Fedora 35 + KDE: faint replicas of taskbar icons

kaza · 05-27-2022, 03:53 PM

Hello!

I recently installed Fedora 35 + KDE and I'm noticing some "artifacts" on the taskbar:
faint replicas of the icons. The "normal" icons appear at the right side of the taskbar
and the faint replicas appear at about the middle of the taskbar and also they're slightly
smaller compared with the "original" icons.

My video card is (very old) ATI FireGL V5600.

It's not critical, just an annoyance.

Any ideas?

TIA,
kaza.

mrmazda · 05-28-2022, 12:12 AM

If your employed display driver is radeon, try switching to modesetting, or vice versa. Does it make any difference?

kaza · 05-28-2022, 05:26 AM

Hi mrmazda, thanks for the reply.

I've read the "display driver primer" you pointed to but I don't yet understand, where should Ilook to know what display
driver I use?

Also, my current display resolution is 1920x1200, from what I've read the "non-modesetting" variant is limited to lower resolutions,
can I deduce from it that currently I'm not using the "nomodesetting"? Also, the contents of /etc/default/grub doesn't include anyhing that looks like
"nomodesetting":

Code:

<fedora>.../user>cat /etc/default/grub
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="$(sed 's, release .*$,,g' /etc/system-release)"
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=true
GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="console"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap rd.lvm.lv=VolGroup/lv_root rd.lvm.lv=VolGroup/lv_swap rhgb quiet"
GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
GRUB_ENABLE_BLSCFG=true

TIA,
kaza.

mrmazda · 05-28-2022, 01:34 PM

/var/log/Xorg.0.log is a report of what is occurring or not in last Xorg session. The display driver in use will be evident if you study it. An easier method is to run inxi -Ga, a concise report of X hardware and software configuration. A related command to report and control a running Xorg is xrandr.

As nomodeset is primarily designed for troubleshooting, it normally won't be evident anywhere in an X session working as expected, or in /etc/default/grub. I don't think it possible to achieve 1920x1200 absent KMS, and least, not with FOSS drivers for AMD, Intel or NVidia GPUs.

kaza · 06-01-2022, 01:10 PM

OK, here's the output:

[command]
<fedora>.../user>inxi -Ga
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD RV630 GL [FireGL V5600] driver: radeon v: kernel
alternate: amdgpu pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
active: DVI-I-1 empty: DVI-I-2 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:958c
class-ID: 0300
Device-2: MosChip PCI 9835 Multi-I/O vendor: Broadcom / LSI 2S
driver: parport_serial v: kernel bus-ID: 07:05.0 chip-ID: 9710:9835
class-ID: 0300
Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 21.1.4
compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: radeon
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: radeon display-ID: 0
Monitor-1: DVI-I-1 model: Samsung S24C650 serial: HTHG500106 built: 2015
res: 1920x1200 dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2 size: 518x324mm (20.39x12.76")
diag: 611mm (24.1") ratio: 16:10 modes: max: 1920x1200 min: 640x480
OpenGL:
renderer: AMD RV630 (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.17.5-200.fc35.x86_64 LLVM 13.0.0)
v: 3.3 Mesa 21.3.8 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes

[/code]

AS I understand, the driver is "radeon". BTW, how to understand both the line where it's listed as: "driver: X: loaded: radeon"
and the next line which lists among the unloaded: "gpu: radeon"? That the OS doesn't use the hardware accelerating features of the GPU?

And to the point of the original question: what knowing that the display driver is "radeon" can (or can't?) help regarding the
faint replicas of icons (actually, of anything else too) displayed on the taskbar?

TIA,
kaza.gpu: radeon

mrmazda · 06-01-2022, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaza

BTW, how to understand both the line where it's listed as: "driver: X: loaded: radeon"
and the next line which lists among the unloaded: "gpu: radeon"? That the OS doesn't use the hardware accelerating features of the GPU?

I don't understand what you're asking here.

driver: radeon v: kernel alternate: amdgpu means the kernel driver in use is radeon, and there is a supported alternate driver (amdgpu).

driver: X: loaded: radeon means the X display driver in use is radeon.

unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa means X was able to load 3 alternate display drivers, which were unloaded in favor of that remaining loaded.

The reason for the presence of gpu: radeon I don't know.

KDE/Plasma really isn't ready for use with Wayland. Wayand AFAIK isn't really ready for anything except possibly Gnome. Many things are possible in Xorg that are not supported by Wayland. Does the icon problem appear when you run Plasma in an Xorg session?

When one knows which driver is in use, one may know to suggest some other driver(s) to try. In your case, you could replace the radeon device driver with the amdgpu device driver, and at the same time you would replace the radeon display driver with either the amdgpu display driver or the modesetting display driver. The modesetting display driver can also be used with the radeon device driver. The modesetting is actually the default. Both amdgpu and radeon display drivers are optional.

So, to deal with the actual problem, there are two basic ways forward:

switch from Wayland to Xorg
switch device and/or display drivers