First, I want to thank you for taking the time to write up your original post. I've had KMS working since almost day 1 of installing Slackware 13, but have never written up directions for it (nor have I generated slackbuilds for it).

Yes, you are correct that the Xpress GPU should be supported by KMS (in fact, at this point *all* radeon GPUs prior to the HD5*** series cards should be supported at this point). I would stress that KMS is undergoing nearly constant development in a git tree called drm-next. This is regularly (or semi-regularly) merged into the linux kernel tree.

If someone is having problems with one of the 2.6.32 RCs, it might be worth trying drm-next. There are directions here: http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonBuildHowTo . Specifically, under the "Kernel mode setting and 3D for r600/r700" section (which is not accurately titled, as that pertains to KMS for all radeon GPUs). Unfortunately, even that wiki isn't completely up to date. It refers to cloning the linux stable tree, when users actually want to use the development tree:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git

Otherwise, when you get to the last step, merging in drm-next, it will fail.

Finally, #radeon is (usually) a very helpful channel on freenode if users run into problems with the radeon driver.

Adam

dolphin77:
I just wanted to say that yesterday I followed your instructions & installed all of this on my Toshiba laptop. I had to do some massaging on the SlackBuilds, as I got a couple of errors, but that was a minor detail. Everything works well. I am (favorably) impressed.
Regards,
Bill

Hi,

Care to share what you tweaked?

onebuck:
Well, it was nothing really applicable. "autogen.sh" would not run because of the permissions I put on flies in my data/download partition, so I had to make it executable in the script. I also copied the entire git directory to a new directory in /tmp then changed to that & ran "autogen.sh" & the rest of the script. I really had no problems with the programs themselves. I do get half a heartbeat of strange raster-looking effect when X starts & it comes up in 180x56 display mode, which means I have to use my reading glasses to read it, but that's ok.
Regards,
Bill

Not sure this will have same effect for all the chipsets, but tested on my hardware so I think this should be mentioned.

If I enable vga=791 in my lilo.conf, than some noise is produced on the screen while initializing radeon module and when X started. But the worth is that DRI doesn't work.

Thus I assume that any vga= options should be disabled in /etc/lilo.conf (don't forget to run lilo after edditing).

I do not have any /etc/X11/xorg.conf

The system initialise everything automatically.

PS just checked 2.6.32-rc8 - runs well.

dolphin, did you do anything different with the kernel firmware options?

I normally have these set, I think as they default, to not build firmware in kernel. But that might be needed for kms to work. Some problems resolved when I enabled the firmware settings by removing * for Select only... and Prevent firmware... Also * for Include in-kernel... as below. Not sure what is minimum required.

From kernel configuration: make menuconfig

Interesting to note that dri2 seems to show up in xorg.0.log.

Edit: I should point out that with the kernel config changes, kms and 3D on AMD 780g (integrated HD3200) does work and at least one or more of the firmware changes discussed above was needed, or maybe can be done in initrd.

I just built kernel with make && make modules && make modules_install

pm-utils:
I am not sure, this is caused by the KMS, but maybe someone can explain. I had a problem with pm-suspend on my Sony Vaio VGN-SR11MR. I tried a lot of different quirks etc. Nothing really worked. Actually machine went to sleep very fast (2-3 seconds). But when I tried to wake it up, it didn't work. Just black screen and no keyboard. Since I use 64 bit system, I didn't know how to trace the problem. (http://hal.freedesktop.org/quirk/qui...-advanced.html)
Till today I decided to spent some time on this issue. Firstly I tried to dump a little bit, if this is a correct word for this. what I did is:
And it started to work!!!

Not all the modules were removed by this 'stupid strait away method'. So I created a list of potential client among modules and started to remove half of list. I started with
58 modules and after few reboots only 4 left. I started to remove them one by one. It was module 'video' which caused problems with pm-suspend.

So now if I manualy do:
it finaly works!!!

PS could you please check and report here if this issue only corresponds to radeon kms - or it is just an issue with my sony laptop. Thank you.

Did any of you get an error with git?
I have not used it before and am not sure what this means.

When did this appear? If during one of the get-*.sh scripts, you probably already have the master branch installed, under the directory ".git".
Regards,
Bill

Hey All,

Thanks for all your posts everyone. This is my first post here on LQ - at least with this tag (wirelessmc). All this explains a great deal. I am new to kms. So onto my issue:

No X in either SW 12.2 (stock kernel 2.6.26.?) or 12.2 with 13.0 kernel 2.6.29.6. I rebuilt this kernel (2.6.29.6) last night (on my 12.2 install) but haven't tried booting it yet. I suspect after reading this that this (2.6.29.6 rebuild) is not the answer.

New mobo is Asus M3A76-CM (Radeon 3000). X is working fine on this hardware with a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10/kernel 2.6.31-14 using radeon driver (although frlgx non-free driver was offered after boot).

I am thinking that latest kernel snapshot "2.6.32-rc8-git1" will likely fix everything or...

Will I still need to use above Slack build script to rebuild libdrm, then blacklist radeon & radeonfb and enable radeon module from rc.modules?

Seems like much hassle to get a radeon driver working properly under SW.

Hi,

Tweaking the system via 'git' is sometimes the only way to get your 'ATI' card/subsystem functional. Especially if your card has been dropped.

What do you mean by 'No X'? You should be able to use the 'vesafb' to test things.

You can use 'SlackBuilds' since it would be easier but you could install manually if desired. Look at the Xorg Wiki.

What I mean by no X is I've tried every conceivable permutation of Xorg.conf including the vesafb driver and I can seem to get X started. I am not at my machine to give you the gory details of my /var/log/Xorg.0.log, but something about not knowing the 9616 chipset if I recall.

I thought about something in my lilo that could have been an issue (like vga=791 or whatever I have it set to). So booting from the SW13 CD (with boot: hugesmp.s root=/dev/[myrootdev] rdinit=ro) should eliminate that yes?

Hi,

The lilo.conf settings are for the console that you wish to setup for use. You don't have to have setting for the console within the '/etc/lilo.conf'. Your default console will be setup if you don't select one.

If you can provide more information about the confiuration along with any error messages. Then we can possibly help you.

I ran the three scripts the last two got the fatal error. Not really sure what it means.
I guess it has something to do with "git checkout -t -b master origin/master".

No .git in my home dir

Oh yea second question. I am not sure how to find the chipset.
I don't think my chipset is 3650.