Several SDL applications freezing on Edubuntu LTSP5 thin clients

Hi,

I’m a little new to this list and libsdl but am involved a little with
edubuntu. One of the main technologies in Edubuntu Linux is LTSP thin
clients which basically means a bunch of low spec computers running X
sessions (usually gnome) on a powerful server with the display tunnelled
back over ssh.

Among the applications commonly installed are tuxmath, tuxtype, tuxpaint
and gcompris. We owe you guys considerable thanks for libsdl which
these are built on.

We’ve had a few reports of thin clients “crashing”. At least two people
have been saying that these programs fail to close properly and at that
point you have little choice but to restart the X session. One report
suggests that if he disables sound on his thin client, the problem goes
away which I guess might indicate some issue with how the sound gets
released at shutdown?

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2007-August/thread.html#1777
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-users/2007-December/thread.html#3025

Both reports are for feisty which uses libsdl so the versions should be
as mentioned at the end of this mail.

Beginning with fiesty, for local sound, the thin clients run a PulseAudio
server so that the application (running on the server) can send sound
across the network to it. Previously, esound had been used. I’m not sure
if the problem existed prior to this change.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing these issues? Is there
any better info we could pass on to help understand this?

Mayn thanks in advance,
Gavin

gavin at robin ~> apt-cache policy libsdl1.2debian libsdl-mixer1.2
libsdl1.2debian:
Installed: 1.2.11-7ubuntu1
Candidate: 1.2.11-7ubuntu1
Version table:
*** 1.2.11-7ubuntu1 0
500 http://ie.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
libsdl-mixer1.2:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 1.2.6-1.1build1
Version table:
1.2.6-1.1build1 0
500 http://ie.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status