[SOLVED] Debian Squeeze and ATI Radeon X1950

adamk75 · 07-22-2010, 11:55 AM

When using KMS, the radeon module needs to be loaded *before* Xorg is launched. I'm not sure the correct way to force the radeon module to load during boot up on Debian, honestly. Many distributions do it through an initrd. I'm rather surprised this is an issue under Debian.

Perhaps the radeon module is being blacklisted somewhere under /etc/modprobe.d/ ? I'd check those config files for any reference to radeon or drm.

Adam

Haueck · 07-22-2010, 12:16 PM

I added radeon to /etc/modules and after booting without kdm it was loaded.
This module isn't blacklisted but I don't know any other way than /etc/modules to load it before X is launched.
Anyway, it didn't help, still the same error.

Haueck

adamk75 · 07-22-2010, 12:23 PM

Alright, well there are really two possibilities with the version mismatch error:

1) radeon isn't getting loaded early enough. Presumably we've determined that's not the problem.
2) The radeon Xorg module (and, most likely, the libdrm package) was not compiled with KMS support, and the fact that KMS is enabled in the kernel module is screwing things up. Try booting up with radeon.modeset=0 as an argument to the kernel. That will disable KMS, but should at least get 3D acceleration going.

Adam

Haueck · 07-22-2010, 12:42 PM

It's better now, there is no error in Xorg.0.log and this what glxinfo returns

Code:

OpenGL vendor string: DRI R300 Project
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R300 (RV560 7280) 20090101 AGP 4x x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.5 Mesa 7.7.1
OpenGL extensions:

and glxgears

Code:

12857 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2571.373 FPS

Is it worth bothering to compile libdrm with KMS support?
KDE4 effects are really slow, and I don't know if my computer
is too slow for this or I miss some 2D acceleration.

Haueck

adamk75 · 07-22-2010, 12:45 PM

Well you definitely have 3D acceleration now. I'm doubtful that KMS would give you any significant performance increase when it comes to KDE effects. Honestly, I've never found KDE 3D effects to be all that speedy, with compiz always performing better.

We can at least check if you are using XAA or EXA, though. What's the output of 'egrep "XAA|EXA" /var/log/Xorg.0.log' ?

Adam

Haueck · 07-22-2010, 12:52 PM

Code:

(==) RADEON(0): Using XAA acceleration architecture
(II) RADEON(0): XAA Render acceleration unsupported on Radeon 9500/9700 and newer. Please use EXA instead.
(II) RADEON(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA)

I had to turn off effects because even showing a regular window was slow.
Everything is generally slow.

Haueck

adamk75 · 07-22-2010, 01:01 PM

XAA is generally slower than EXA these days. EXA is typically the default, so I'm rather surprised that it didn't default to that for you. In the Device section of your xorg.conf file, add this line:

Code:

Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"

Haueck · 07-22-2010, 01:51 PM

Everything is perfect now, effects look really nice, 3D acceleration works.

Thank you very much Adam!

So to summarize:

1) Xorg.0.log reported KMS error but it was vmware driver that failed

Code:

rm /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vmware_drv.so
Xorg -configure

2) Xorg.0.log reported version mismatch error but it was KMS error (libdrm was built without KMS support)

Code:

/etc/default/grub: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet radeon.modeset=0"

3) Xorg used XAA acceleration instead of EXA

Code:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf (Device Section): Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"

Haueck