Lucid 528 is not multiprocessor safe

[Moose On The Loose]

The effect is to have Puppy freeze up in a specific manner.
1) The video in youtube or xine stops
2) The mouse pointer continues to work for a while
3) The sound with the video continues briefly
4) If you are quick about it, you can flick the [X] to close firefox but it doesn't close, you may get the "not responding" dialog

The freeze happens very randomly. Sometimes it runs for a day sometimes for 5 minutes

menu.lst:

Code: Select all

 kernel the-usual-stuff  nosmp

Adding nosmp prevents Linux from using more than one processor. It work fine in this condition but you are giving up a part of the CPU chip you paid for.

mesa tools or not seems to have no effect
video card seems to have no effect

Booted from live CD will hang also. To do that you want to type:

Code: Select all

puppy nosmp

at the boot prompt

[James C]

Sorry to read about your issues but I've been running Lucid on dual and quad core boxes since 2010 , utilizing all cores, without any problems. Naturally, each users experience may be different.

Code: Select all

-Computer-
Processor		: 2x Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Memory		: 2067MB (139MB used)
Operating System		: Puppy Linux 0.52
User Name		: root (root)
Date/Time		: Wed 30 Jul 2014 09:16:06 PM CDT
-Display-
Resolution		: 1024x768 pixels
OpenGL Renderer		: Unknown
X11 Vendor		: The X.Org Foundation
-Multimedia-
Audio Adapter		: ICH4 - Intel ICH5

[mikeb]

Could well be firefox /flash trying to use 3d acceleration and failing miserably with the driver in use (intel, nvidia??).... finding ways to disable for either might help.... part of the failure could indeed involve multiple cores but in a specific way rather than a generic problem unless you are getting seizures in other ways. (lucid locks up during shutdown on an older compaq board for example)

Note Lucid can only handle up to 4 cores.

mike

[mcewanw]

The effect is to have Puppy freeze up in a specific manner.
1) The video in youtube or xine stops
2) The mouse pointer continues to work for a while
3) The sound with the video continues briefly
4) If you are quick about it, you can flick the [X] to close firefox but it doesn't close, you may get the "not responding" dialog

May well be nothing to do with the problem you are experiencing, but I get similar issues with this intel sound card computer, which by default in most Puppies usually loads the following two snd related modules: snd-intel8x0 and snd-intel8x0m. Though most snd apps still seem to work okay, if I try using flash, I get hangs very similar to yours above - I think the CPU starts running at 100% and thus the freeze effect. The solution for me is to blacklist snd-intel8x0m, after which there is no conflict with flash running, so in my case it was to do with sound, not video drivers. Also, this is a single core computer, so different in that way too. Though it is probably therefore unlikely your problem is the same, I do wonder if the issue you are experiencing is also something to do with a conflict arising at the module level.

You might notice if your CPU starts running at 100% from the taskbar applet?

William

[disciple]

Yes, often problems like that are resolved by installing proprietary video drivers if they're available, but I wouldn't have thought that would be the case if disabling smp also fixes it.

[bigpup]

Moose On The Loose,

Thanks for the info.

However,

What is the hardware being used?????


That is like telling an auto mechanic my car stops running.

Do you think he may need to know what make, year, and model car it is?

Done anything with the CPU frequency scaling tool?

[Moose On The Loose]

Moose On The Loose,

Thanks for the info.

However,

What is the hardware being used?????

I have two very difference ASUS mother board computers with dual core Processors.
One is Intel the other is AMD
Both do the same thing
The machine I am on right now is:

cpuinfo =

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processor	: 0
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 18
model		: 1
model name	: AMD A4-3400 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
stepping	: 0
cpu MHz		: 2700.238
cache size	: 512 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 1
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 1
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 6
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc up nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt
bogomips	: 5400.47
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate
[/quote]

[b]From Modules[/b]
snd_hda_codec_realtek 165209 1 - Live 0xf83fe000
nls_cp437 4465 0 - Live 0xf83b6000
usbhid 18009 0 - Live 0xf838c000
pcspkr 1179 0 - Live 0xf8375000
snd_hda_intel 14978 0 - Live 0xf8366000
snd_hda_codec 38539 2 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel, Live 0xf8346000
snd_pcm_oss 26845 0 - Live 0xf8325000
snd_mixer_oss 9963 1 snd_pcm_oss, Live 0xf8310000
r8169 25792 0 - Live 0xf82f7000
mii 2650 1 r8169, Live 0xf82e4000
sg 19093 0 - Live 0xf82d5000
snd_pcm 45385 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss, Live 0xf82b3000
snd_seq_dummy 907 0 - Live 0xf8296000
snd_seq_oss 18888 0 - Live 0xf8286000
snd_seq_midi 3156 0 - Live 0xf8275000
snd_rawmidi 11924 1 snd_seq_midi, Live 0xf8266000
snd_seq_midi_event 3592 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi, Live 0xf8257000
snd_seq 32379 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event, Live 0xf8242000
snd_timer 11986 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq, Live 0xf8229000
snd_seq_device 3601 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq, Live 0xf821a000
snd 30859 11 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device, Live 0xf8203000
soundcore 3403 1 snd, Live 0xf81ea000
snd_page_alloc 4645 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm, Live 0xf81de000

In case it is really sound.

[Moose On The Loose]

Could well be firefox /flash trying to use 3d acceleration and failing miserably with the driver in use (intel, nvidia??).... finding ways to disable for either might help.... part of the failure could indeed involve multiple cores but in a specific way rather than a generic problem unless you are getting seizures in other ways. (lucid locks up during shutdown on an older compaq board for example)

Note Lucid can only handle up to 4 cores.

mike

I thought I had ruled out flash by running xine doing videos until it hung.

I also ran a C program that did a while lot of:

Code: Select all

double X;
X = sqrt(1+X);

just to see if merely loading the CPU would do it.

[bigpup]

I assume you are talking about Lucid Puppy 5.2.8-005 version.

Done anything with the CPU frequency scaling tool?