Radeon kernel module in slackware -current will not load
 

Hi all,

I updated to the updates on -current that happened on friday and I rebooted and X wouldn't load the proper resolution nor detect my monitors. So I ran x -configure and it gave me an error of modesetting not supported. My next step was to run modprobe radeon to see what happens and it gave me the error of
then I looked in dmesg
So now I'm sort of stuck and unsure of what to do next. I'm on kernel 3.8.8 with all the latest -current updates

Thanks

So I compiled the 3.4 kernel with the config provided in testing/ and the radeon drivers work fine, and they worked in the 3.8.4 kernel so I'm guessing that the radeon drivers broke somewhere between 3.8.4 and 3.8.8

I recompiled 3.8.4 and it works as expected too, so my hypothesis is correct

Did you try recompiling 3.8.8?

I'm curious about exactly which kernel you had problems with, since -current without 32 or 64 bit specified could be any of six kernels.

Still waiting for verification on this from anyone else.

Hi,

I did indeed try recompiling 3.8.8, specifically I was using the 64 bit huge kernel. I'm currently using the 3.8.4 x86-64 huge kernel at the moment. I'd be happy to provide any further information you might need.

I have no idea what happened, but here using 3.8.8 x86_64 huge, the radeon module loads, and dmesg says [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.

Also, I get no hits trying to grep for those missing symbols under /lib/modules/3.8.8/. If something was asking for those, I'd expect to see a hit somewhere. No hits in the kernel source either, in 3.8.8 or 3.8.4. I'm really rather baffled. There aren't even many hits on those symbol names searching Google, and what I see doesn't really seem to apply to this case (with the exception that the few hits had something to do with kernel work at the beginning of this month).

Awaiting any reports from others who might run into this.

Do you have any suggestions on things I can try to see if I can get 3.8.8 working? I'm more than happy to try a few things if you think anything will help

Assuming the installation of the modules are correct, and it is clear that 3.8.4 works and 3.8.8 doesn't work, then you ought to do a git bisect. Or just look for the changelog between those tags are revert just the radeon changes on 3.8.8.

Quick scan shows me there were radeon changes in 3.8.5. I would try that if you want to narrow down to that quicker. Running git bisect between a good and bad version would be very useful to solving the problem still.

Installed the recent updates last night and didn't have any problems with the radeon driver. How old/new is your video card?

its a couple years old, radeon 4250

If the module won't load, whatever's going on is unlikely to be related to the model of video card. The module should load even on a system that doesn't have a radeon card in it, and should load on a system that has one regardless of whether the card is supported or will actually work.

Just compiled 3.8.7 and it works too, I'm going to try downloading the sources for 3.8.8 from kernel.org and compiling it and see if thats makes a difference

Hmm I recompiled the 3.8.8 kernel from kernel.org and it doesn't work either, I also get these errors when I do make modules_install
Maybe that will help you out a bit more

I have fglrx-12.10.17 (the latest Catalyst 13.3 beta driver at this time) on my slackware64-current with Linux 3.8.8 on AMD E-450 (Radeon 6320 APU,) and it runs fine, loads the module without issue. The latest fglrx 13.1 stable however would not build at all.

To OP, are you doing a clean recompile of the kernel, or just using the kernel from the kernel-generic package?

Unfortunately only the fglrx legacy driver works with my card and that doesn't support 3.8.8 without any hacking.

If you see my last post, I did a clean recompile of the kernel, getting the sources from kernel.org even. I did the same thing with kernels 3.4.41, 3.8.4 and 3.8.7 and they all worked correctly with the radeon driver but 3.8.8 wouldn't.