xorg upgrade breaks radeon driver
 

Arch linux 32-bit
AMD 2400XP, ATI Radeon 7500 Graphics

Just did a system upgrade which included xorg-server being upgraded to version 1.7.4.901
This seems to have broken the "radeon" driver--I get a very dim green screen. I have now got the system running with the vesa driver.

Google shows that there is a known issue here, but I did not see my exact symptoms or a cure.

Anyone have any clues?

What version of the radeon driver? Have you tried using the latest radeon driver from git?

Adam

The Arch package is:
xf86-video-ati 6.12.4-3
This installs the "radeon.ko" kernel driver and (apparently) radeon_drv.so and vesa_drv.so in /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers

Going to look for radeon source....

Yeah, 6.12.4 is the most recent release, but even that's a number of months old. It's quite possible that this is a bug, some interaction between the driver and the X server that a newer version of the driver might resolve.

Adam

OK---peeling the onion: According to the ATI website, the "official" driver only supports model 8500 and later. This could imply that I have been living on borrowed time. Of course, it is possible that the issue goes beyond my 7500 and thus may get fixed.

Still digging......but perhaps I'm getting signals that this 7+ year old system may need to move on....

Ummm... The 'official' driver is called 'fglrx' or sometimes Catalyst. It has never supported your GPU :-) ATI initially funded development of the open source 'radeon' driver (provided by xf86-video-ati) which *should* work for your card, though obviously a dim green screen is not what you should be getting :-)

Adam

Ulp...the advancing years show their face again...:). I vaguely remember trying fglrx and finding it did not work.

Where would I find something more recent--even if it is not released? I did look here: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati/

That would be the correct location. You could just clone the repo: git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati

It *might* require newer macros and utils to compile, but you do seem to be using a pretty new version of Xorg, so it might not :-)

Adam

Thanks for the info---I am not ruling out trying the updated driver, but:

A little voice is telling me that a dark green screen may indicate a hardware problem---the puzzle is why it works with the vesa driver.

I just dusted out the machine and removed and re-installed the video card---no change.

The fact that it works with the vesa driver is why I wouldn't easily believe that it is a hardware problem.

Adam

OK!!
I installed the "git" version (but I got it thru the Arch User Repository). By itself, it did not solve the problem.

Then, based on another note I found, I deleted xorg.conf and restarted X----Now it's working!!! I suppose I should now go back to the other driver to establish which change did it----first, I need breakfast......