[gpm]Conflict between gpm and acpi?

[Troy Schultz]

I have been using both gpm and the ACPI patches for a while now and
until recently everything was going quite well.  I run RedHat Linux 7.2
with kernel 2.4.17 from kernel.org with the ACPI patches version
20020225, and XFree86 4.2.0.

Up until a short time ago I was running gpm version 1.19.6 and then
upgraded to gpm version 1.20.0, now I get a strange problem where I lose
mouse and keyboard if I switch consoles, but only if I run with gpm
1.20.0 and ACPI 20020225.  I switched to gpm 1.20.0 along with some very
nice patches, from Peter Berg Larsen, to the synaptics driver since it
gives me almost the same features as the Windows driver for the
touchpad.

Here is a summary of what is happening;
- Start the system normally to init level 5 (X is running), it does not
matter if I log in and start gnome or KDE, or just stay at X login
screen
- change to console mode using <CTRL><ALT><F1>
- if you change back to X using <CTRL><ALT><F7> then X hangs part way
through redrawing screen.  There is no mouse or keybaord.
- X is using over 99% of CPU and the only way I have been able to clean
things up is to ssh into the notebook and restart the system.
- I can SysRq-B and reboot, but the ext3 filesystem doesn't like this.

Oddly enough if I start another X session on display 1 <CTRL><ALT><F8>
and us it and never switch to the session on display 0, everything is
fine.  I can switch between console and display 1 with no problems.

I have only found this problem with gpm version 1.20.0, this does not
happen with gpm 1.19.6.  I have also verfied that this same problem
happens if I configure gpm for a standard ps/2 device and not the synps2
device I normally use.

I have also found the following;
- start with identical kernel 2.4.17 with no ACPI compiled in and
everything is fine.
- start with kernel 2.4.9-21 and acpi 20010615 compiled in and
everything is fine.
- have tried using X with direct ps/2, not using gpm, and everything is
fine.
- have tried gpm 1.20.0 with and without Peter's patches and the results
are the same.
- have tried gpm 1.20.0 using ps/2 instead of synps2 protocol and
results are the same.
- have tried starting to init level 3 and logging in and then using
startx, but this gives the same problem.

I am still doing some tests to determine why this is happening, and will
probably try a newer ACPI patch to see what happens.

Has anyone else found similiar problems?

Is this a problem with gpm or ACPI?

Any assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated
- Troy Schultz