system sporadically hangs on shutdown after switching to WITH_NEW_XORG

[Michiel Boland]

On 06/16/2013 17:11, Michiel Boland wrote:
> Hi. Recently I switched to WITH_NEW_XORG, primarily because the stock X server
> with Intel driver has some issues that make it unusable for me.
>
> The new X server and Intel driver works extremely well, so kudos to whoever made
> this possible.
>
> Unfortunately, I am now experiencing random hangs on shutdown. On shutdown the
> system randomly freezes after
>
> [...] syslogd: exiting on signal 15
>
> I would then expect to see 'Waiting (max 60 seconds) for system process 'XXX' to
> stop messages, but these never arrive.

So it turns out that init hangs because vga_txtmouse (draw_txtmouse in fact) is 
hogging the clock swi. The routine is waiting for a vertical retrace which never 
arrives. (The new intel driver can't return to text console, so the screen just 
goes blank when X exits.)

Some workarounds:

- don't run moused (i.e. disable it in rc.conf and devd.conf)
   instead run the X server in combination with hald

- do run moused, but then either

  - unplug the mouse before shutting down

   - build a kernel with VGA_NO_FONT_LOADING

Of course the long-term fix is to remove the possibly infinite loop in 
draw_txtmouse.

Thanks to Konstantin for his patience in helping me track this down.

Cheers
Michiel