Problem with X after upgrading to slackware-current (27 Aug 2006)
 

This morning I upgraded my laptop with slackware-current and the graphic session started showing up a strange behaviour: it's as if screen repainting isn't working and all of KDE icons are not shown at all (but it's not a KDE problem because I get the same effect with other WM). The system is "just" a plain slackware-current with no other software installed. X logs are OK and even starting with a minimal xorg.conf doesn't resolve this issue. My video adapter is an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000.

Has anyone experienced the same problem?

Enrico.

Are you using ATI's driver? Did you upgrade the kernel? You may need to recompile the driver. What happens if you use the vesa driver?

Hi masonm.

I'm running the same extra/linux-2.6.17.11 that gave me no problem! And I'm not running any other software: I stuck with the stock ati driver because I really need nothing more in this laptop (just use it to develop). I didn't investigate much but it seems as if images and repaint isn't working: e.g, the KDE splash screen is fine. Then, icons are not shown and if I launch a program that draws a window, it seems as if it's not drawn until I, for example, hover with the mouse in the toolbar and so on. My suspects are X and libpng, which are the only updates in the 27 Aug changelog that *could* produce such a behavior. I don't have tried with the frame buffer, I'll do it this afternoon.

Ironically, I'll dismiss this laptop (it's property of the enterprise I work for) friday and I'm really curious about what went wrong. This night I wanted to update the other boxes I have at home, that's why I'm asking if this problem was known by anyone. Let's see what happens! :)

Thanks,
Enrico.

The same problem here: I updated to Slackware-current on 6 Notebooks without a problem, but on a Compaq Evo N600c with a 32-MB-ATI-Mobility graphic chip I have the same behaviour as you described in your post (in all window managers). And there is no mouse pointer at all.

I will try another kernel (the current is 2.6.17.11 here) tomorrow and will report then if it will help ...

Fluxx.

Hi Fluxx!

Yesterday night I upgraded other machines and only another laptop, a HP nc610 (equipped with another ATI Mobility), shows the same problem. Seems an ATI driver-related problem.

And yes, the fb and the vesa driver work correctly. I switched to vesa temporarily... :scratch:

My desktop PC seemed to be OK after update X11 and the 2.6.17 kernel and then update the Nvidia driver to 8774.
I soon found out that I was getting OpenGL graphics problems (critter crashes X11)
I found the answer was using the 2.6.17 kernel headers in spite of the warning about using them.

I think the problem is the last update of the x11 packages in Slackware-current, not the kernel 2.6.17.11.

I experienced the same problem in Zenwalk 2.8 after upgrading the x11 packages (they use the kernel 2.6.17.8).

And it seems to be only the "radeon" driver out of xorg, because in a notebook with the same configuration but the "ati" driver, there are no problems.

Fluxx.

Two minutes ago I found (out of Slackware-current changelog):

"x/x11-6.9.0-i486-10.tgz: Reverted the ATI hang patch after problem reports.
If you were helped by the patch it'll be held in /extra for the release so
that hopefully everyone can enjoy a working ATI card. :-)
Thanks again to Mark Canter, as this is a real problem but the patch does
seem to introduce some new issues of its own. It's good to have an
alternate driver just in case, though.

extra/x11-radeon-patched/x11-radeon-patched-6.9.0-i486-1.tgz:
Here's the patched radeon module from the -9 X.Org Slackware packages.
There's a README file included with it explaining what it is for with
references to a discussion of the issue."

With the new x11-package without the patch there shouldn't be any problems.

Fluxx.

P. S.: After installing the new x11-package without the patch (the one out of x) the radeon mobility works without problems!

The same applies to me! :p