[gentoo-amd64] URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[gentoo-amd64] URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Clip2]

Hi,

I have an urgent problem: I just tried the nvidia beta-drivers and accelerated desktop with Beryl Desktop Manager.

I realised, that X crashed whenever I tried to open any fullscreen application. So I decided to go back to standard, and i removed the beta drivers, emerged the originals and changed back Xorg.conf, i also deleted the entry in /etc/env.d for kdm to use beryl.

at first, X didn'T even work and exited with the error message, that the X module and the glx module didnt match. So i installed the nvidia driver by hand, and now X is working, but its behaving very strange: there are no fonts in any application. kdm has no fonts, konsole, kmail, amarok, no menus there. sometimes the fonts flash, so i can see some text for about 1/10 sec. 

i re-emerged xorg and kdebase, but it had no effect.

any ideas how i can get my text back?

cu
Dieter
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Dieter Ries]

Update:

When I try to start X, there is a message, that the module i use is designed for ABI <1, and the XServer is running ABI 1, it says the server will run, but there may be funny behaviours. Indeed there are.

cu
Dieter


-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Sat, 02 Dec 2006 17:10:37 +0100
Von: Clip2@gmx.de
An: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org
Betreff: [gentoo-amd64] URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

> Hi,
> 
> I have an urgent problem: I just tried the nvidia beta-drivers and
> accelerated desktop with Beryl Desktop Manager.
> 
> I realised, that X crashed whenever I tried to open any fullscreen
> application. So I decided to go back to standard, and i removed the beta drivers,
> emerged the originals and changed back Xorg.conf, i also deleted the entry
> in /etc/env.d for kdm to use beryl.
> 
> at first, X didn'T even work and exited with the error message, that the X
> module and the glx module didnt match. So i installed the nvidia driver by
> hand, and now X is working, but its behaving very strange: there are no
> fonts in any application. kdm has no fonts, konsole, kmail, amarok, no menus
> there. sometimes the fonts flash, so i can see some text for about 1/10
> sec. 
> 
> i re-emerged xorg and kdebase, but it had no effect.
> 
> any ideas how i can get my text back?
> 
> cu
> Dieter
> -- 
> Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! 
> Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer
> -- 
> gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

-- 
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[gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Duncan]

"Dieter Ries" <Clip2@gmx.de> posted 20061202162650.218370@gmx.net,
excerpted below, on  Sat, 02 Dec 2006 17:26:50 +0100:

> When I try to start X, there is a message, that the module i use is
> designed for ABI <1, and the XServer is running ABI 1, it says the server
> will run, but there may be funny behaviours. Indeed there are.

Either as you start or in the xorg log (/var/log/Xorg.0.log, normally),
there should be some indication of what module it is talking about. 
See if equery belongs <module> turns up anything.  That's going to be the
package you need to remerge.  If nothing is listed, it may be a stale
version of a file or the slaveryware nvidia drivers you installed manually
(which I take to mean outside of portage).  Note that installing them
using the Gentoo package takes care of some stuff that installing them
manually doesn't, as the manual install isn't setup for Gentoo
specifically and uses different default paths and the like.  In
particular, mixing the two, switching between emerged via portage, and
manually installing the package as you did, is known to cause weird issues,
as you'll be left with a strange and not very workable missmash of stuff. 
It's certainly  possible to do the same additional things the Gentoo
ebuild does manually too, but it's the sort of thing that if you are
asking about it, you are best off just sticking to the Gentoo solution and
not trying to figure out how to manage it manually.  FWIW, the biggest
problem has to do with Gentoo's eselect opengl management, which is
something the nvidia package itself has no way of knowing about and
therefore fixing, since it's not Gentoo specific as the eselect solution
is.

Of course, here, I purposefully bought an ATI Radeon 9200 series graphics
card since it has free drivers.  I couldn't legally run slaveryware even if
I wanted to, at least where EULAs are or could be considered legal, as I
simply don't sign over the rights nearly all EULAs demand I sign over,
viewing it much the same way I'd view an attempt to restrict my other
basic rights, such as freedom of religion or freedom of expression.  Until
Nvidia has decent free drivers, they don't get my money, just as current
ATI doesn't get my money as they no longer provide drivers or specs for
the community to code its own.  If I were upgrading now, it'd likely be to
Intel, even tho I've been an AMD user for over a decade now, because
Intel's integrated chipset video is the best choice for free drivers there
is right now.  Fortunately, I'll be upgrading my existing dual Opteron to
dual-cores soon, and won't be upgrading the system for at least two years
after that.  By the time I /do/ upgrade, the currently beginning trend
toward standardizing the graphics instruction set to the point it's
basically an extension of the CPU instruction set should be well under
way, with comparable openness as well, so freedomware graphics drivers
making use of it should be getting rather more common.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Dieter Ries]

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Hi,

I got my fonts back by now, even with the beta driver from portage. There are 
two main problems now:

1: i cant go back to stable nvidia-drivers, because of the font problem
2: when using the beta driver, changing the resolution when running, lets say, 
a game in fullscreen mode with another resolution than the standard crashes 
X.

cu
Dieter


Am Samstag 02 Dezember 2006 20:10 schrieb Duncan:
> "Dieter Ries" <Clip2@gmx.de> posted 20061202162650.218370@gmx.net,
>
> excerpted below, on  Sat, 02 Dec 2006 17:26:50 +0100:
> > When I try to start X, there is a message, that the module i use is
> > designed for ABI <1, and the XServer is running ABI 1, it says the server
> > will run, but there may be funny behaviours. Indeed there are.
>
> Either as you start or in the xorg log (/var/log/Xorg.0.log, normally),
> there should be some indication of what module it is talking about.
> See if equery belongs <module> turns up anything.  That's going to be the
> package you need to remerge.  If nothing is listed, it may be a stale
> version of a file or the slaveryware nvidia drivers you installed manually
> (which I take to mean outside of portage).  Note that installing them
> using the Gentoo package takes care of some stuff that installing them
> manually doesn't, as the manual install isn't setup for Gentoo
> specifically and uses different default paths and the like.  In
> particular, mixing the two, switching between emerged via portage, and
> manually installing the package as you did, is known to cause weird issues,
> as you'll be left with a strange and not very workable missmash of stuff.
> It's certainly  possible to do the same additional things the Gentoo
> ebuild does manually too, but it's the sort of thing that if you are
> asking about it, you are best off just sticking to the Gentoo solution and
> not trying to figure out how to manage it manually.  FWIW, the biggest
> problem has to do with Gentoo's eselect opengl management, which is
> something the nvidia package itself has no way of knowing about and
> therefore fixing, since it's not Gentoo specific as the eselect solution
> is.
>
> Of course, here, I purposefully bought an ATI Radeon 9200 series graphics
> card since it has free drivers.  I couldn't legally run slaveryware even if
> I wanted to, at least where EULAs are or could be considered legal, as I
> simply don't sign over the rights nearly all EULAs demand I sign over,
> viewing it much the same way I'd view an attempt to restrict my other
> basic rights, such as freedom of religion or freedom of expression.  Until
> Nvidia has decent free drivers, they don't get my money, just as current
> ATI doesn't get my money as they no longer provide drivers or specs for
> the community to code its own.  If I were upgrading now, it'd likely be to
> Intel, even tho I've been an AMD user for over a decade now, because
> Intel's integrated chipset video is the best choice for free drivers there
> is right now.  Fortunately, I'll be upgrading my existing dual Opteron to
> dual-cores soon, and won't be upgrading the system for at least two years
> after that.  By the time I /do/ upgrade, the currently beginning trend
> toward standardizing the graphics instruction set to the point it's
> basically an extension of the CPU instruction set should be well under
> way, with comparable openness as well, so freedomware graphics drivers
> making use of it should be getting rather more common.
>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

-- 
Frank Castle is dead!
Call me 'The PUNISHER'!

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Nuitari]

> Hi,
>
> I got my fonts back by now, even with the beta driver from portage. There are
> two main problems now:
>
> 1: i cant go back to stable nvidia-drivers, because of the font problem
> 2: when using the beta driver, changing the resolution when running, lets say,
> a game in fullscreen mode with another resolution than the standard crashes
> X.
>
> cu
> Dieter

Using a minute to search on google can really help solve problems.
1. Stable nvidia is not compatible with xorg 7.1. This has been discussed 
at length both here and on nvnews.net
2. nvidia 9629 has a horrible _known_ bug that causes the crash.

You can easily mask it using:

echo =x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-1.0.9629 >> /etc/portage/package.mask

Then emerge the unstable (~amd64) driver in portage. It should be 8776, 
which works.
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 2 Dec 2006 19:10:27 +0000 (UTC), Duncan wrote:

> Of course, here, I purposefully bought an ATI Radeon 9200 series
> graphics card since it has free drivers.  I couldn't legally run
> slaveryware even if I wanted to, at least where EULAs are or could be
> considered legal, as I simply don't sign over the rights nearly all
> EULAs demand I sign over, viewing it much the same way I'd view an
> attempt to restrict my other basic rights, such as freedom of religion
> or freedom of expression.  Until Nvidia has decent free drivers, they
> don't get my money,

There is no EULA that you *have* to agree to; Nvidia's installer
displays the licence, but has an option to skip this, so there is no
binding EULA. Nvidia's driver are free as in beer, but they are not open
source. This is because the code for some of the T&L stuff is licenced
from another company, and that licence doesn't allow Nvidia to distribute
the source.

That leaves Nvidia two choices, distribute closed source drivers for
Linux, or remove that code from the Linux drivers and have everyone
complain that the Linux drivers don't work as well as the Windows
drivers, don't work with some games (UT2004 was the one I was researching
when I found this out) and are another example of why Linux is inferior
to Windows.

I know which I'd prefer to have; this way the choice is mine. Choose
another make of card if you wish, but trying to influence people's
choices with such emotive phrases as "slaveryware" is uncalled for,
unless you work for Microsoft (or possibly Novell these days).


-- 
Neil Bothwick

KPLA Klingon Radio : All glory, all the time!

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

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On Sunday 03 December 2006 04:53, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote 
about 'Re: [gentoo-amd64]  Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes':
> On Sat, 2 Dec 2006 19:10:27 +0000 (UTC), Duncan wrote:
> > Of course, here, I purposefully bought an ATI Radeon 9200 series
> > graphics card since it has free drivers.  I couldn't legally run
> > slaveryware even if I wanted to.
> > Until Nvidia has decent free drivers, they 
> > don't get my money,
>
> There is no EULA that you *have* to agree to. Nvidia's driver are
> free as in beer, but they are not open 
> source. This is because the code for some of the T&L stuff is licenced
> from another company, and that licence doesn't allow Nvidia to
> distribute the source.
>
> That leaves Nvidia two choices, distribute closed source drivers for
> Linux, or remove that code from the Linux drivers

...or both (release a "free" version and a "full" version), or release 
specs so we can write our own drivers (we don't need to know anything 
patentable or even trade-secret-able, just how to talk to the hardware) or 
a half-dozen other options.  There's no duality here, just nvidious 
deciding to only provide shackles (free of charge, woohoo!) and "everyone" 
deciding to put them on.

NB: I use the nvidia driver; I don't like it, but I do use it since I do 
occationally play games that require accelerated 3d.

-- 
"If there's one thing we've established over the years,
it's that the vast majority of our users don't have the slightest
clue what's best for them in terms of package stability."
-- Gentoo Developer Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 07:32:23 -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

> > That leaves Nvidia two choices, distribute closed source drivers for
> > Linux, or remove that code from the Linux drivers  
> 
> ...or both (release a "free" version and a "full" version), or release 

They'd probably argue that would be extra work.

> specs so we can write our own drivers (we don't need to know anything 
> patentable or even trade-secret-able, just how to talk to the hardware)
> or a half-dozen other options.

Haven't they done that already? It's just that this doesn't work with
3D, which is tied into the proprietary code. Without knowing the details,
which would require an NDA and then not being able to discuss this,
there's no way of knowing how closely the 3D stuff is tied into the
proprietary code.

> There's no duality here, just nvidious 
> deciding to only provide shackles (free of charge, woohoo!) and
> "everyone" deciding to put them on.

I must admit, I don't feel shackled. I know that the code is non-free (as
in OSS, although it is freely distributable) and made my choice to use
it. The key is that I have the choice, and as long as I do, I'm still
free.

> NB: I use the nvidia driver; I don't like it, but I do use it since I
> do occationally play games that require accelerated 3d.

So use a different make of card that provides equivalent performance with
a free driver.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Stop tagline theft! Copyright your tagline (c)

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

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On Sunday 03 December 2006 09:24, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote 
about 'Re: [gentoo-amd64]  Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes':
> On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 07:32:23 -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> > > That leaves Nvidia two choices, distribute closed source drivers for
> > > Linux, or remove that code from the Linux drivers
> >
> > ...or both (release a "free" version and a "full" version), or release
>
> They'd probably argue that would be extra work.

I agree; it's still a choice.  Just exposing the lack of truth is 
the "false dichotomy" that was originally proposed.  Maintaining two 
separate drivers would probably be hell; even if both derived from a 
common source-tree it would require a code-audit before every release of 
the "free" version.

> > specs so we can write our own drivers (we don't need to know anything
> > patentable or even trade-secret-able, just how to talk to the
> > hardware) or a half-dozen other options.
>
> Haven't they done that already?

No.  The nv driver is reverse engineered, IIRC.

> It's just that this doesn't work with 
> 3D, which is tied into the proprietary code. Without knowing the
> details, which would require an NDA and then not being able to discuss
> this, there's no way of knowing how closely the 3D stuff is tied into
> the proprietary code.

What we it is something similar to e.g. the x86 instruction set.  That 
doesn't tell you anything about the specifics inside the chip, but allows 
to write software that takes advantage of all features.

To write a 3D accelerated driver, we need to know what primitive operations 
the cards support and how to invoke those primitive operations.  How to 
translate application-level function calls (opengl, xlib, whatever) into 
those primitives is something the F(L)/OSS community would have to figure 
out.

I'm sure it would take a year or more to get to the performance and 
stability of the closed driver, but at least it would be feasible to write 
and maintain a 3d-accelerated driver in the "free world".

It's possible that we could reverse engineer this information in the 
future, but that could also mean some broken cards, and it would be nearly 
impossible to maintain.

> > NB: I use the nvidia driver; I don't like it, but I do use it since I
> > do occationally play games that require accelerated 3d.
>
> So use a different make of card that provides equivalent performance
> with a free driver.

When next I change video cards, I will be doing just that.

-- 
"If there's one thing we've established over the years,
it's that the vast majority of our users don't have the slightest
clue what's best for them in terms of package stability."
-- Gentoo Developer Ciaran McCreesh

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: URGENT: No more fonts after xorg changes

[Thomas Rösner]

Hi,

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> To write a 3D accelerated driver, we need to know what primitive operations 
> the cards support and how to invoke those primitive operations.

The nouveau project uses the blob driver to get this information by 
sending primitive commands to it and then watching the hw registers for 
changes, so in a way Nvidia provided us with the spec... ;-).

http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/

If you want to work for a free/libre hw 3D solution, this is the place 
to go, it seems.

Regards,
Thomas


-- 
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-- "Mahatma" Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948)
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