Unichrome DRI causes screen to go blank

Lord Estraven · 09-02-2005, 07:21 PM

Hello, all... I just got a new computer with VIA Unichrome onboard graphics hardware, and I can't get direct rendering to work. I tried installing the drivers using the "common" and "via" snapshots from dri.freedesktop.org/snapshots, and now, when I start X, my monitor gives a completely black screen and appears to go into power-save mode after a few seconds. Disabling DPMS, both in the BIOS and in xorg.conf, does not help. As of right now, I'm using a generic VESA driver, which works but gives me a hideous refresh rate. Please note that, prior to my installation of the drivers from freedesktop.org, the via driver for X worked perfectly.

Here's my xorg.conf:

Code:

# Auto-generated by Archie mkxcfg
# Auto-generated by Archie mkxcfg

Section "ServerLayout"

# Serial Mouse not detected
# USB Mouse not detected
   Identifier     "XFree86 Configured"
   Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
   InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
   InputDevice    "PS/2 Mouse" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# Additional fonts: Locale, Gimp, TTF...
#   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/75dpi"
#   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/100dpi"
# True type and type1 fonts are also handled via xftlib, see /etc/X11/XftConfig!
   RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
   ModulePath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/PEX"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
   FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ttf/western"
   FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ttf/decoratives"
   FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
   FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/openoffice"
   FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bitstream-vera"
   FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latex-ttf-fonts"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/defoma/CID"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/defoma/TrueType"
   FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/artwiz-fonts"
EndSection

Section "Module"
   Load  "GLcore"
   Load  "dbe"
   Load  "dri"
   Load  "extmod"
   Load  "glx"
   Load  "bitmap" # bitmap-fonts
   Load  "type1"
   Load  "freetype"
   Load  "record"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
   Option       "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier  "Keyboard0"
   Driver      "keyboard"
   Option       "CoreKeyboard"
   Option       "XkbRules" "xfree86"
   Option       "XkbModel" "pc101"
   Option       "XkbLayout" "us"
   Option       "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier  "PS/2 Mouse"
   Driver      "mouse"
   Option       "Protocol" "auto"
   Option       "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
   Option       "Device" "/dev/psaux"
   Option       "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
   Option       "Emulate3Timeout" "70"
   Option       "SendCoreEvents" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 # Warning: This may fry old Monitors
 # Very conservative. May flicker.
#   VertRefresh  50.0 - 62.0 # Extreme conservative. Will flicker. TFT default.
   #  Default modes distilled from
   #      "VESA and Industry Standards and Guide for Computer Display Monitor
   #       Timing", version 1.0, revision 0.8, adopted September 17, 1998.
   #  $XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/etc/vesamodes,v 1.4 1999/11/18 16:52:17 tsi Exp $
   # 640x350 @ 85Hz (VESA) hsync: 37.9kHz
   Identifier   "Monitor0"
 ### Uncomment if you don't want to default to DDC:
   HorizSync    31.5 - 82.0
   VertRefresh  50.0 - 100.0
   Modeline "1280x1024"  138.54  1280 1368 1504 1728  1024 1025 1028 1069 -HSync +Vsync
   Option       "DPMS" "true"
#   HorizSync    28.0 - 78.0 # Warning: This may fry very old Monitors
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Card0"
   Driver      "via"
   Option      "DisableIRQ"
   Option      "EnableAGPDMA"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier "Screen0"
   Device     "Card0"
   Monitor    "Monitor0"
   DefaultDepth  24   
   SubSection "Display"
      Depth     16
      Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
   EndSubSection
   SubSection "Display"
      Depth     24
      Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
   Mode         0666
EndSection

kel_en · 09-03-2005, 03:28 PM

I'm not sure this will help but I used the instructions on this link successfully to get the Unichrome DRI working with both Mandrake 10.1 and Mandriva LE2005

http://sourceforge.net/docman/displa...roup_id=102048

LE2005 has kernel 2.6.11 which contained some of the drivers but I replaced all but two.
Good luck.

Lord Estraven · 09-03-2005, 06:52 PM

Found that already, thanks anyway. Tried installing that way, but X kind of refused to see the 3D drivers, even when I symlinked unichrome_dri.so to via_dri.so. (Yep, I did ldconfig.) I think it might have been the old permission problem. Anyway, I was planning on trying again. (Meh... I really, really don't like the permission issue business. Chowning /dev/dri/card0 to 666 looks ugly and insecure.)

But, I've found that viaarena.com has binary drivers for KM400 hardware (near bottom of page). Anyone know how good these are?

(BTW, the issue with the freedesktop snapshots was a crappy, probably outdated 2D driver that supports only CLE266.)

Lord Estraven · 09-04-2005, 06:11 AM

The stuff from unichrome.sf.net doesn't work either - I get "chipset KM400 not supported by this driver". I'm going to try the devel snapshots from myth.ivor.org/unichrome; if I can't get those to work, I'm screwed.

(The damn VIA drivers are no good. Jesus, if they're going to have proprietary drivers available they could at least have them support *current* versions of distros, as opposed to outdated versions that nobody sane even uses any more!)