Re: Applications routinely crash X... how is this possible?

[jg pa dec com (Jim Gettys)]

If your X server crashes, for any reason, it is a bug in the X server...

This ain't windows, you know...

This is generally caused by the display drivers (ddx) having bugs;
as there is a TON of PC displays, there are lots of poor ddx drivers out
there.

So make sure you are running the most recent X server for your display
hardware, and report any crashes to whomever you got your X server
from.

If your X server "hangs", you should kill off applications, and see
if any of them cause the server to start running again; if one of them
does, then it likely has the server "grabbed"; most likely this is
a window manager, though in a few cases, toolkits might grab the server
(not recommended).  If killing one of the applications frees up the
X server, then that application is guilty of leaving the server grabbed
when it shouldn't.  If killing all X applications doesn't cause the
server to free up, then the X server is guilty; see above, and force
a core dump and get a trace to report in the right direction.


					- Jim Gettys

--
Jim Gettys
Industry Standards and Consortia
Compaq Computer Corporation
Visting Scientist, World Wide Web Consortium, M.I.T.
http://www.w3.org/People/Gettys/
jg@w3.org, jg@pa.dec.com