Problems with radeon and Trisquel 5.0
Hi everyone,
I have a Radeon card (2100 part of the RS740 AMD chipset) and it seems I
have some issues with it in the 5.0 release of Trisquel. When kernel
modesetting is enabled I can't switch to virtual consoles (Ctrl+Alt
+F1..F7). All I see is black screen and after a while the monitor
switches off. I can't switch back to Xorg via the keyboard. The only
working option is switching the console over ssh with "sudo chvt 7".
There is some problem with Totem in fullscreen with KMS enables as well.
It becomes unresponsive and very hard to get out of fullscreen. The time
line and the exit button are not responding, if visible at all. This
happens almost randomly.
With KMS turned off (modest=0 in /etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf) these
problems are not occurring. Now most of the time everything is fine.
Sometimes windows widgets disappear and I see either random lines with
similar color, renderings from previous windows (or whatever data was
displayed there) or just horizontally changing colors - red, green
yellow etc. It happens anywhere on the screen. Moving windows around
sometimes refreshes the problem areas. It seems to me this is a memory
leak. I think this happened with and without KMS.
I know this begs to be reported as a bug, but besides the information
I've shared, which is not helpful at all, I can't say anything else that
could at least point in the right direction of the problem.
Anybody with similar problems?
I have an older Radeon card, XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE) and see graphical artifacts without KMS. With KMS I cannot suspend/hibernate. I'm still on 4.5, haven't yet had time to update. I guess trying the latest Linux-libre kernel might help.
В 22:45 +0200 на 21.09.2011 (ср), mikko.viinamaki[@nospam] написа:
> haven't yet had time to update. I guess trying the latest
> [http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/download/releases/
> Linux-libre kernel] might help.
I'll try that. Thank you for the suggestion.
Hi again! I just upgraded to 5.0 and went on to install Linux 3.0.4-libre but the artifacts are still there. Ditto the suspend/hibernation issue. Both issues did change a little though.
I guess more patience is needed or alternatively new hardware.
Debian disables KMS for the RadeonHD as it's not supported. If you are using the RadeonHD driver KMS can cause issues.
I always had issues with my Radeon HD 2600 and switching to text mode,
like in Ivaylo's case. Not just in Trisquel, but also in other
GNU/Linux systems. The same black screen issue also happens when I
logout.
I don't have any video problems with Totem though. I noticed in
Trisquel 5.0, unlike before, sometimes windows and panels leave garbage,
but not too often.
Would someone explain what KMS is and does, how one can check if its
running, and how one can turn it on and off? I don't have a
"/etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf" file. Is "modest=0" a typo, and shouldn't
it be "modeset=0" or "modset=0"?
В 02:05 +0200 на 23.09.2011 (пт), mampir[@nospam] написа:
> I don't have any video problems with Totem though.
Might be a coincidence, or just my card.
>
> Would someone explain what KMS is and does, how one can check if its
> running, and how one can turn it on and off?
KMS means kernel mode-setting. With it the resolution and the color
depth are set at boot time by the kernel. The Xorg server then uses
them. I think the drivers for most cards support KMS and it is on by
default. Since you have the same issue with the black screen in virtual
consoles I say it is on. It could be turned on/off by
the /etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf file or kernel boot parameter, but I
don't remember the parameter name.
> I don't have a "/etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf" file.
You could create the file. Bellow is the contents of the file. [1] Each
line follows the modprobe configuration syntax. [2] Full list of options
for every module is available by the modinfo command. [3] Settings will
take effect after restart.
[1]
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf
options radeon modeset=0
[2]
man modprobe.conf
[3] modinfo radeon |less
> Is "modest=0" a typo, and shouldn't
> it be "modeset=0" or "modset=0"?
Yes it is a typo. This is my specialty. :) :/ :(
Thanks!
Using the same configuration as yours, now I'm able to switch to text
mode, logout and see the pulsating Trisquel's logo when shutting down.
What is the reason for setting resolution and color depth by the kernel
at boot time?
Basically the idea is to make the bootup look smoother and more consistent and switches between virtual terminals and/or X and changes of resolution faster. Also to integrate code from different drivers and to make X just another user-space application.
Here's something about it http://www.rojtberg.net/67/exa-uxa-dri-gem-ttm/
I don't know about everyone else, but before kernel mode setting was implemented, GNU/Linux never got my screen resolution right by default. I had to mess with the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to make it work right. Now, it works correctly automatically, like it should.
I noticed that disabling KMS on my system makes drawing of windows slower with Metacity (GNOME's windows manager). This is noticeable when displaying a window that was hidden. The bigger a window is, the slower it's drawn. A window that takes the whole screen takes about half a second to be drawn, which is little distracting.
В 14:42 +0300 на 29.09.2011 (чт), Mampir написа:
> I noticed that disabling KMS on my system makes drawing of windows
> slower with Metacity (GNOME's windows manager).
I don't have this problem or it is not noticeable. However, it seems
that video playback with some files is lagging with KMS turned off.
I just switched back to KMS and everything looks stable. My Totem issues
in fullscreen are gone with KMS turned on. Still have them without KMS.
I don't see garbage from other windows, so far. The machine is up for 13
minutes. Before that for 10.
Sometimes I can see and use virtual consoles with KMS. It seems when
there is an active GUI session (user logged in) virtual consoles are not
active. I can't reproduce it always. I am able to go back to Xorg using
the keyboard. Usually when I log out from GUI I can access virtual
consoles.
I am unable to suspend and hibernate with KMS. The computer suspends but
freezes (monitor turns off, Num Lock LED does not change state) when I
try to turn it on. With hibernate it just freezes (same as above) trying
to hibernate. With KMS turned off, I was able only to hibernate, but it
seems it takes much more time than Slaine.
With KMS turned off, from one point on, different parts of screen were
filled with garbage from other windows constantly.