Hi:

Just purchased and downloaded Eschalon Book I. Everything seems to go well until I go into an inventory screen such as when trying to purchase an item or when picking up items from chests, etc. At that point, sometime (although not always) the screen will freeze up and the only way to get out is to power off my computer and turn it back on. I am operating a Dell Inspiron 1525 which came pre-loaded with ubuntu hardy heron. Graphics card is an Intel Integrated GM965. I am not running Compiz or any other desktop enhancements. Any suggestions would be welcome.

One useful thing for debugging these sorts of issues is (if you have a second machine) to ssh in and run the game remotely (env DISPLAY=:0 ./Eschalon_Book_1). Often games will lock up in signal handlers, and this gives you a chance to look at the failure despite not being able to get control back from the locked-up app.

(This situation will be getting much better with DRI2, thanks to the hardware lock going away)

On the other hand, it may be a chip lockup. I would guess not since I'm not seeing it on GM45, which is pretty much the same 3D code, but it's certainly possible (I'm on Mesa master, so it's different from shipped 3D code). In that case, once you killall -9 Eschalon_Book_1, the app would exit but the display would stay locked up with the game displayed, or the X Server would exit out shortly afterwards.