Just a few days ago, I had 3D acceleration working perfectly on my setup. Everything was fine and I could even play games. My video card is an ATI 3650, and I am using kernel 2.6.33.2 with KMS enabled by default. I was using the libdrm, util-macros, xf86-video-ati and mesa packages from the "Radeon KMS works!" thread, and the checkouts were from the 24th December, 2009.

In order to get 3D acceleration working properly I had to upgrade my version of mesa, and installed mesa 7.7 from slackware64-current. I noticed some slight, not at all significant bugs with video stuff, so thought I would update my xf86-video-ati package also from current since it was newer than my git checkout, and I thought it may have improved things.

After upgrading to this newer package, everything went wrong. When I went to startx, the screen was a blur of very bright and psychedelic colors, with nothing resembling an interface at all. I had to use ctrl + alt + backspace to kill X, as I could not even switch to a different VT.

I thought this may be an error with the other software being out of date, so I went ahead an upgraded my other x packages to the versions from -current, such as xorg-server and glproto.

This actually made things worse. Starting X would literally hang the machine, caps lock would not come on and only a hard reboot would work. I really don't know why everything crashed so badly at this point.

I have another older kernel with some special patches, which does not have any KMS stuff and just uses VESA. Starting X under this kernel also failed horribly with the newer packages with it either hanging or psychedelic colors.

I then thought I would restore everything back to the original versions of my install. I uninstalled all my X packages, as well as mesa etc, and installed them all my slackware 13 cd. Again under the vesa kernel I tried to startx...and it didnt work.

I did X -configure again and managed to get something working. I am in X now at a very large resolution on the kernel with just VESA.

I just tried again, upgrading to the mesa, libdrm, util-macros and xf86-video-ati in -current, which resulted in X not starting at all. I have attached my Xorg.log of trying from this configuration. When upgrading to the xorg-server package in -current, my machine completly hangs and has to be restarted.

What exactly did I do that broke my system and caused so many problems with starting X, and why did it break under the normal vesa kernel without KMS?

How can I go back to having 3D acceleration and a high resolution without hanging the machine? So far the only combo that has worked for me was the installs of the original slack disc, with the git checkouts of mesa, libdrm and util-macros. Do I have to do this again, or can I use the -current packages and their is some other reason for X not working?

In the meantime is their a way to have a higher resolution with just VESA without having to have an xorg.conf? My native res is 1680x1050, and whatever res X goes to by default is considerably lower than that...


Any help is muchly appreciated.

Attached Files

xorg.txt (5.9 KB, 12 views)

The VESA driver doesn't do resolutions higher than 1280x1024, unfortunately.

Looks like your problem is that you didn't update the X server when you updated the rest. If you're going to install a few packages from -current you should probably just upgrade everything to -current. Otherwise you'll end up with a lot of dependencies that aren't the same version they were compiled against (or just plain missing in some cases).

Well, I did try the xorg-server from -current, and it completely hangs on my system....

Even when I tried upgrading all the X stuff to the versions from -current, it still just hangs...

Do you have an Xorg.0.log from the configuration with all the X packages updated to -current? Because upgrading a few just won't work when they're compiled against a different version of the base packages.

You really need to stop breaking things; I'm tired of bailing you out :-)

First, KMS on radeon requires very specific versions of software, compiled in a specific manner, to work properly. While you can grab Mesa from -current, grabbing xf86-video-ati from current was a bad idea since that version was not compiled with support for KMS. From there, I don't know exactly what happened, but clearly you only made things worse.

Now, as for your Xorg.0.log file.... The error is pretty clear:

The ABI version for radeon is at 6, and X server is only at 5. In other words, xf86-video-ati was compiled against a newer version of the X server. If I had to guess, I'd say that you are still using xf86-video-ati from -current (which is compiled against X server 1.7.*).

Hi Adam. After I get it working again this time, I'll definitely be more careful

That Xorg.log is indeed from using the xf86-video-ati from current and the xorg-server from slack 13. However, using the xorg-server from current just results in my machine hanging. I can't even give you an xorg.log because it just hangs straight away.

I will read over the "Radeon KMS works" thread again now, but I had thought people were saying there was a perfectly working solution in -current?

If this is not the case, will I need to obtain and compile xf86-video-ati again?

Thanks for your help, I really do appreciate it.

edit: Ahh I should have read that KMS thread properly before posting this message, and deciding to "upgrade" xf86-video-ati. -current is completely working *except* for xf86-video-ati..., so I will rebuild that and everything should be fine as it was before.

If my reading and suspicions are correct /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old should be the log from the immediately previous attempt to start X. I'm not suggesting that you try to upgrade again, since it now seems that is not the solution to your original problem. Just FYI if you need to back up that log in the future

As far as I know, -current does not support KMS as is, but I've never tried it myself. I will say that mixing and matching packages from 13 and -current is ask for trouble.

Adam

WooHoo, working again. Well, that was a fun learning experience..

As per the KMS thread, -current does indeed support KMS, except for xf86-video-ati.

Which is very easy to build and works with the libdrm from -current.


I agree mixing packages from -current and 13 is a bad idea....I just wanted to replace my git versions with official slack versions after I saw it was working. I should have researched it a bit better.

I think it is interesting that xorg from -current just hangs on my system....I would send a bug report, but since I am not running all -current it's probably useless...

Anyway, thanks for pointing me in the right direction.