Newbie debugging question

Hi,

I've been searching the net for quite some time now without success so I decided to ask the professionals. I'm looking for kernelhacker newbie friendly documentation on how to figure out a little more about a kernel lockup to be able to give the developer of a device driver some more info. The problem is that after a while the machine locks up with Caps Lock and Scroll lock blinking. I don't see any logs and no messages on the console. I found some posts describing similar events and it was said that the kernel is not completely dead in this state. Is there a way to get some more information? Where should I start reading.

Please CC me since I'm not subscribed.

Thanks,

Richard

I suggest asking on the kernelnewbies mailing list (see kernelnewbies.org). Also, some people started on this web page, but it's only a beginning:
http://lse.sourceforge.net/debugging/

What kernel version? That would have some effects on the answer.

Serial console is the usual option/route. If it boots completely, you could also try netconsole (or, dare I say it, usb console). Or LKCD (lkcd.sf.net), or kmsgdump (2.5.75/2.6.0 at
http://www.xenotime.net/linux/kmsgdump/2.5.75/).

~Randy

Hi,

thanks for the info. I'll do that.

2.4.21 vanilla (now with the latest version of sgi's kdb)

I'll check these. I managed to get some information via kdb and serial console. Don't know if it is useful but I guess they will tell me :-)

Thanks again,

Richard

PS: In case of answers to this, please CC me since I'm not subscribed.