[ecasound] warning about system freezes

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Subject: [ecasound] warning about system freezes
From: Kai Vehmanen (k_AT_eca.cx)
Date: Mon Oct 08 2001 - 10:06:01 EEST

There's a bug in ecasound ecasound 2.1.0 and the current CVS-version where
running with root-priviledges in 'rtlowlatency' mode causes a _complete_
freeze of the system (-> only reset helps).

The bug is triggered by a combination of root-priviledges, -z:db and
-z:nointbuf - in other words the 'rtlowlatency' mode.

The bug is triggered in only certain circumstances. I have no trouble
crashing my smp-celeron with latest ALSA-drivers, but my linux laptop
(amd-k2, OSS-commercial drivers) has _not_ crashed even once.

In any case, it's some sort of thread-deadlock bug, as this is about the
only way for a user-space app to crash kernel this completely (and
requires that SCHED_FIFO scheduling is enabled).

Btw; if you feel brave and want to debug this, the old
     sync-before-anything rule is very good here - ie.
     always run ecasound with "sync ; ecasound -i file.wav -o /dev/dsp".
     This helps a bit to avoid trashing your disks. 

-- 
 http://www.eca.cx
 Audio software for Linux!

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