailing list #1 year ago),

if you have direct internet access and a web browser, point it at 
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/
which is a search engine for the mailing list archives.

> but the problem is that after the
> message appears, the top lines of the window manager are corrupt (#10
> most top lines).
> 
> This is the message after which the pixel errors appear:
> 
> ----- cut here -----
> warning found rdb->secpercyl(1339) != rdb->nsectors(1340) * rdb->nheads(1)
> warning unknown dostype: 0x0 marking unused
> Partition 'DH_fusion' geometry 1/1340 differs from RDB 1/1340

Short resolution:

1. /etc/daily runs, and fsck -n isn't disabled in daily.conf (or NetBSD is
   too old to include daily.conf)

2. fsck reads and interprets the rdb. the RDB reading routine has lots of
   warning messages built in, which are used to detect potential problems with 
   some braindead Amiga RDB creating programs (well, with interpreting the
   crazy geometry they create).

3. You don't run xconsole, so the output writes to the console and overwrites
   whatever is there in video memory.

Workaround, also preferable for other reasons: run xconsole whenever you run
X11.

3. will also be disappear when Amiga switches to full wscons, but this will
take some time.

2. could be helped by leaving out those warning messages, or decoupling them
from general kernel DIAGNOSTIC messages. I'm very tempted to do that, but
have to leave for kindergarten and work in a couple of minutes.)

Regards,
        Ignatios