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* [gentoo-amd64]  New video card, finally!
@ 2009-12-10  1:31 Duncan
       [not found] ` <b79f23070912091810x542871cena050d0879516447b@mail.gmail.com>
                   ` (4 more replies)
  0 siblings, 5 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Duncan @ 2009-12-10  1:31 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

As regulars are aware, I /was/ running an old Radeon 92xx series card, 
r200 series chip.  My system was /relatively/ good, even if it's half a 
decade old now, because it's a dual socket Opteron, which I had upgraded 
to top-of-the-line dual-core Opteron 290s (2.8 GHz), with plenty of 
memory (8 gigs, tho it's now six as a stick went bad on me and I've not 
replaced it yet), and running four SATA drives in md/kernel RAID.

Well, a few weeks ago I switched the system partitions from RAID-6 to 
RAID-1.  In many tasks the RAID-1 is actually faster than the RAID-6 was, 
tho part of that might be that the new partitions aren't fragmented, 
yet.  While I was at it, I rid myself of the LVM2 layer I was running 
most of the non-rootfs system on.  No real issues with it here, but it 
was a bit of a hassle since I couldn't put the rootfs on it directly, and 
I have seen some horror stories I didn't like, tho whether they're 
accurate on the current LVM2 I don't know.  But anyway, I decided that 
layer was more hassle than it was worth, and experience with the new 
layout so far says I was right.

But that just lays the groundwork for the REAL upgrade.  I FINALLY got 
the video card upgrade that I'd been needing for awhile, thus bringing it 
more inline with the rest of the system.  It's a Radeon hd4650, rv730 
chip, gig video RAM (tho I have a feeling I'm not using anything near 
that), dual DVI output (I'm not sure if both are dual-link tho, might be 
one dual-link and one single-link), AGP bus as that's what my system is 
-- five years old, remember, I have PCI-X but not PCI-E.

Of course, the xorg native xf86-video-ati driver (and xf86-video-
radeonhd, tho that seems to be falling behind now, unless you have HDMI 
you want to support or something) only have 2D for anything r600 or newer 
in their released drivers, thru the 6.12 series (with 6.12.4 being the 
latest, and a possible 6.12.5 coming up).  There's not even a beta 
tarball out for the 6.13 series yet, so if one wants OpenGL support, 
really the whole point to the upgrade, one has to run the "live" driver, 
straight from git or available in the x11 overlay as the traditional live 
version 9999.

So that's what I grabbed.  I already had the latest non-live xorg 
components installed from the tree and x11 overlay, so I was fortunate 
and didn't need any further live packages, only xf86-video-ati-9999.

Meanwhile, I basically gave up on the kernel bug I was git-bisecting, as 
I couldn't duplicate it on the (then still unaccelerated) new radeon 
hardware, tho I saved a bisect-log in case it comes back with the new 
hardware after I enable acceleration, git-pulled, did a git-checkout of 
v2.6.32 (Linus git tree), did the usual oldconfig, then a menuconfig and 
changed my config around a bit, enabling KMS, etc.

Did a reboot into the new kernel and played around at the radeondrmfb 
enhanced CLI for awhile, tweaking a couple things there, then started X/
kde4 and started tweaking things for the new hardware, there.  

After editing xorg.conf and restarting X a few times, playing with 
glxgears, etc, I started trying out the newly available kde4 OpenGL eye 
candy options. =:^)  As I run dual 22" 1920x1200 LCDs, stacked for 
1920x2400, and the old card couldn't handle OpenGL at resolutions above 
2048 either direction, I hadn't had the OpenGL effects available to play 
with on the old card.  What a change the new card made! =:^)

So now I'm running kde 4.3.4 with OpenGL effects.  It's nice.  I've 
actually had the "snow on the desktop" effect turned on as I worked, for 
several hours now, tweaked a bit to add more "flakes" but reduce the size 
to make them a bit more realistic, and with the "behind windows" option 
turned off, so they float in front of the windows.  Much like watching 
real snow fall outside the window while you're nice and warm inside, it's 
quite a calming effect.

OTOH, there's still enough glitches to see why it's not released yet, and 
I did have one crash.  Also, font anti-aliasing /really/ looks bad now, 
it's /gotta/ be a bug somewhere I'm sure, so I turned off font anti-
aliasing entirely.  MUCH better!  With that, it's working well enough to 
be usable if a few visual glitches, mostly background repaints turning 
bits of the plasma panels and desktop weird colors at times, which goes 
away with desktop switches, etc, but also a semi-regular flashing of bits 
of one particular corner of the desktop, and artifacts appearing on 
scrollbars and the like occasionally.  But it's good enough I've no 
intention of going back, even if the driver code is unoptimized at 
present and the snow makes new launches rather less than responsive!  But 
I can always turn the snow bit off, if I want, and have a reasonably 
responsive system with the other effects still.

So now I suppose I'm experiencing kde4 as it was meant to be seen, fully 
accelerated opengl effects, cube desktop switching, snow on the desktop, 
wobbly windows (which unlike many, I think I'll keep tho I turned down 
the effect power a notch, and can turn it down another if I want), cover-
switch for alt-tabbing, etc.  Very nice, even with the glitches.  It'll 
be even nicer when the radeon r600 opengl driver and kernel KMS matures a 
bit.  Unfortunately, even in 4.3.4, kde4 itself is still buggy enough I'd 
consider it beta, tho late beta now.  The first kde 4.4 beta is out now, 
and since 4.3 still feels like beta anyway, I'll probably upgrade before 
the scheduled February release date, tho it'll probably be beta2 or rc1 
before I get to it.  I expect kde 4.4 to be what I'd call release 
candidate quality, the critical bugs gone and no show-stoppers, but still 
not quite there, and 4.5, in August, to finally hit what I'd call good 
release quality suitable for an ordinary user.  After that, it'll all be 
frosting on the cake, especially now that I have a decent video card and 
can enjoy it as it was designed to be enjoyed. =:^)

-- 
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




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!
       [not found] ` <b79f23070912091810x542871cena050d0879516447b@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2009-12-10  2:10   ` James Ausmus
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: James Ausmus @ 2009-12-10  2:10 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 6145 bytes --]

Congrats on the new HW!

On Dec 9, 2009 6:00 PM, "Duncan" <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

As regulars are aware, I /was/ running an old Radeon 92xx series card,
r200 series chip.  My system was /relatively/ good, even if it's half a
decade old now, because it's a dual socket Opteron, which I had upgraded
to top-of-the-line dual-core Opteron 290s (2.8 GHz), with plenty of
memory (8 gigs, tho it's now six as a stick went bad on me and I've not
replaced it yet), and running four SATA drives in md/kernel RAID.

Well, a few weeks ago I switched the system partitions from RAID-6 to
RAID-1.  In many tasks the RAID-1 is actually faster than the RAID-6 was,
tho part of that might be that the new partitions aren't fragmented,
yet.  While I was at it, I rid myself of the LVM2 layer I was running
most of the non-rootfs system on.  No real issues with it here, but it
was a bit of a hassle since I couldn't put the rootfs on it directly, and
I have seen some horror stories I didn't like, tho whether they're
accurate on the current LVM2 I don't know.  But anyway, I decided that
layer was more hassle than it was worth, and experience with the new
layout so far says I was right.

But that just lays the groundwork for the REAL upgrade.  I FINALLY got
the video card upgrade that I'd been needing for awhile, thus bringing it
more inline with the rest of the system.  It's a Radeon hd4650, rv730
chip, gig video RAM (tho I have a feeling I'm not using anything near
that), dual DVI output (I'm not sure if both are dual-link tho, might be
one dual-link and one single-link), AGP bus as that's what my system is
-- five years old, remember, I have PCI-X but not PCI-E.

Of course, the xorg native xf86-video-ati driver (and xf86-video-
radeonhd, tho that seems to be falling behind now, unless you have HDMI
you want to support or something) only have 2D for anything r600 or newer
in their released drivers, thru the 6.12 series (with 6.12.4 being the
latest, and a possible 6.12.5 coming up).  There's not even a beta
tarball out for the 6.13 series yet, so if one wants OpenGL support,
really the whole point to the upgrade, one has to run the "live" driver,
straight from git or available in the x11 overlay as the traditional live
version 9999.

So that's what I grabbed.  I already had the latest non-live xorg
components installed from the tree and x11 overlay, so I was fortunate
and didn't need any further live packages, only xf86-video-ati-9999.

Meanwhile, I basically gave up on the kernel bug I was git-bisecting, as
I couldn't duplicate it on the (then still unaccelerated) new radeon
hardware, tho I saved a bisect-log in case it comes back with the new
hardware after I enable acceleration, git-pulled, did a git-checkout of
v2.6.32 (Linus git tree), did the usual oldconfig, then a menuconfig and
changed my config around a bit, enabling KMS, etc.

Did a reboot into the new kernel and played around at the radeondrmfb
enhanced CLI for awhile, tweaking a couple things there, then started X/
kde4 and started tweaking things for the new hardware, there.

After editing xorg.conf and restarting X a few times, playing with
glxgears, etc, I started trying out the newly available kde4 OpenGL eye
candy options. =:^)  As I run dual 22" 1920x1200 LCDs, stacked for
1920x2400, and the old card couldn't handle OpenGL at resolutions above
2048 either direction, I hadn't had the OpenGL effects available to play
with on the old card.  What a change the new card made! =:^)

So now I'm running kde 4.3.4 with OpenGL effects.  It's nice.  I've
actually had the "snow on the desktop" effect turned on as I worked, for
several hours now, tweaked a bit to add more "flakes" but reduce the size
to make them a bit more realistic, and with the "behind windows" option
turned off, so they float in front of the windows.  Much like watching
real snow fall outside the window while you're nice and warm inside, it's
quite a calming effect.

OTOH, there's still enough glitches to see why it's not released yet, and
I did have one crash.  Also, font anti-aliasing /really/ looks bad now,
it's /gotta/ be a bug somewhere I'm sure, so I turned off font anti-
aliasing entirely.  MUCH better!  With that, it's working well enough to
be usable if a few visual glitches, mostly background repaints turning
bits of the plasma panels and desktop weird colors at times, which goes
away with desktop switches, etc, but also a semi-regular flashing of bits
of one particular corner of the desktop, and artifacts appearing on
scrollbars and the like occasionally.  But it's good enough I've no
intention of going back, even if the driver code is unoptimized at
present and the snow makes new launches rather less than responsive!  But
I can always turn the snow bit off, if I want, and have a reasonably
responsive system with the other effects still.

So now I suppose I'm experiencing kde4 as it was meant to be seen, fully
accelerated opengl effects, cube desktop switching, snow on the desktop,
wobbly windows (which unlike many, I think I'll keep tho I turned down
the effect power a notch, and can turn it down another if I want), cover-
switch for alt-tabbing, etc.  Very nice, even with the glitches.  It'll
be even nicer when the radeon r600 opengl driver and kernel KMS matures a
bit.  Unfortunately, even in 4.3.4, kde4 itself is still buggy enough I'd
consider it beta, tho late beta now.  The first kde 4.4 beta is out now,
and since 4.3 still feels like beta anyway, I'll probably upgrade before
the scheduled February release date, tho it'll probably be beta2 or rc1
before I get to it.  I expect kde 4.4 to be what I'd call release
candidate quality, the critical bugs gone and no show-stoppers, but still
not quite there, and 4.5, in August, to finally hit what I'd call good
release quality suitable for an ordinary user.  After that, it'll all be
frosting on the cake, especially now that I have a decent video card and
can enjoy it as it was designed to be enjoyed. =:^)

--
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

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 7029 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-amd64]  New video card, finally!
  2009-12-10  1:31 [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally! Duncan
       [not found] ` <b79f23070912091810x542871cena050d0879516447b@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2009-12-10  2:23 ` Barry Schwartz
  2009-12-10  5:33 ` Wil Reichert
                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Barry Schwartz @ 2009-12-10  2:23 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> skribis:
> So now I suppose I'm experiencing kde4 as it was meant to be seen, fully 
> accelerated opengl effects, cube desktop switching, snow on the desktop, 
> wobbly windows ...

Why not just buy a bottle of Jameson’s?




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!
  2009-12-10  1:31 [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally! Duncan
       [not found] ` <b79f23070912091810x542871cena050d0879516447b@mail.gmail.com>
  2009-12-10  2:23 ` Barry Schwartz
@ 2009-12-10  5:33 ` Wil Reichert
  2009-12-11 11:30 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-11 11:49 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Wil Reichert @ 2009-12-10  5:33 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> As regulars are aware, I /was/ running an old Radeon 92xx series card,
> r200 series chip.  My system was /relatively/ good, even if it's half a
> decade old now, because it's a dual socket Opteron, which I had upgraded
> to top-of-the-line dual-core Opteron 290s (2.8 GHz), with plenty of
> memory (8 gigs, tho it's now six as a stick went bad on me and I've not
> replaced it yet), and running four SATA drives in md/kernel RAID.
>
> Well, a few weeks ago I switched the system partitions from RAID-6 to
> RAID-1.  In many tasks the RAID-1 is actually faster than the RAID-6 was,
> tho part of that might be that the new partitions aren't fragmented,
> yet.  While I was at it, I rid myself of the LVM2 layer I was running
> most of the non-rootfs system on.  No real issues with it here, but it
> was a bit of a hassle since I couldn't put the rootfs on it directly, and
> I have seen some horror stories I didn't like, tho whether they're
> accurate on the current LVM2 I don't know.  But anyway, I decided that
> layer was more hassle than it was worth, and experience with the new
> layout so far says I was right.
>
> But that just lays the groundwork for the REAL upgrade.  I FINALLY got
> the video card upgrade that I'd been needing for awhile, thus bringing it
> more inline with the rest of the system.  It's a Radeon hd4650, rv730
> chip, gig video RAM (tho I have a feeling I'm not using anything near
> that), dual DVI output (I'm not sure if both are dual-link tho, might be
> one dual-link and one single-link), AGP bus as that's what my system is
> -- five years old, remember, I have PCI-X but not PCI-E.
>
> Of course, the xorg native xf86-video-ati driver (and xf86-video-
> radeonhd, tho that seems to be falling behind now, unless you have HDMI
> you want to support or something) only have 2D for anything r600 or newer
> in their released drivers, thru the 6.12 series (with 6.12.4 being the
> latest, and a possible 6.12.5 coming up).  There's not even a beta
> tarball out for the 6.13 series yet, so if one wants OpenGL support,
> really the whole point to the upgrade, one has to run the "live" driver,
> straight from git or available in the x11 overlay as the traditional live
> version 9999.
>
> So that's what I grabbed.  I already had the latest non-live xorg
> components installed from the tree and x11 overlay, so I was fortunate
> and didn't need any further live packages, only xf86-video-ati-9999.
>
> Meanwhile, I basically gave up on the kernel bug I was git-bisecting, as
> I couldn't duplicate it on the (then still unaccelerated) new radeon
> hardware, tho I saved a bisect-log in case it comes back with the new
> hardware after I enable acceleration, git-pulled, did a git-checkout of
> v2.6.32 (Linus git tree), did the usual oldconfig, then a menuconfig and
> changed my config around a bit, enabling KMS, etc.
>
> Did a reboot into the new kernel and played around at the radeondrmfb
> enhanced CLI for awhile, tweaking a couple things there, then started X/
> kde4 and started tweaking things for the new hardware, there.
>
> After editing xorg.conf and restarting X a few times, playing with
> glxgears, etc, I started trying out the newly available kde4 OpenGL eye
> candy options. =:^)  As I run dual 22" 1920x1200 LCDs, stacked for
> 1920x2400, and the old card couldn't handle OpenGL at resolutions above
> 2048 either direction, I hadn't had the OpenGL effects available to play
> with on the old card.  What a change the new card made! =:^)
>
> So now I'm running kde 4.3.4 with OpenGL effects.  It's nice.  I've
> actually had the "snow on the desktop" effect turned on as I worked, for
> several hours now, tweaked a bit to add more "flakes" but reduce the size
> to make them a bit more realistic, and with the "behind windows" option
> turned off, so they float in front of the windows.  Much like watching
> real snow fall outside the window while you're nice and warm inside, it's
> quite a calming effect.
>
> OTOH, there's still enough glitches to see why it's not released yet, and
> I did have one crash.  Also, font anti-aliasing /really/ looks bad now,
> it's /gotta/ be a bug somewhere I'm sure, so I turned off font anti-
> aliasing entirely.  MUCH better!  With that, it's working well enough to
> be usable if a few visual glitches, mostly background repaints turning
> bits of the plasma panels and desktop weird colors at times, which goes
> away with desktop switches, etc, but also a semi-regular flashing of bits
> of one particular corner of the desktop, and artifacts appearing on
> scrollbars and the like occasionally.  But it's good enough I've no
> intention of going back, even if the driver code is unoptimized at
> present and the snow makes new launches rather less than responsive!  But
> I can always turn the snow bit off, if I want, and have a reasonably
> responsive system with the other effects still.
>
> So now I suppose I'm experiencing kde4 as it was meant to be seen, fully
> accelerated opengl effects, cube desktop switching, snow on the desktop,
> wobbly windows (which unlike many, I think I'll keep tho I turned down
> the effect power a notch, and can turn it down another if I want), cover-
> switch for alt-tabbing, etc.  Very nice, even with the glitches.  It'll
> be even nicer when the radeon r600 opengl driver and kernel KMS matures a
> bit.  Unfortunately, even in 4.3.4, kde4 itself is still buggy enough I'd
> consider it beta, tho late beta now.  The first kde 4.4 beta is out now,
> and since 4.3 still feels like beta anyway, I'll probably upgrade before
> the scheduled February release date, tho it'll probably be beta2 or rc1
> before I get to it.  I expect kde 4.4 to be what I'd call release
> candidate quality, the critical bugs gone and no show-stoppers, but still
> not quite there, and 4.5, in August, to finally hit what I'd call good
> release quality suitable for an ordinary user.  After that, it'll all be
> frosting on the cake, especially now that I have a decent video card and
> can enjoy it as it was designed to be enjoyed. =:^)

I recently performed a similar upgraded to an R700 card as well and it
was so worth it.  I run git releases of the major Xorg components &
once the R700 kms code went into the drm-next kernel I went for it.
Smoothest upgrade ever, I pretty much just dropped in the card &
rebooted.  I used to own an RV250 many many moons ago, it was probably
one of the best supported cards in its era with OSS drivers
(development funded by the Weather Channel IIRC).   Enjoy your new
hardware.

Wil



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64]  New video card, finally!)
  2009-12-10  1:31 [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally! Duncan
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2009-12-10  5:33 ` Wil Reichert
@ 2009-12-11 11:30 ` Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-11 13:01   ` [gentoo-amd64] [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-11 11:49 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Sebastian Beßler @ 2009-12-11 11:30 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Am 10.12.2009 02:31, schrieb Duncan:
> then a menuconfig and 
> changed my config around a bit, enabling KMS, etc.

I had recently done the same thing, but can't get KMS to work as it
can't load the needed firmware for my card.

My card is a ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3600 Series and the
error I get is:

platform radeon_cp.0: firmware: requesting radeon/RV635_pfp.bin
r600_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/RV635_pfp.bin"
[drm:r600_init] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!

The firmware is there

Shao ~ # slocate RV635
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_me.bin
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_me.bin.ihex
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_pfp.bin.ihex
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_pfp.bin
/lib64/firmware/radeon/RV635_me.bin
/lib64/firmware/radeon/RV635_pfp.bin

I can't find anything related to my problem reading the kernel
documentation (is there anything about KMS at all?) neither with google.

Greetings

Sebastian




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64]  New video card, finally!)
  2009-12-10  1:31 [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally! Duncan
                   ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2009-12-11 11:30 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler
@ 2009-12-11 11:49 ` Sebastian Beßler
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Sebastian Beßler @ 2009-12-11 11:49 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Am 10.12.2009 02:31, schrieb Duncan:
> then a menuconfig and 
> changed my config around a bit, enabling KMS, etc.

I had recently done the same thing, but can't get KMS to work as it
can't load the needed firmware for my card.

My card is a ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3600 Series and the
error I get is:

platform radeon_cp.0: firmware: requesting radeon/RV635_pfp.bin
r600_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/RV635_pfp.bin"
[drm:r600_init] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!

The firmware is there

Shao ~ # slocate RV635
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_me.bin
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_me.bin.ihex
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_pfp.bin.ihex
/usr/src/linux-2.6.32-gentoo/firmware/radeon/RV635_pfp.bin
/lib64/firmware/radeon/RV635_me.bin
/lib64/firmware/radeon/RV635_pfp.bin

I can't find anything related to my problem reading the kernel
documentation (is there anything about KMS at all?) neither with google.

Greetings

Sebastian




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-amd64] [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware
  2009-12-11 11:30 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler
@ 2009-12-11 13:01   ` Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-11 20:06     ` [gentoo-amd64] " Duncan
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Sebastian Beßler @ 2009-12-11 13:01 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Am 11.12.2009 12:30, schrieb Sebastian Beßler:

> platform radeon_cp.0: firmware: requesting radeon/RV635_pfp.bin
> r600_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/RV635_pfp.bin"
> [drm:r600_init] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!

Hi,

as a workaround for that problem I used the kernel option to build in
the needed firmware. Now it works like a charm. Working with the console
was never so much fun before ;-)

Greetings

Sebastian



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-amd64]  Re: [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware
  2009-12-11 13:01   ` [gentoo-amd64] [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware Sebastian Beßler
@ 2009-12-11 20:06     ` Duncan
  2009-12-11 22:46       ` Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-13  0:32       ` Sebastian Beßler
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Duncan @ 2009-12-11 20:06 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Sebastian Beßler posted on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:01:52 +0100 as excerpted:

> Am 11.12.2009 12:30, schrieb Sebastian Beßler:
> 
>> platform radeon_cp.0: firmware: requesting radeon/RV635_pfp.bin
>> r600_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/RV635_pfp.bin" [drm:r600_init]
>> *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
> 
> Hi,
> 
> as a workaround for that problem I used the kernel option to build in
> the needed firmware. Now it works like a charm. Working with the console
> was never so much fun before ;-)

You found the solution and posted it yourself before I could get to it! 
=:^)

I too had the problem, even tho the tg3 NIC I use has firmware to load as 
well (tho it can function without it).

The difference here tho, is that the framebuffer starts relatively early 
in the kernel boot process, before the kernel has detected hard drives, 
setup raid if it's configured (kernel auto-detect or fed in from the boot-
loader on the command-line), and loaded the rootfs.  I don't personally 
run an initramfs/initrd, so I can't say whether putting the radeon 
firmware there would work or not, but I know it will NOT work if it's 
configured to put the firmware in the usual place on / (/lib/firmware 
maybe?, IDR for sure), because it needs it before the disk is setup for 
access.

Thus, I too simply changed the couple kernel options necessary to have 
the firmware built-in, so it's there when it needs to load it, disks or 
no disks.

-- 
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




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-amd64]  Re: [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware
  2009-12-11 20:06     ` [gentoo-amd64] " Duncan
@ 2009-12-11 22:46       ` Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-12  1:12         ` Wil Reichert
  2009-12-13  0:32       ` Sebastian Beßler
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Sebastian Beßler @ 2009-12-11 22:46 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Am 11.12.2009 21:06, schrieb Duncan:
> 
> You found the solution and posted it yourself before I could get to
> it! =:^)

Most of the time it is for me:
Search and try to solve it alone for hours, give up, post here, search
and try again, find the solution.
It is like a curse ;-)

> I don't personally run an initramfs/initrd, so I can't say whether
> putting the radeon firmware there would work or not

I never used a initramfs/initrd before and do my best to never have to
use one. Mostly because it is to much work and I don't know how to build
one to beginn with.
But putting it in one should work, as far as I read.

Greetings

Sebastian



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware
  2009-12-11 22:46       ` Sebastian Beßler
@ 2009-12-12  1:12         ` Wil Reichert
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Wil Reichert @ 2009-12-12  1:12 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Sebastian Beßler
<sebastian@darkmetatron.de> wrote:
> Am 11.12.2009 21:06, schrieb Duncan:
>>
>> You found the solution and posted it yourself before I could get to
>> it! =:^)
>
> Most of the time it is for me:
> Search and try to solve it alone for hours, give up, post here, search
> and try again, find the solution.
> It is like a curse ;-)
>
>> I don't personally run an initramfs/initrd, so I can't say whether
>> putting the radeon firmware there would work or not
>
> I never used a initramfs/initrd before and do my best to never have to
> use one. Mostly because it is to much work and I don't know how to build
> one to beginn with.
> But putting it in one should work, as far as I read.

Setting the option FIRMWARE="yes" in genkernel.conf will automatically
copy the firmware from /lib/firmware to your initrd.  FWIW, creating
an initrd is as difficult as typing 'genkernel initramfs' and using
the correct grub parameters.  You don't even need a new one for every
kernel, depending on whats changed.

Wil



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-amd64]  Re: [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware
  2009-12-11 20:06     ` [gentoo-amd64] " Duncan
  2009-12-11 22:46       ` Sebastian Beßler
@ 2009-12-13  0:32       ` Sebastian Beßler
  2009-12-13  7:57         ` Duncan
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Sebastian Beßler @ 2009-12-13  0:32 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Hello,

I hope somebody could help me with a last problem I have regarding KMS.

With KMS the framebuffer uses the correct resolution (1440x900) but only
part of the screen is used. On the right and bottom side of the screen
is a thick white border.
The part of the screen that is used shows all contents so the problem is
annoying but no stopper.

With X there a no problems so far.

Greetings

Sebastian



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* [gentoo-amd64]  Re: [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware
  2009-12-13  0:32       ` Sebastian Beßler
@ 2009-12-13  7:57         ` Duncan
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Duncan @ 2009-12-13  7:57 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-amd64

Sebastian Beßler posted on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:32:59 +0100 as excerpted:

> I hope somebody could help me with a last problem I have regarding KMS.
> 
> With KMS the framebuffer uses the correct resolution (1440x900) but only
> part of the screen is used. On the right and bottom side of the screen
> is a thick white border.
> The part of the screen that is used shows all contents so the problem is
> annoying but no stopper.
> 
> With X there a no problems so far.

I /think/ I might have the answer, but I've never tried it without the 
other module since I knew I needed it, so I'm not sure whether the 
behavior you describe is what would result if it wasn't there or not, but 
it sounds like what I'd expect the problem to be, so I'll explain and you 
can check and see if I'm right, or not. =:^)

There are two separate kernel console interfaces, the traditional low 
resolution vgacon, and the higher resolution fbcon, that works with 
whatever framebuffer driver your hardware runs with (or the generic 
vesafb or vga16fb, if nothing else).

What the symptoms sound like to me is that you have KMS going, but only 
have vgacon turned on, so its limited resolution is going in the corner 
of the higher resolution KMS based framebuffer, because you don't have 
fbcon turned on.

FWIW, that's in kconfig under device drivers, graphics support, console 
display driver support.  You want both framebuffer console support (aka 
fbcon), and vga text console (aka vgacon), turned on, framebuffer for 
normal use, and vgacon as a backup, when things go wrong, or so if the 
card goes bad you can put whatever in and be up and running again at 
least with the lower vga resolution, even if the new card doesn't use the 
same kms driver and thus won't come up in kms/framebuffer mode.

If both of those are on, then it's something else, but that sure sounds 
to me like what I'd guess vgacon only, on a kms driven monitor, would 
look like, so that's what I'm guessing it is.

-- 
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




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2009-12-13  7:59 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2009-12-10  1:31 [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally! Duncan
     [not found] ` <b79f23070912091810x542871cena050d0879516447b@mail.gmail.com>
2009-12-10  2:10   ` James Ausmus
2009-12-10  2:23 ` Barry Schwartz
2009-12-10  5:33 ` Wil Reichert
2009-12-11 11:30 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler
2009-12-11 13:01   ` [gentoo-amd64] [SOLVED?] Re: KMS can't find firmware Sebastian Beßler
2009-12-11 20:06     ` [gentoo-amd64] " Duncan
2009-12-11 22:46       ` Sebastian Beßler
2009-12-12  1:12         ` Wil Reichert
2009-12-13  0:32       ` Sebastian Beßler
2009-12-13  7:57         ` Duncan
2009-12-11 11:49 ` KMS can't find firmware (Was: Re: [gentoo-amd64] New video card, finally!) Sebastian Beßler

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