I am using the SVGA server to drive a Diamond Steallth III S540 32Mb AGP video card which works fine until I want to logout of X at which point Linux crashes. The only thing I can do at this point is reboot. I have tried Gnome and KDE desktops, both give the same result. I have upgraded to XFree86 3.3.6, this works even better with my video card but still crashes Linux at logout.
I have now upgraded to Red Hat 6.2 and after the install X was able to logout back to the console without crashing Linux. However after a few successful shutdowns the problem returned and now X crashes Linux at every Logout. Xfree86 3.3.6 claims to support my video card so why does this happen ? I have seen this problem documented for several Diamond cards since 1998, surely someone knows how to fix it by now !
I know of no fix at this time. I suggest you get in touch with the XFree86 people (http://www.xfree86.org) directly. What chipset does this card employ?
The card uses the S3 Savage4 chipset.
the savage4 chipset support in XFree86 is very spotty.