Re: [gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Helmut Jarausch <jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de>]

Hi Paul,

it turned out there is a bug in the linux kernel up to and including
2.6.36 concerning
drivers/gpu/drm/radeon
when it comes to all graphics chips like RV350.

Does anybody know about a patch for gentoo-sources-2.6.36 ?

Many thanks for a hint,
Helmut.


On 10/22/10 17:04:24, Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Helmut Jarausch
> <jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop
> running
> > OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are 
> experts
> > here.
> >
> > This old laptop has a
> > radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.
> >
> > There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.
> >
> > Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
> > the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s but
> for
> > my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).
> >
> > Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
> > radeon.modeset=0
> > glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
> > BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
> > now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
> > it.
> >
> > Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.
> >
> > (The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver
> > supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)
> >
> > Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
> > Helmut.
> 
> I have a very similar card in my Gentoo laptop (Mobility Radeon 9700,
> I think maybe it's the same as 9600 but clocked higher). I tried KMS
> radeon driver but had some issues, maybe it was user-error but when I
> disabled KMS everything went back to normal.
> 
> Otherwise if you want to stick with KMS all I can think of is to try
> different AccelMethod settings in your xorg.conf to see if you get
> better performance from one of them. I think maybe you need to 
> disable
> console framebuffer as well, in case you're using one.
> 
> 
>