Re: Debugging GL apps

[Erik <br0ke@math.smsu.edu>]

On 10-Jan-2000 Keith Lucas wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>If your main program 'locks up', the shell script will automatically
>>try to kill it 30 seconds later.
>>
>>There are more elegant ways to do this (eg with signals and such) - but
>>this is easy to understand.
> 
> I always used to run SVGALIB and GLIDE development stuff with a little doofer
> in
> the background that would kill them after 90 seconds. That usually would
> allow
> enough time to see if it worked and reset the display and stuff back to
> usability if things locked up. Failing that, another one would reboot the
> machine 60 seconds later.
> 

mm, pretty crude :) I like to play starcraft in wine, and occasionally it locks
up and since it's in DGA, I can't recover. If I use the sysrq magic, I usually
destroy my vc's (framebuffer), and have no second computer that's in immediate
access. My solution was to write a small program (it's called ohshit.c, I can
make it public if anyone wants). All it does is listen to the joystick, if it
receives button 1, it executes argv[1], and if it receives button 2, it
executes argv[2] (just enough error checking so it won't seg if you click
button 2 with no argv[2]). I usually run it like 
    ./ohshit 'killall -9 wine' 'killall -9 X'
but it could be bound with a program to fix the gl states and stuff :) That way
I'm free to do whatever I want and still have buttons that do sensible things
if I blow stuff up without being on a timer :)

>>If that's genuinely the case then you should report it as a Mesa bug.
>>I don't use Mesa's software renderer much - so it's possible I might
>>not have seen that.
> 
> I've not had Mesa in software lock up yet doing any of the clownish things I
> do
> to it. I've had it fail to start sending me idles, but I'm not sure why and
> can't get it to happen any more so I'm blaming me for that as well.
> 

sometimes I get a program to crash that leaves the image fullscreen on my tube.
That's the most damage I've gotten from mesa, and is actually a 3dfx issue I
think. it's annoying, and if you aren't prepared, it can be tricky to recover
from, as you're typing blind... :)


        -Erik <erik@smluc.org> [http://math.smsu.edu/~br0ke]

The opinions expressed by me are not necessarily opinions. In all
probability, they are random rambling, and to be ignored. Failure to ignore
may result in severe boredom or confusion. Shake well before opening. Keep
Refrigerated.