[Fluxus] show-fps crash ubuntu lucid

[wandering free]

On 15/09/2013, Kassen <signal.automatique at gmail.com> wrote:
> Welcome on board! You are in the right place for FLuxus info.

Thank you very much.

>>    Now however, if any code uses (show-fps 1), fluxus crashes out, with
>>    "Aborted" as the only error message...
>>    I tried using (show-fps 2) yesterday when I discovered it existed, and
>>    this totally crashed the gnome gdm, putting it into some kind of
>> endless
>>    loop.
>
> This is a bit strange and I can't reproduce this with (show-fps 1) or
> 2. Not sure where you found the "2" version or what should be
> different about it, but at least it doesn't crash here.
>

Interestingly I came across "show-fps 2" from a post by you; it would appear
http://www.mail-archive.com/fluxus@lists.pawfal.org/msg01723.html
:)

> So, lacking any proper data I have some "gut feeling" suggestions. I
> Think show-fps had some surprising interactions with opacity a while
> ago. Can you verify that using opacity without show-fps (just create
> some semi-transparent cubes) is ok?

Yep, opacity seems to work fine.
For the record, having (show-fps 1) as  the only line of code causes
the same crash.

> Are you perhaps using a desktop environment with those fancy 3d and
> transparency effects? Those have in the past led to issues with
> Fluxus.

I could never get my graphics card set up to work with ubuntu and
compiz 3d effects. It has been running on "normal". I tried with all
visual effects disabled. No change.
(By the way, I am not running the best machine - IBM ThinkPad X60)

> Another thing I wonder about is why you went with sources from a
> Ubuntu repository. If you are willing to build your own I'd recommend
> the Git version (instructions are on our site) as that should have
> more fixed bugs and more features. This may help and if it doesn't
> you'll at least be on the version the dev's use which may make
> diagnosing and fixing issues easier.

I would happily use the git repository. For whatever inane reason, I
wanted what appeared to be the most up to date (v 0.18) which I could
only find in the ubuntu repo. Git seemed to only have 0.17 and from
2010...maybe I am wrong.
I would welcome a link to the git repo that dev's are still working on
:) I will check your site (pawfal, I assume).

> If GDM is caught in a loop and you wish to avoid rebooting you could
> try killing the X server altogether. You'll lose all programs that ran
> under it though. If it doesn't restart itself 'startx' should do the
> job.

I thought "stop gdm" was the best way to kill the gdm. Didn't think
about trying with x server. Would it be correct to use "xkill -all" ?

> Bug reports are interesting, I think. This one may take a while to
> diagnose though as there really is very little to go on, but we can
> try to collect more info and run tests.
>
> Yours,
> Kas.
>

Happily, we can get something going, but as you say with a little more
diagnosis.
Is there any way to get fluxus to spit out more error data than "Aborted" ???

Many thanks again,
Michael