ASUS motherboard with IGP VIA chipset (openchrome) issues...

graffy76 · 12-16-2018, 08:19 PM

I'm trying to breathe life into an old Sempron 3100+ with MX Linux. It's been largely successful, but I've run into an issue in getting the integrated graphics chip going. It's a VIA chipset (K8M800) and the openchome package that's available in the 32-bit debian repo is supposed to be the driver for it.

The man page describes setting up Xorg for it (basically, just adding the line driver = "openchrome" in the devices section), and that's supposed to be all that's needed.

So I set it up and rebooted. Now, when MX starts, I get a garbled backdrop before the login appears, then it goes dark, and the image is restored with the login box. I'm guessing what's happening is the openchrome driver is crashing and it's falling back on the VESA driver. Problem is, I'm finding precious little information about the error.

So here's a list of what I've been able to figure out so far...

lshw dump:

Code:

$ lshw -c video
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
  *-display UNCLAIMED       
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: K8M800/K8N800/K8N800A [S3 UniChrome Pro]
       vendor: VIA Technologies, Inc.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=64 mingnt=2
       resources: memory:f4000000-f7ffffff memory:fb000000-fbffffff memory:c0000-dffff

dmesg VGA-related log data:

Code:

$ dmesg | grep "VGA"
[    0.000000] Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
[    0.039870] pci 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: setting as boot VGA device
[    0.039874] pci 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: VGA device added: decodes=io+mem,owns=io+mem,locks=none

Xorg.0.log errors:

Code:

$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep "EE"
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[    26.485] (EE) CHROME(0): [drm] Failed to open DRM device for pci:0000:01:00.0: No such file or directory
[    27.919] (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering

Xorg.0.log warnings:

Code:

$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep "WW"
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[    25.895] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
[    25.930] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
[    25.930] (WW) Hotplugging is on, devices using drivers 'kbd', 'mouse' or 'vmmouse' will be disabled.
[    25.930] (WW) Disabling Mouse0
[    25.930] (WW) Disabling Keyboard0
[    27.897] (WW) CHROME(0): [XvMC] Cannot use XvMC without DRI!

Distro build:

Code:

$ uname -a
Linux mx 4.15.0-1-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 4.15.4-1~mx17+1 (2018-02-23) i686 GNU/Linux

Anyway, it appears that Xorg can't find the hardware, even though it shows up according to lshw... Not sure where to go from here, though...

mrmazda · 12-16-2018, 11:44 PM

This appears to be a problem with kernels getting ahead of DRM driver support:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...-Still-Porting

It can work with older kernels:

Code:

System:    Host: k8mmv Kernel: 3.12.67-64-desktop x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 4.8.1 Desktop: Trinity R14.0.4 tk: Qt 3.5.0
           wm: Twin dm: xinit Distro: openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle)
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: MICRO-STAR model: MS-7142 v: 1.00 serial: N/A BIOS: Phoenix v: 6.00 PG date: 06/27/2006
CPU:       Single Core: AMD Sempron 3000+ type: UP arch: K8 rev.E speed: 1800 MHz
Graphics:  Device-1: VIA K8M800/K8N800/K8N800A [S3 UniChrome Pro] vendor: Micro-Star driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0
           chip ID: 1106:3108
           Display: server: X.Org 1.14.3.901 driver: openchrome alternate: fbdev,modesetting,vesa,via
           resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz
           Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Info:      Processes: 160 Uptime: N/A Memory: 1.90 GiB used: 408.5 MiB (21.0%) Init: systemd v: 210 runlevel: 3
           target: runlevel5.target Compilers: gcc: N/A Shell: bash v: 4.2.53 running in: konsole inxi: 3.0.27

When I boot the same PC into Devuan, it falls back onto the FBDEV driver stuck in 1024x768 mode, and then only without xserver-xorg-video-openchrome installed, which if installed keeps X from starting due to absent /dev/dri/card0. Failure is similar in openSUSE 42.3 & kernel 4.4.

ondoho · 12-17-2018, 02:21 AM

Linux, VIA, openchrome.
a recipe for - trouble, if not desaster.

Quote:

Originally Posted by graffy76

The man page describes setting up Xorg for it (basically, just adding the line driver = "openchrome" in the devices section), and that's supposed to be all that's needed.

creating a xorg.conf?
this sort of stuff shouldn't be necessary anymore.

documentation is scarce for VIA gpus.
i suggest you follow the same steps as with any other gpu that isn't recognized during install.

graffy76 · 12-17-2018, 06:10 AM

Quote:

This appears to be a problem with kernels getting ahead of DRM driver support:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...-Still-Porting

That explains it, I'd say. Theat update was late August 2017 and the dev was targeting 4.13 (ubuntu 16.04). There's still activity (bug fixes and the like), but I've got a year of mailing list posts to sort out...

In the meantime, in lieu of having any spare video cards, I'll start exploring some other options.

Thanks for the heads-up!

mrmazda · 12-17-2018, 02:18 PM

After finding https://bracecomputerlab.com/ and scanning the summaries of Driver/openchrome bugs on https://bugs.freedesktop.org/ I tried harder, but without making progress, so asked on the openchrome mailing list:
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archiv...er/007348.html
If it doesn't generate a response soon I'll be putting my Radeon 9000 back in and abandoning this thread.

Much better supported AGP Radeons can be had on eBay for <$10USD.

graffy76 · 12-17-2018, 03:06 PM

Quote:

After finding https://bracecomputerlab.com/ and scanning the summaries of Driver/openchrome bugs on https://bugs.freedesktop.org/ I tried harder, but without making progress, so asked on the openchrome mailing list:
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archiv...er/007348.html
If it doesn't generate a response soon I'll be putting my Radeon 9000 back in and abandoning this thread.

Much better supported AGP Radeons can be had on eBay for <$10USD.

I haven't tried it for mine yet, but I did stumble across this post on his blog:

https://bracecomputerlab.com/2018/04...g-on-debian-9/

Perhaps the blacklists he indicates will help.

mrmazda · 12-17-2018, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by graffy76

https://bracecomputerlab.com/2018/04...g-on-debian-9/

I went to try, but

Code:

lsmod | grep fb

produced null output. Then it occurred to me I hadn't tried omitting all video-related cmdline parameters. Doing so works, even though there is no /dev/dri*:

Code:

# inxi -bxx
System:    Host: k8mmv Kernel: 4.9.0-8-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 Desktop: Trinity R14.0.6 tk: Qt 3.5.0
           wm: Twin dm: TDM Distro: Devuan GNU/Linux ascii
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: MICRO-STAR model: MS-7142 v: 1.00 serial: N/A BIOS: Phoenix v: 6.00 PG date: 06/27/2006
CPU:       Single Core: AMD Sempron 3000+ type: UP arch: K8 rev.E speed: 1800 MHz
Graphics:  Device-1: VIA K8M800/K8N800/K8N800A [S3 UniChrome Pro] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0
           chip ID: 1106:3108
           Display: server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: openchrome unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 13.0.6 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes
Info:      Processes: 140 Uptime: 3m Memory: 1.89 GiB used: 205.5 MiB (10.6%) Init: SysVinit v: 2.88 runlevel: 2 default: 2
           Compilers: gcc: N/A Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 running in: konsole inxi: 3.0.29

Only catch is vtty framebuffers are stuck in 80x25 vga mode, which here doesn't matter, because I'm putting the Radeon back in anyway.

graffy76 · 12-17-2018, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Then it occurred to me I hadn't tried omitting all video-related cmdline parameters. Doing so works, even though there is no /dev/dri*:

Can you post what you did to do that? I had no luck with the frambuffer blacklist, either.

mrmazda · 12-17-2018, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by graffy76

Can you post what you did to do that?

Not much. The grub stanza I was booting from included

Code:

vga=791 video=1024x768@60 video=1440x900@60 5

Booting without them was sufficient.