Wine and LTspice crash

[ldg]

Anyone else have problems with Ltspice crashing in wine?

I have a amd64 4800+ x2 machine with Redhat Rhel ws4 loaded on it. I
loaded wine-0.9.2-1centos4winehq.i686.rpm which is supposed to be
compatible:

http://www.winehq.com/site/download-rh

I then ran a test circuit in ltspice which creates a really large
file. After about an hour, the machine crashed down to dirt. Worse,
the kernel wouldn't boot (kernel panic messages for the next 5 boots).
I booted an earlier kernel which worked for some reason, then the
newer kernel recovered at the next boot. (Thank goodness . . .)

So what'd I do wrong?

I'm thinking may be 64bit wine isn't as stable as 32bit wine? Should
I load the 32bit instead?

Wrong wine version?

The file is Very large (gigs). Much larger than the ram or swap.
Could this be the issue? More ram? Larger swap?

Lots of data makes the video card very slow. (pny nvidia fx700)
Perhaps a larger agp aperture window would help?

Obviously I'm grabbing at straws on this. Any suggestions?

Regards,
Larry

 

[Stuart Brorson]

: Anyone else have problems with Ltspice crashing in wine?

I haven't used LTSpice under wine for a while, so I can't help you
there. However, since you're a Linux guy and seem to be technically
clueful, have you tried running your circuit using (Linux-native)
ngspice instead? I'd be curious to see if you have the same (or
different problems).

The one you want to try is ng-spice-rework-17, from:

http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/index.html

Stuart

 

[Chuck Harris]

Anyone else have problems with Ltspice crashing in wine?

I have a amd64 4800+ x2 machine with Redhat Rhel ws4 loaded on it. I
loaded wine-0.9.2-1centos4winehq.i686.rpm which is supposed to be
compatible:

http://www.winehq.com/site/download-rh

I then ran a test circuit in ltspice which creates a really large
file. After about an hour, the machine crashed down to dirt. Worse,
the kernel wouldn't boot (kernel panic messages for the next 5 boots).
I booted an earlier kernel which worked for some reason, then the
newer kernel recovered at the next boot. (Thank goodness . . .)

Obviously, you have either a bad computer, or you have filled up an important
file system. Try booting up using one of the Knoppix live CD's, and take a
gander at the percentage utilization of your various file systems. I suspect
that you will find the system with your /tmp file overfull.

-Chuck

 

[ldg]

Obviously, you have either a bad computer, or you have filled up an important
file system.

Bad computer? Hmmm. It is a new motherboard and cpu. It otherwise
seems fine. I have Smartspice and Smash loaded on it. These don't
seem to crash it. So far.

All the redhat programs work that are loaded with no issues. Maybe
the computer just went bad now? Could be.

The disk is a new 74gig raptor. It has 12% disk usage. The /tmp
directory is in the large partition with no quota. The previously
created file was 10gig - nowhere near filling up the drive. I also
have a 200gig drive for storage mounted and use that to keep the
working drive fairly clean.

I tried running the same file just now. It ran for a few minutes,
then the machine hung. I had to turn it off to get it to do anything.
The same thing happened with the kernel. Wouldn't boot. It's
checking the file system as I write this.

I'll unload and reload wine tomorrow to see if it got stomped somehow.

Try booting up using one of the Knoppix live CD's, and take a

gander at the percentage utilization of your various file systems. I suspect
that you will find the system with your /tmp file overfull.

-Chuck

How can the /tmp file be overfilled unless it has it's own partition?

Thanks for the thoughtful comments.

Regards,
Larry

 

[ldg]

However, since you're a Linux guy and seem to be technically
clueful,

Ha! Great sense of humor. Good to see on usenet.

have you tried running your circuit using (Linux-native)

ngspice instead? I'd be curious to see if you have the same (or
different problems).

The one you want to try is ng-spice-rework-17, from:

http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/index.html

Stuart

Thanks. I may try this, but I have 2 other simulators loaded on the
machine I have no problems with. I can use them for comparison. But
I may also download ngspice to try, thanks.

I'd really like to see a high quality open source gui developed. I
tried a commercial one recently (Sandworks I think) and it wasn't
quite there yet. It opened large files really well though.

The file itself runs like crazy on my windows machine. Absolutely no
problems. So it's not the run file or the circuit.

It seems to be something about wine and ltspice so far. Reading the
developer dialog on the net, the 686 version was apparently difficult.
LTspice is 32 bits, so it may be happier with the 32 bit version of
wine just yet. At least that's what I'm thinking at the moment. Hence
the post.

Regards,
Larry

 

[Chuck Harris]

Bad computer? Hmmm. It is a new motherboard and cpu. It otherwise
seems fine. I have Smartspice and Smash loaded on it. These don't
seem to crash it. So far.

All the redhat programs work that are loaded with no issues. Maybe
the computer just went bad now? Could be.

You said that the kernel that was working now wouldn't boot. That implies
that something that the kernel needs has been changed. Because you
are running Linux, it is highly unlikely that your copy of the kernel,
or the boot sector, or any other system files has been changed. That
leaves only a few other choices. You could have a file system that is
too large, you could have a log file that is too large.

The disk is a new 74gig raptor. It has 12% disk usage. The /tmp
directory is in the large partition with no quota. The previously
created file was 10gig - nowhere near filling up the drive. I also
have a 200gig drive for storage mounted and use that to keep the
working drive fairly clean.

I tried running the same file just now. It ran for a few minutes,
then the machine hung. I had to turn it off to get it to do anything.
The same thing happened with the kernel. Wouldn't boot. It's
checking the file system as I write this.

I would recommend that you change your init files to open one of
your serial ports as a login. That way, you can log onto your machine,
and shut things down gracefully even when X has crashed. I have been
using linux for about 10 years, and I have never had a crash that stopped
the kernel from running. I always keep a login on one com port because
I have had X crash in ways that disable my keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

I'll unload and reload wine tomorrow to see if it got stomped somehow.

Try booting up using one of the Knoppix live CD's, and take a

How can the /tmp file be overfilled unless it has it's own partition?

If the disk it is on if overfull.

-Chuck

 

[Stuart Brorson]

: On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:03:56 -0000, Stuart Brorson <[email protected]>
: wrote:
: I'd really like to see a high quality open source gui developed. I
: tried a commercial one recently (Sandworks I think) and it wasn't
: quite there yet. It opened large files really well though.

There is a program called "gspiceui" -- g(EDA) SPICE U(ser)
I(nterface) -- which acts as a front end to either ngspice or
gnucap. It basically replaces the CLI you use to interact with the
simulators with a graphical menu system. It isn't a schematic capture
front-end like PSpice or LTSpice -- you need to have a SPICE netlist
already created to use it. Of course, you can create your netlist
using any tool desired, including other parts of the gEDA Suite.
Here's a webpage describing gspiceui:

http://www.geda.seul.org/tools/gspiceui/index.html

It may or may not be what you want, but it does help some people who
don't remember all the SPICE commands.

Stuart

 

[ldg]

You said that the kernel that was working now wouldn't boot.

Yes, when wine crashes the kernel running at the time gets mushed and
won't boot by itself. I have tried a half dozen times and it still
won't boot.

Dropping to an earlier kernel, the machine does boot and runs
normally.

For whatever reason, the original mushed kernel works fine on the
very next boot - once another kernel has straightened things out.



Something seems wrong with wine now, however. Either that or I'm not
using rpm correctly. If I do rpm -e <wine.file> it says that the
version of wine is not loaded. If I do rpm -Uvh <win.file> it says
it's already loaded. I'm enjoying that a lot.

Regards,
Larry

 

[ldg]

: On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:03:56 -0000, Stuart Brorson <[email protected]>
: wrote:
: I'd really like to see a high quality open source gui developed. I
: tried a commercial one recently (Sandworks I think) and it wasn't
: quite there yet. It opened large files really well though.

There is a program called "gspiceui" -- g(EDA) SPICE U(ser)
I(nterface) -- which acts as a front end to either ngspice or
gnucap. It basically replaces the CLI you use to interact with the
simulators with a graphical menu system. It isn't a schematic capture
front-end like PSpice or LTSpice -- you need to have a SPICE netlist
already created to use it. Of course, you can create your netlist
using any tool desired, including other parts of the gEDA Suite.
Here's a webpage describing gspiceui:

http://www.geda.seul.org/tools/gspiceui/index.html

It may or may not be what you want, but it does help some people who
don't remember all the SPICE commands.

Stuart

I did an eval on this recently:

http://www.sandwork.com/products_spice.htm

It works ok. Opens large files. It seemed somewhat cumbersome to use
for analog. They want $3k a year rent on it - you never actually own
the software. I didn't bite.

It's sort of what I'm looking for though.

Regards,
Larry

 

[Chuck Harris]

Yes, when wine crashes the kernel running at the time gets mushed and
won't boot by itself. I have tried a half dozen times and it still
won't boot.

Dropping to an earlier kernel, the machine does boot and runs
normally.

For whatever reason, the original mushed kernel works fine on the
very next boot - once another kernel has straightened things out.

That proves that the kernel is just fine, and that the problem is in
a file that remains, but is temporary. Probably a log file. Which
one, I haven't a clue.

Something seems wrong with wine now, however. Either that or I'm not
using rpm correctly. If I do rpm -e <wine.file> it says that the
version of wine is not loaded. If I do rpm -Uvh <win.file> it says
it's already loaded. I'm enjoying that a lot.

rpm is a pain sometimes.

Do a "man rpm", and notice that the -U,-i, and -f take "package file" as
their arguments, and that -e takes "package name" as its argument.

Do an rpm -qi <wine.file> and it should tell you the package name.

-Chuck

 

[ldg]

Something seems wrong with wine now, however. Either that or I'm not
using rpm correctly. If I do rpm -e <wine.file> it says that the
version of wine is not loaded. If I do rpm -Uvh <win.file> it says
it's already loaded. I'm enjoying that a lot.

uh. Go that working. rpm -q wine then rpm -e <filename>

Removed 64bit wine. Installed 32bit wine. Ltspice runs, but goes
away in a few seconds. At least the system isn't crashing.

Regards,
Larry

 

[Jim Thompson]

I have repeated this a couple of times. I uninstall wine and delete
the .wine directory, then re-install the 32 bit wine version and
re-install ltspice.

[Linux administration is fun It reminds me so much of playing
with something we called a "Chinese finger puzzle" as a kid (a woven
tube). You'd put your forefingers in it and couldn't get them out .
..]

[snip]

But I thought Linux was perfection and light ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[ldg]

I have repeated this a couple of times. I uninstall wine and delete
the .wine directory, then re-install the 32 bit wine version and
re-install ltspice.

[Linux administration is fun It reminds me so much of playing
with something we called a "Chinese finger puzzle" as a kid (a woven
tube). You'd put your forefingers in it and couldn't get them out .
...]


32 bit wine gives this error when an ltspice run file is opened. It
doesn't matter which file:

fixme:commdlg:GetFileName95 Flags 0x00800000 not yet implemented

When I run the file, it crashes and complains:

wine: Unhandled page fault on write access to 0x00000000 at address
0x552723 (thread 0018), starting debugger...
WineDbg starting on pid 0x16
Unhandled exception: page fault on write access to 0x00000000 in
32-bit code (0x00552723).
In 32 bit mode.
Register dump:
CS:0023 SS:002b DS:002b ES:002b FS:0063 GS:005b
EIP:00552723 ESP:7a19c5a4 EBP:7a19c5cc EFLAGS:00010206( - 00 -
RIP1)
EAX:00000000 EBX:7a3a89c9 ECX:0440c720 EDX:7a3a89c8
ESI:7a3fe7d8 EDI:0051def0
Stack dump:
0x7a19c5a4: 00000094 00000048 79ffa048 7a3a89c8
0x7a19c5b4: 7a19c5c8 00000000 79fc3158 00000000
0x7a19c5c4: 7a3a89c9 0051a4e5 7a19c650 0051a8ed
0x7a19c5d4: 7a3a89c8 0000000a 7a3a89c8 00000004
0x7a19c5e4: 7a3a89c8 00000000 7a3a89c8 00000000
0x7a19c5f4: 00000002 00000000 00000000 00000000
Backtrace:
=>1 0x00552723 in scad3 (+0x152723) (0x00552723)
2 0x0051a8ed in scad3 (+0x11a8ed) (0x0051a8ed)
3 0x007c67f3 in scad3 (+0x3c67f3) (0x007c67f3)
4 0x00516304 in scad3 (+0x116304) (0x00516304)
5 0x7bb83d96 in kernel32 (+0x63d96) (0x7bb83d96)
6 0x7bedb85c in ntdll (+0x3b85c) (0x7bedb85c)
7 0xf7fa1341 (0xf7fa1341)
8 0xf7f396fe (0xf7f396fe)
0x00552723: addl %ebx,0x0(%eax)
Modules:
Module Address Debug info Name (77 modules)
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
PE 0x00400000-00944000 Export scad3
ELF 0x0099d000-009a0000 Deferred libcom_err.so.2
ELF 0x009c9000-009dd000 Deferred libgssapi_krb5.so.2
ELF 0x009c9000-009dd000 Deferred libgssapi_krb5.so.2
ELF 0x009c9000-009dd000 Deferred libgssapi_krb5.so.2
ELF 0x009df000-00a00000 Deferred libk5crypto.so.3
ELF 0x009df000-00a00000 Deferred libk5crypto.so.3
ELF 0x00a49000-00a4c000 Deferred libxrandr.so.2
ELF 0x00a4e000-00a6d000 Deferred libexpat.so.0
ELF 0x00b40000-00c29000 Deferred libcrypto.so.4
ELF 0x00c2b000-00c90000 Deferred libkrb5.so.3
ELF 0x00c92000-00cc6000 Deferred libssl.so.4
ELF 0x7a2da000-7a31c000 Deferred riched20<elf>
\-PE 0x7a2f0000-7a31c000 \ riched20
ELF 0x7a31c000-7a330000 Deferred riched32<elf>
\-PE 0x7a320000-7a330000 \ riched32
ELF 0x7a447000-7a44d000 Deferred libnss_dns.so.2
ELF 0x7a463000-7a46d000 Deferred libnss_nis.so.2
ELF 0x7a4b5000-7a4d1000 Deferred libcups.so.2
ELF 0x7a568000-7a59b000 Deferred uxtheme<elf>
\-PE 0x7a570000-7a59b000 \ uxtheme
ELF 0x7a59d000-7a5ba000 Deferred imm32<elf>
\-PE 0x7a5a0000-7a5ba000 \ imm32
ELF 0x7a5ba000-7a5d6000 Deferred ximcp.so.2
ELF 0x7a5d6000-7a5d8000 Deferred xlcutf8load.so.2
ELF 0x7a5de000-7a644000 Deferred libgl.so.1
ELF 0x7a7a1000-7a7c0000 Deferred mpr<elf>
\-PE 0x7a7b0000-7a7c0000 \ mpr
ELF 0x7a7c0000-7a804000 Deferred wininet<elf>
\-PE 0x7a7d0000-7a804000 \ wininet
ELF 0x7a804000-7a82e000 Deferred winspool.drv<elf>
\-PE 0x7a810000-7a82e000 \ winspool.drv
ELF 0x7a82e000-7a8ec000 Deferred comctl32<elf>
\-PE 0x7a840000-7a8ec000 \ comctl32
ELF 0x7a8ec000-7a9b5000 Deferred shell32<elf>
\-PE 0x7a900000-7a9b5000 \ shell32
ELF 0x7a9b5000-7aa4e000 Deferred comdlg32<elf>
\-PE 0x7a9c0000-7aa4e000 \ comdlg32
ELF 0x7aa4e000-7aa6c000 Deferred iphlpapi<elf>
\-PE 0x7aa60000-7aa6c000 \ iphlpapi
ELF 0x7aa6c000-7aab1000 Deferred rpcrt4<elf>
\-PE 0x7aa80000-7aab1000 \ rpcrt4
ELF 0x7aba3000-7b597000 Deferred gdi32<elf>
\-PE 0x7abc0000-7b597000 \ gdi32
ELF 0x7b597000-7b6bd000 Deferred user32<elf>
\-PE 0x7b5b0000-7b6bd000 \ user32
ELF 0x7b6bd000-7b6fa000 Deferred advapi32<elf>
\-PE 0x7b6d0000-7b6fa000 \ advapi32
ELF 0x7b6fa000-7b786000 Deferred ole32<elf>
\-PE 0x7b710000-7b786000 \ ole32
ELF 0x7b786000-7b7e0000 Deferred shlwapi<elf>
\-PE 0x7b7a0000-7b7e0000 \ shlwapi
ELF 0x7bafe000-7bc00000 Export kernel32<elf>
\-PE 0x7bb20000-7bc00000 \ kernel32
ELF 0x7bd28000-7bd33000 Deferred libnss_files.so.2
ELF 0x7bd75000-7be6b000 Deferred libwine_unicode.so.1
ELF 0x7be8a000-7bf00000 Export ntdll<elf>
\-PE 0x7bea0000-7bf00000 \ ntdll
ELF 0x7bf00000-7bf03000 Deferred <wine-loader>
ELF 0x7bf56000-7bf5b000 Deferred libxxf86vm.so.1
ELF 0x7bf5b000-7bf60000 Deferred libxxf86dga.so.1
ELF 0x7bf80000-7c000000 Deferred winex11.drv<elf>
\-PE 0x7bf90000-7c000000 \ winex11.drv
Threads:
process tid prio (all id:s are in hex)
00000016 (D) C:\Program Files\LTC\SwCADIII\scad3.exe
00000018 0 <==
00000017 0
WineDbg terminated on pid 0x16

 

[Chuck Harris]

I have repeated this a couple of times. I uninstall wine and delete
the .wine directory, then re-install the 32 bit wine version and
re-install ltspice.

[Linux administration is fun It reminds me so much of playing
with something we called a "Chinese finger puzzle" as a kid (a woven
tube). You'd put your forefingers in it and couldn't get them out .
..]

[snip]

But I thought Linux was perfection and light ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Pretty close. Wine, however, isn't linux. It just runs under
linux. Since it is an application that is playing catch up with
winblows, it really hasn't a hope of getting everything right.

-Chuck

 

[ldg]

[snip]

But I thought Linux was perfection and light ;-)

...Jim Thompson

It really is pretty fun, but there's a pretty big learning curve at
first. I've had to approach it as a hobby.

I used Unix at Hughes for several years (with Cadence) and liked it.
The administration is where things get interesting though.

The directory structure has to be learned and there are key text files
that control things in various directories. The gui's aren't as smart
as windows yet for maintaining the system so you do have to do some
hand editing occasionally to set new things set up. Like anything,
it's simple after you learn it.

I liked windows 2000 fine, but really dislike xp and have been looking
for a replacement for my engineering stuff. Linux seems like it will
do what I want.

I've been following the articles on groklaw.com. It's really hard to
use Microsoft products when you see their behavior from the open
source perspective. I know it's just business, but the company really
does come off as a bully at times. They seem to use their position as
a monopoly to eliminate the competition.

I started out learning linux by installing Fedora, Xandros, and a few
other distro's to see which I liked the best
(http://shop.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart). I finally bought Suse9.2
and sort of fell in love with it. Then I learned that several of the
engineering programs I use were only supported on Redhat Rhel. Sooooo
I bought the redhat.

I started with Redhat WS3, but it wouldn't drive my video card.
Apparently this older, more stable version of Redhat doesn't have the
latest Xfree86 drivers. So I loaded the Ndivia linux driver to get
things operational. I never got the computer stable with this distro.
At one point the Nvidia support people suggested that I should update
my motherboard bios, which I did. I've done this many times without
problems since I build my own computers, but this time the motherboard
died. So I replaced it. I finally gave up on WS3. I sure learned a
lot about linux administration with Ws3 though.

Soooo I loaded the Redhat WS4 version. This would drive the video
card directly and the machine with the new motherboard is perfectly
stable. I've moved most of my engineering software to the machine
now and almost have it set up like I want it. I still have a few
problems with Samba talking to the win2k machines, but the lan printer
works and all the built-in peripherals on the motherboard are happy.
Except sound. I'm still working on that. I may have to buy a
supported sound card. Or I may just not have sound.

Now you know why I liken the experience to the finger puzzle

BTW, wine worked just fine on the Suse and Ltspice ran like
gangbusters. Of course, that was on the other motherboard ...

Regards,
Larry

 

[Chuck Harris]

BTW, wine worked just fine on the Suse and Ltspice ran like
gangbusters. Of course, that was on the other motherboard ...

Do your recall which kernel version you were using for each
distribution? ISTR there were some changes made for 2.6 relative
to wine.

-Chuck

 

[ldg]

Do your recall which kernel version you were using for each
distribution? ISTR there were some changes made for 2.6 relative
to wine.

-Chuck

I don't actually, but I think the 2.6 kernel was out. Since then I
switched from a single processor to the dual x2 4800+, so I'm now
using the smp kernel.

Regards,
Larry

 

[Joseph2k]

I did an eval on this recently:

http://www.sandwork.com/products_spice.htm

It works ok. Opens large files. It seemed somewhat cumbersome to use
for analog. They want $3k a year rent on it - you never actually own
the software. I didn't bite.

It's sort of what I'm looking for though.

Regards,
Larry

This reminds me of the old IBM lease the hardware, lease the software, lease
the support, lease the development of your applications, and lease your
applications of the system 360 days.

 

[Mark Walter]

Thanks. I may try this, but I have 2 other simulators loaded on the
machine I have no problems with. I can use them for comparison. But
I may also download ngspice to try, thanks.

Have you by any chance tried Opus SPICE? I've used it sucessfully under
windows but am having a hell of a time getting the Linux version to work.

BTW, I'm like you, trying to convert engineering tools to Linux. Now if I
could just find a replacement for Autocad.

Mark Walter

 

[Ken Smith]

BTW, I'm like you, trying to convert engineering tools to Linux. Now if I
could just find a replacement for Autocad.

QCad from Ribbonsoft may be enough for you if you don't want too much.