updated to squeeze, parts of screen go blank

map250r · 08-14-2010, 10:32 AM

I've been running testing, but hadn't updated very many packages because I didn't want to break anything. Now that squeeze is soon to be released, I've been updating a few packages at a time. I didn't have any trouble until I went from kernel 2.6.30 to 2.6.32.

Now, parts of the screen will go black (I restarted X, and now they go gray instead). The right things will show up if I make the screen redraw (scroll/switch windows/reload web page), but sometimes it turns black (gray) again after a split second. The areas that go black follow the outlines of the gui widgets - i.e. a scrollable area will go black, or a row of tabs, or the title bar of a window, or a column on a web page.

Going by the mtime on the files /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list, I was using the latest version of ati's graphics driver for 6 days before updating the kernel, and didn't have trouble.

Code:

$ apt-show-versions fglrx-modules-dkms linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64
fglrx-modules-dkms/testing uptodate 1:10-6-1
linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64/testing uptodate 2.6.32-18

According to aptitude, all packages are up to date.

I tried to take a screenshot using ksnapshot, but when I did everything redrew correctly for ksnapshot's 1-second delay, then it went back to being screwed up!

I'd like to report a bug, but I don't know what package to report it against. I find it unlikely that the kernel would affect this, since it seems to be related to drawing widgets on the screen.

Dutch Master · 08-14-2010, 10:58 AM

Re-install the graphics driver before submitting any bugs...

craigevil · 08-14-2010, 02:05 PM

reinstall the graphics driver and try disabling KMS.

KernelModesetting - Debian Wiki : http://wiki.debian.org/KernelModesetting#Disabling

jim_p · 08-14-2010, 05:39 PM

Installing fglrx automatically disables radeon

Code:

$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/fglrx-driver.conf 
# fglrx conflicts with the free radeon module.

blacklist radeon

adamk75 · 08-14-2010, 06:29 PM

fglrx 10.6 uses the new acceleration code, which is pretty buggy. You should go back to the old XAA code. Stop X and then run:

aticonfig --set-pcs-str=DDX,ForceXAA,TRUE

Then start X up again.

Adam

map250r · 08-14-2010, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk75

fglrx 10.6 uses the new acceleration code, which is pretty buggy. You should go back to the old XAA code. Stop X and then run:

aticonfig --set-pcs-str=DDX,ForceXAA,TRUE

Then start X up again.

Adam

This seems to have fixed it! Strange that I didn't notice any problems before upgrading the kernel...

Should I report a bug against fglrx-driver (which contains aticonfig), or ???

Some notes: --set-pcs-str is not documented in the man page, and the man page led me to think that aticonfig modified /etc/X11/xorg.conf - it doesn't. Apparently, it modifies /etc/ati/amdpcsdb .