[lug] xfs and galeon / mozilla

[Warren Sanders]

Ed Hill wrote:

>Hi folks,
>
>In the last few days, I read that mozilla with the X font server (xfs)
>can cause crashes when requests are made for ridiculously large fonts. 
>Apparently, if you try to view web sites with such fonts, mozilla (and
>mozilla-based browsers) will crash or cause swap storms.
>
>Today, I was looking for info on a Symbios SYM22801 card and I typed
>"Symbios SYM22801 linux" into google using galeon as my web browser.  A
>swap storm ensued as xfs tried to use up every bit of available memory. 
>I killed galeon and the memory was freed up.  This happened three times
>in a row and I was wondering if anyone else could repeat my
>experience...?
>
>Ed
>
>ps - I'm using the latest mozilla 1.0.0 and galeon 1.2.5 builds.
>
>  
>
While it is a Mozilla that is the root of the problem, it is really an 
underlying flaw in X which needs to be fixed.  I'm not sure as to the 
status.  They are going to fix Mozilla (which I think has been fixed 
already with the post 1.0 series).

That was actually reported on Slashdot a couple of days ago... mixed in 
with a MSIE or IIS vulnerability story.  See:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/13/0417206&mode=flat&tid=128 
 As I understand it, it actually causes X to crash.

-- 
Scott Dowdle
http://MontanaLinux.Org