[gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Hi,

I just installed Gentoo on an AMD64 Sempron machine. RAM is not a 
problem.. 1GB of it.

I just emerged xorg-x11. The graphics card is VIA Unichrome onboard. I 
have a perfectly fine working FC4 system. I used the FC4 xorg.conf file. 
First ran Xorg -configure. Kept all the paths from Gentoo and filled in 
stuff like mouse, keyboard, monitor and graphics card configuration from 
the FC4 file. I tested the file with X -config /root/xorg.config.fc4 and 
it worked fine. I then copied it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and gave startx. 
But twm refused to start. I could just a see a black screen with a black 
X mouse pointer in the middle. I moved it and it was lagging very badly. 
So I killed the X server and emerged fluxbox.

Fluxbox started fine. But when I tried to open xedit.. it went terribly 
slow.. Same thing with xcalc. People in #xorg on Freenode told me that I 
needed to look for via_drv.o module. I didn't find it. Xorg doesn't 
install it. vesa gives very bad performance as stated above. 
Interestingly, vesa is what FC4 uses and it runs absolutely fine!

What am I to do? I would appreciate any help anyone can offer!

Thank you,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Richard Fish]

On 11/10/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just installed Gentoo on an AMD64 Sempron machine. RAM is not a
> problem.. 1GB of it.
>
> I just emerged xorg-x11. The graphics card is VIA Unichrome onboard. I
> have a perfectly fine working FC4 system. I used the FC4 xorg.conf file.
> First ran Xorg -configure. Kept all the paths from Gentoo and filled in
> stuff like mouse, keyboard, monitor and graphics card configuration from
> the FC4 file. I tested the file with X -config /root/xorg.config.fc4 and
> it worked fine. I then copied it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and gave startx.
> But twm refused to start. I could just a see a black screen with a black
> X mouse pointer in the middle. I moved it and it was lagging very badly.
> So I killed the X server and emerged fluxbox.
>
> Fluxbox started fine. But when I tried to open xedit.. it went terribly
> slow.. Same thing with xcalc. People in #xorg on Freenode told me that I
> needed to look for via_drv.o module. I didn't find it. Xorg doesn't
> install it.

I don't use it, but it looks like I got a via_drv on my install of
xorg-x11.  Which version of xorg-x11, and what USE flags?

carcharias rjf # locate via_drv
/usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
/usr/src/linux-2.6.14/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.c
/usr/src/linux-2.6.14/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.h
/usr/src/linux-2.6.13-suspend2-r5/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.c
/usr/src/linux-2.6.13-suspend2-r5/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.h

carcharias rjf # equery belongs /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
[ Searching for file(s) /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o in *... ]
x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 (/usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o)
carcharias rjf # emerge -vp x11-base/xorg-x11

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6  -3dfx -3dnow +bitmap-fonts
-cjk -debug -dlloader -dmx +doc +font-server -insecure-drivers +ipv6
-minimal +mmx +nls -nocxx +opengl +pam -sdk +sse -static
+truetype-fonts +type1-fonts (-uclibc) -xprint +xv 0 kB

Total size of downloads: 0 kB

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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Richard Fish wrote:
> On 11/10/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>Hi,
>>
>>I just installed Gentoo on an AMD64 Sempron machine. RAM is not a
>>problem.. 1GB of it.
>>
>>I just emerged xorg-x11. The graphics card is VIA Unichrome onboard. I
>>have a perfectly fine working FC4 system. I used the FC4 xorg.conf file.
>>First ran Xorg -configure. Kept all the paths from Gentoo and filled in
>>stuff like mouse, keyboard, monitor and graphics card configuration from
>>the FC4 file. I tested the file with X -config /root/xorg.config.fc4 and
>>it worked fine. I then copied it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and gave startx.
>>But twm refused to start. I could just a see a black screen with a black
>>X mouse pointer in the middle. I moved it and it was lagging very badly.
>>So I killed the X server and emerged fluxbox.
>>
>>Fluxbox started fine. But when I tried to open xedit.. it went terribly
>>slow.. Same thing with xcalc. People in #xorg on Freenode told me that I
>>needed to look for via_drv.o module. I didn't find it. Xorg doesn't
>>install it.
> 
> 
> I don't use it, but it looks like I got a via_drv on my install of
> xorg-x11.  Which version of xorg-x11, and what USE flags?
> 
> carcharias rjf # locate via_drv
> /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
> /usr/src/linux-2.6.14/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.c
> /usr/src/linux-2.6.14/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.h
> /usr/src/linux-2.6.13-suspend2-r5/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.c
> /usr/src/linux-2.6.13-suspend2-r5/drivers/char/drm/via_drv.h
> 
> carcharias rjf # equery belongs /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
> [ Searching for file(s) /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o in *... ]
> x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 (/usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o)
> carcharias rjf # emerge -vp x11-base/xorg-x11
> 
> These are the packages that I would merge, in order:
> 
> Calculating dependencies ...done!
> [ebuild   R   ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6  -3dfx -3dnow +bitmap-fonts
> -cjk -debug -dlloader -dmx +doc +font-server -insecure-drivers +ipv6
> -minimal +mmx +nls -nocxx +opengl +pam -sdk +sse -static
> +truetype-fonts +type1-fonts (-uclibc) -xprint +xv 0 kB
> 
> Total size of downloads: 0 kB
> 


Hmmm. I am using the stable version. That's 6.8.2-r4. I'll try emerging 
r6. One thing.. my Sempron surely supports mmx and sse. I have both of 
those USE flags in my make.conf, but when emerging something, both those 
flags are in the () and are not used... why is that?

Thanks,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Richard Fish]

On 11/10/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmm. I am using the stable version. That's 6.8.2-r4. I'll try emerging
> r6.

Well, give it shot.  But looking at the ChangeLog, I don't see any
references to via driver changes in -r5 or -r6, so I wouldn't hold my
breath that you will see a difference just from the minor bump in the
ebuild version.

However, looking through the ebuild, it looks like the 'via' driver
will be disabled if you use the 'minimal' flag.  So make sure you
don't merge with that in any case!

> One thing.. my Sempron surely supports mmx and sse. I have both of
> those USE flags in my make.conf, but when emerging something, both those
> flags are in the () and are not used... why is that?

Flags in () are hard-masked by the profile.  In this case,
/usr/portage/profiles/linux-default/use.mask masks out mmx, mmx2, sse,
and others.  It is then up to the profile-specific mask to unmask them
if they will work there...and at present only the x86 profile does
this, so if you are using the amd64 profile, these flags are simply
disabled.

Ebuilds can still add the appropriate CFLAGS or configure options to
enable mmx/sse however.  The xorg-x11 ebuild does this for the amd64
profile.

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Richard Fish wrote:
> On 11/10/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>Hmmm. I am using the stable version. That's 6.8.2-r4. I'll try emerging
>>r6.
> 
> 
> Well, give it shot.  But looking at the ChangeLog, I don't see any
> references to via driver changes in -r5 or -r6, so I wouldn't hold my
> breath that you will see a difference just from the minor bump in the
> ebuild version.
> 
> However, looking through the ebuild, it looks like the 'via' driver
> will be disabled if you use the 'minimal' flag.  So make sure you
> don't merge with that in any case!
> 
> 
>>One thing.. my Sempron surely supports mmx and sse. I have both of
>>those USE flags in my make.conf, but when emerging something, both those
>>flags are in the () and are not used... why is that?
> 
> 
> Flags in () are hard-masked by the profile.  In this case,
> /usr/portage/profiles/linux-default/use.mask masks out mmx, mmx2, sse,
> and others.  It is then up to the profile-specific mask to unmask them
> if they will work there...and at present only the x86 profile does
> this, so if you are using the amd64 profile, these flags are simply
> disabled.
> 
> Ebuilds can still add the appropriate CFLAGS or configure options to
> enable mmx/sse however.  The xorg-x11 ebuild does this for the amd64
> profile.
> 
> -Richard
> 

Still no luck. I tried compiling VIA Unichrome suppport in the kernel, 
but the kernel version of via_drv.o doesn't move out of /usr/src. 
xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 doesn't compile via_drv.o and my X is performing very 
badly!

What I don't understand, is why it would work perfectly fine on FC4 and 
not on Gentoo with vesa driver!

Thanks,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Richard Fish]

On 11/11/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> Still no luck. I tried compiling VIA Unichrome suppport in the kernel,
> but the kernel version of via_drv.o doesn't move out of /usr/src.
> xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 doesn't compile via_drv.o and my X is performing very
> badly!

I think we have a failure to communicate here....

The via_drv I am talking about is an _x.org_ driver, not a kernel
driver.  It has nothing to do with the kernel sources or rebuilding
the kernel.  It should exist at /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
(along with all other X11 drivers).

I don't understand why you don't have this file.  The only case this
should be missing is if you have USE=minimal.  Could you please post
the output of "emerge -pv xorg-x11"?

Once you have this file, then you will need to update your xorg.conf
Device section and change the Driver option to "via".

The kernel has a DRM driver for via, that (if compiled as a module)
will be installed under /lib/modules as "via.ko".  To load that, you
will modify /etc/autoload.d/kernel-2.6 to add the line "via". 
However, again, this is only for DRI/DRM support, and will almost
certainly require using the X11 via driver, so let's worry about that
later!

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Richard Fish wrote:
> I think we have a failure to communicate here....

Actually no...

> The via_drv I am talking about is an _x.org_ driver, not a kernel
> driver.  It has nothing to do with the kernel sources or rebuilding
> the kernel.  It should exist at /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
> (along with all other X11 drivers).

I know! My xorg just doesn't want to compile that file! So what I tried 
was to enable the VIA drivers in the kernel. It then compiled both 
drm.ko and via.ko and also via_drv.o, but the via_drv.o never left the 
/usr/src directory.

> I don't understand why you don't have this file.  The only case this
> should be missing is if you have USE=minimal.  Could you please post
> the output of "emerge -pv xorg-x11"?

I surely didn't use the minimal flag. The first time I had enabled 
insecure-drivers and disabled font-server. Then after reading your first 
email, I tried to compile it with the same USE flags as yours.

> Once you have this file, then you will need to update your xorg.conf
> Device section and change the Driver option to "via".

Already tried that, but of course, no via_drv.o!

> The kernel has a DRM driver for via, that (if compiled as a module)
> will be installed under /lib/modules as "via.ko".  To load that, you
> will modify /etc/autoload.d/kernel-2.6 to add the line "via". 
> However, again, this is only for DRI/DRM support, and will almost
> certainly require using the X11 via driver, so let's worry about that
> later!
> 
> -Richard
> 

Well, the kernel modules have been loaded already...

I noticed one thing, the agpgart option in the kernel is always 
disabled... !x86_64 says the Help for that option. As it is, I have a 
PCI card...

I just can't understand why the file isn't compiled by xorg. Not to 
mention, FC4 uses "vesa" and works perfectly. I wonder what's going on 
with Gentoo :(

Thanks for your help so far,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Holly Bostick]

Mrugesh Karnik schreef:
> Richard Fish wrote:
> 
>> The via_drv I am talking about is an _x.org_ driver, not a kernel 
>> driver.  It has nothing to do with the kernel sources or rebuilding
>>  the kernel.  It should exist at /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o
>>  (along with all other X11 drivers).
> 
> I know! My xorg just doesn't want to compile that file! So what I
> tried was to enable the VIA drivers in the kernel. It then compiled
> both drm.ko and via.ko and also via_drv.o, but the via_drv.o never
> left the /usr/src directory.

Possibly because you don't have the 'insecure-drivers' USE flag enabled:

> On 11/10/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
 > carcharias rjf # equery belongs /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o [
> Searching for file(s) /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o in *... ] 
> x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6 (/usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o) 
> carcharias rjf # emerge -vp x11-base/xorg-x11
> 
> These are the packages that I would merge, in order:
> 
> Calculating dependencies ...done! [ebuild   R   ]
> x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r6  -3dfx -3dnow +bitmap-fonts -cjk -debug
> -dlloader -dmx +doc +font-server -insecure-drivers +ipv6 -minimal
> +mmx +nls -nocxx +opengl +pam -sdk +sse -static +truetype-fonts
> +type1-fonts (-uclibc) -xprint +xv 0 kB
> 

/usr/portage/profiles/use.local.desc:x11-base/xorg-x11:insecure-drivers
- Builds insecure DRI stuff for via, mach64 and savage

You might as well try it; you can't be much worse off.

> I just can't understand why the file isn't compiled by xorg. Not to 
> mention, FC4 uses "vesa" and works perfectly. I wonder what's going
> on with Gentoo :(
> 

Like most binary distros, the FC RPMs probably enable everything
'enableable'. I have no idea why the drivers are considered 'insecure',
but assuming they are (which would not surprise me), it's well within
the realm of possibility that they fall under the "you have to know what
you're doing and decide for yourself' section of the Gentoo design
philosopy (which is the major thrust of the Gentoo design philosopy, so
that doesn't surprise me either).

Why FC 4 would enable them and Gentoo would mark them as insecure....
well, heck-- FC4 uses GCC 4.0 *by default* as I understand it, and we
have it completely masked (and most other distros don't use it either,
afaik, certainly not by default yet). So since FC4 seems to want to live
even further out on the 'bleeding edge' than we are said to do, again,
I'm not surprised that the drivers would be enabled by default, no
matter their status in terms of security, completeness, or stability.

HTH,
Holly
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Holly Bostick wrote:

> Possibly because you don't have the 'insecure-drivers' USE flag enabled:

I had insecure-drivers enabled the first time I compiled xorg. I think I 
had disabled it in the subsequent compilations. I found an ebuild with 
VIA Unichrome USE flag and patches added; in the forums. I'll try that 
ebuild because it's been reported to have worked. I'll also make sure 
that I enable insecure-drivers this time! I'll know the results in about 
an hour and half... Hope it works.

> Like most binary distros, the FC RPMs probably enable everything
> 'enableable'. I have no idea why the drivers are considered 'insecure',
> but assuming they are (which would not surprise me), it's well within
> the realm of possibility that they fall under the "you have to know what
> you're doing and decide for yourself' section of the Gentoo design
> philosopy (which is the major thrust of the Gentoo design philosopy, so
> that doesn't surprise me either).
> 
> Why FC 4 would enable them and Gentoo would mark them as insecure....
> well, heck-- FC4 uses GCC 4.0 *by default* as I understand it, and we
> have it completely masked (and most other distros don't use it either,
> afaik, certainly not by default yet). So since FC4 seems to want to live
> even further out on the 'bleeding edge' than we are said to do, again,
> I'm not surprised that the drivers would be enabled by default, no
> matter their status in terms of security, completeness, or stability.
> 
> HTH,
> Holly

Hmmm. Well, I love my Gentoo. I can always use the bleeding edge stuff 
with ~ keywords (As you would already know of course ;))! Anyway, I 
think Mandriva 2006 also uses GCC 4 by default now. It also comes with 
xorg 6.8.9*. I read on xorg.freedesktop.org that the new xorg release 
includes updates from the VIA Unichrome project. I looked into portage 
and yaay! The VIA drivers package is there.. Only, its -amd64. I am on 
AMD64. I'm wondering what to do.

If all fails, I'll have to buy an NVIDIA AGP card I guess. I love Gentoo 
too much to remove it just because of this graphics card issue. (Wise 
choice spending money on an FX5200 just to have Gentoo running??? Well, 
I can always install UT and say to myself, YES! Wise choice indeed :P )

Regards,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Richard Fish]

On 11/12/05, Mrugesh Karnik <mrugeshkarnik@gmail.com> wrote:
> So what I tried
> was to enable the VIA drivers in the kernel. It then compiled both
> drm.ko and via.ko and also via_drv.o, but the via_drv.o never left the
> /usr/src directory.

Which is the exactly correct and expected behavior.

> > I don't understand why you don't have this file.  The only case this
> > should be missing is if you have USE=minimal.  Could you please post
> > the output of "emerge -pv xorg-x11"?
>
> I surely didn't use the minimal flag. The first time I had enabled
> insecure-drivers and disabled font-server. Then after reading your first
> email, I tried to compile it with the same USE flags as yours.

Ok, if I am reading the xorg configuration files correctly (which are
a bit complex...to say the least), it seems the via driver is disabled
by default when compiling for the AMD64 architecture.

> Not to
> mention, FC4 uses "vesa" and works perfectly. I wonder what's going on
> with Gentoo :(

Too many variables to answer that question...kernel versions, kernel
configuration, kernel patches, frame buffer options, xorg versions,
xorg patches, and so on.  You could try to eliminate some of those
variables by using the same kernel version & .config under both.

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Richard Fish wrote:
  > Too many variables to answer that question...kernel versions, kernel
> configuration, kernel patches, frame buffer options, xorg versions,
> xorg patches, and so on.  You could try to eliminate some of those
> variables by using the same kernel version & .config under both.

Ay! Great idea! I think I'll get the FC4 kernel sources and the .config 
file as well! Let's see how it goes!

Thanks again!
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Benno Schulenberg]

Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
> Well, the kernel modules have been loaded already...

Which ones precisely?  See the output of 'lsmod'.
Do an 'lsmod' on your FC4 too and compare.

> I noticed one thing, the agpgart option in the kernel is always
> disabled... !x86_64 says the Help for that option. As it is, I
> have a PCI card...  

What PCI card?  The Unichrome chip isn't a card.  And it does need 
AGP, via_agp for the 400 chips, amd64_agp for the 800 chips.  See 
the first line of 'lspci' for what chip you have.

> I just can't understand why the file isn't compiled by xorg. Not
> to mention, FC4 uses "vesa" and works perfectly.

Is the via driver present on your FC4?  And if so, have you tried 
using it there?  Maybe it simply doesn't work, by being unable to 
handle 64 bits?

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
> 
>>Well, the kernel modules have been loaded already...
> 
> 
> Which ones precisely?  See the output of 'lsmod'.
> Do an 'lsmod' on your FC4 too and compare.

That'd be drm and via

>>I noticed one thing, the agpgart option in the kernel is always
>>disabled... !x86_64 says the Help for that option. As it is, I
>>have a PCI card...  
> 
> 
> What PCI card?  The Unichrome chip isn't a card.  And it does need 
> AGP, via_agp for the 400 chips, amd64_agp for the 800 chips.  See 
> the first line of 'lspci' for what chip you have.

Hmmm. The first line of lspci is "Unknown Device"

00:00.0 Host Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown Device 0204

And this is my graphics card:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technology, Inc. S3 Unichrome Pro 
VGA Adapter (rev 01)

> Is the via driver present on your FC4?  And if so, have you tried 
> using it there?  Maybe it simply doesn't work, by being unable to 
> handle 64 bits?

Which drivers exactly? As it is, I'm having problems with 2D performance 
and am not really concerned about 3D performance. The drm and via 
modules loaded above are 3D related... Hmmm.

Thank you,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Benno Schulenberg]

Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
> Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > Which ones precisely?  See the output of 'lsmod'.
> > Do an 'lsmod' on your FC4 too and compare.
>
> That'd be drm and via

Could you post the output of 'lsmod' on your FC4?

> 00:00.0 Host Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown Device 0204

Hmm, interesting.  What motherboard is this?

> And this is my graphics card:

It's not a card; the chip is integrated on the motherboard.  Or 
isn't it?

> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technology, Inc. S3
> Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter (rev 01)

Okay, that's a 800 chip.  You need the amd64_agp module, not the 
via_agp one.  To see what you've configured, please post the output 
of 'egrep "AGP|DRM|VIA" /usr/src/linux/.config'.

> > Is the via driver present on your FC4?  And if so, have you
> > tried using it there?  Maybe it simply doesn't work, by being
> > unable to handle 64 bits?
>
> Which drivers exactly?

Hrm... read back in the thread: /usr/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.o.
(Or with an X11/ in the path.)  It's the Xorg 2D via driver.

> As it is, I'm having problems with 2D 
> performance and am not really concerned about 3D performance. The
> drm and via modules loaded above are 3D related...

You don't want the via driver for now, use the vesa one.  But you 
were complaining that Gentoo didn't have the Xorg via driver 
installed, that's why I asked if FC4 did.  I guess not, as probably 
it doesn't work for 64 bits, which is why FC4 uses the vesa driver.

To help a bit more: post the output of 'emerge --info'.

Benno
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[gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Well hi again,

It took longer than I expected to change the server. Anyway.

The VIA Unichrome situation turned out to be a no-go for me. I had to 
install an NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 on the machine and get X running.

I think this whole thread and me compiling various Xorg versions about 8 
or 9 times was a waste of time. Because as it turns out, fluxbox, even 
on the nvidia drivers took ages to open xcalc and such. The only 
difference was that, the mouse pointer moved properly with nvidia 
drivers when fluxbox was trying to open xcalc. With vesa, the pointer 
lagged like hell!

Something interesting did happen though. I had that "Unknown device" in 
my lspci output for both Gentoo and FC4 when I was on VIA Unichrome. Now 
after switching to nvidia, I can see a Host Bridge properly identified 
in its place. I wonder why that would be?

I still am confused about one thing though... which exactly is the 2D 
driver for VIA Unichrome?

I apologise to those who wasted their time reading this thread and 
replying in it.. but I found the problem worth investigating and I am 
still intrigued by it..

Regards and a sincere thanks,
Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[abhay]

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On Thursday 17 Nov 2005 10:55 pm, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
> I still am confused about one thing though... which exactly is the 2D
> driver for VIA Unichrome?
Could this be it?
http://unichrome.sourceforge.net/

Abhay

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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Benno Schulenberg]

Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
> Something interesting did happen though. I had that "Unknown
> device" in my lspci output for both Gentoo and FC4 when I was on
> VIA Unichrome. Now after switching to nvidia, I can see a Host
> Bridge properly identified in its place. I wonder why that would
> be?

Flaky hardware?  Timings too fast in the BIOS?

> I apologise to those who wasted their time reading this thread
> and replying in it.. but I found the problem worth investigating
> and I am still intrigued by it..

Kernel misconfigured?  When the vesa driver doesn't give acceptable 
performance, there is something wrong.  You might want to actually 
answer the questions I asked earlier.

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Benno Schulenberg wrote:

> Flaky hardware?  Timings too fast in the BIOS?

What timings? :S

> Kernel misconfigured?  When the vesa driver doesn't give acceptable 
> performance, there is something wrong.  You might want to actually 
> answer the questions I asked earlier.

I couldn't answer the questions back then due to a number of factors. 
Anyway, I still can't post the output of lsmod from my FC4 system, as I 
won't be able to boot into it for another couple of days atleast.

Here's something you asked for:

CONFIG_AGP=y
CONFIG_AGP_AMD64=y
# CONFIG_AGP_INTEL is not set

CONFIG_DRM=m
# CONFIG_DRM_TDFX is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_R128 is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_RADEON is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_MGA is not set
# CONFIG_DRM_SIS is not set
CONFIG_DRM_VIA=m

CONFIG_BLK_DEV_VIA82CXXX=y
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_VIA=y
CONFIG_VIA_RHINE=y
CONFIG_VIA_RHINE_MMIO=y
CONFIG_VIA_VELOCITY=y
CONFIG_DRM_VIA=m
CONFIG_I2C_VIA=m
CONFIG_I2C_VIAPRO=m
CONFIG_SENSORS_VIA686A=m


Here's emerge --info:

Portage 2.0.51.22-r3 (default-linux/amd64/2005.1, gcc-3.4.4, 
glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 x86_64 AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 2500+
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13
ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5, 2.4.2
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.12
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r6
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.15.92.0.2-r10
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.20
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=k8 -pipe -O2"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env 
/usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config 
/usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=k8 -pipe -O2"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks nostrip sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org 
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
LC_ALL="en_GB.UTF-8"
LINGUAS="en_GB"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="amd64 X a52 aac acl acpi alsa apache2 arts audiofile avi 
bash-completion bcmath berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth bzip2 cdparanoia 
cdr crypt curl dbug dbus dio directfb dri dvd dvdr dvdread emboss 
emul-linux-x86 encode esd exif expat fam fbcon ffmpeg flac foomaticdb 
fortran ftp gd gif gpm gstreamer gtk2 hal idn imap imlib ipv6 jabber 
jack jack-tmpfs javascript jpeg kde kerberos krb4 lcms ldap libwww 
lm_sensors lzw lzw-tiff mad maildir mailwrapper mbox mhash mime mng mp3 
mpeg msn musepack mysql ncurses nis nls nptl nptlonly offensive ogg 
opengl pam pcre pdflib perl php png portaudio posix python qt quicktime 
readline real samba sdl sndfile snmp spell ssl svg sysvipc tcpd tiff 
till timidity truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unichrome unicode 
usb userlocales vcd verbose vorbis xine xml xml2 xpm xsl xslt xv xvid 
yahoo zlib video_cards_via linguas_en_GB userland_GNU kernel_linux 
elibc_glibc"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LDFLAGS

Anything else you'd like to know?

Mrugesh
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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Benno Schulenberg]

Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
> Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > Flaky hardware?  Timings too fast in the BIOS?
>
> What timings? :S

Well, somewhere deep in the BIOS peripheral settings, there are 
things like "Enable AGP Fast Write" or similar.  Set all those 
things to Off or Disabled.  You wil want stability first, speed 
maybe later.  It probably won't make a difference, but it at least 
excludes one possible source of problems.

> System uname: 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 x86_64 AMD Sempron(tm) Processor
> 2500+

You've said you have an MSI K8M800 motherboard.  Looking at 
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_list.asp?class=mb&cpu=3, such 
boards only support "Sempron 2600+, 2800+, 3000+, 3100+, 3300+", 
not a 2500+.  This may not be a problem, but then again, it might 
not be listed for a reason.

> real samba sdl sndfile snmp spell ssl svg sysvipc tcpd tiff till

No "sse" USE flag?  You could try adding it and re-emerging Xorg.

> Anything else you'd like to know?

To confirm your exact CPU, 'cat /proc/cpuinfo'.
An 'lsmod' on this system under Gentoo.
An 'emerge -pv xorg-x11'.
A 'cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf'.
And 'grep "^(--\|^(WW\|^(EE" /var/log/Xorg.0.log'.

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Benno Schulenberg wrote:

> Well, somewhere deep in the BIOS peripheral settings, there are 
> things like "Enable AGP Fast Write" or similar.  Set all those 
> things to Off or Disabled.  You wil want stability first, speed 
> maybe later.  It probably won't make a difference, but it at least 
> excludes one possible source of problems.

Yeah, those were all disabled when I was running Unichrome. I've turned 
them all on for NVIDIA though. No stability problems.

> You've said you have an MSI K8M800 motherboard.  Looking at 
> http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_list.asp?class=mb&cpu=3, such 
> boards only support "Sempron 2600+, 2800+, 3000+, 3100+, 3300+", 
> not a 2500+.  This may not be a problem, but then again, it might 
> not be listed for a reason.

Hmmmm. Well I checked the motherboard manual when I bought this computer 
and it says "Supports AMD K8 64 bit processors (Socket 754).

> No "sse" USE flag?  You could try adding it and re-emerging Xorg.

Well, 3dnow, mmx and sse are all masked in the amd64 profile anyway...

> To confirm your exact CPU, 'cat /proc/cpuinfo'.

It is an AMD Sempron 2500+

> An 'lsmod' on this system under Gentoo.

Module                  Size  Used by
w83627hf               34984  0
eeprom                  8784  0
i2c_sensor              3840  2 w83627hf,eeprom
i2c_isa                 2816  0
snd_seq_oss            36608  0
snd_seq_midi_event      8320  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                56896  4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            55712  0
snd_mixer_oss          18880  1 snd_pcm_oss
ohci_hcd               21316  0
snd_via82xx            29312  4
snd_ac97_codec         91352  1 snd_via82xx
snd_pcm                97420  5 snd_pcm_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              25544  3 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         11144  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart         8320  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            28448  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device         10064  3 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd                    60200  16 
snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
i2c_viapro              9300  0
i2c_core               23704  5 
w83627hf,eeprom,i2c_sensor,i2c_isa,i2c_viapro
ehci_hcd               31944  0
uhci_hcd               33568  0
8139too                28800  0
nvidia               4055676  12

This is the current one. Back with Unichrome, I had via and drm loaded 
in place of nvidia.

Nothing fancy in there I guess.

> An 'emerge -pv xorg-x11'.

[ebuild   R   ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r4  (-3dfx) (-3dnow) 
+bitmap-fonts -cjk -debug -dlloader -dmx -doc -font-server 
-insecure-drivers +ipv6 -minimal (-mmx) +nls -nocxx +opengl +pam -sdk 
(-sse) -static +truetype-fonts +type1-fonts (-uclibc) -xprint +xv 0 kB 


> A 'cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf'.

This is errr one of the xorg.conf files used of Unichrome. The other one 
had dri disabled, that's all...

Section "ServerLayout"
         Identifier     "X.org Configured"
         Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
         InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
         InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
         RgbPath      "/usr/lib64/X11/rgb"
         ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/modules"
         FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc/"
         FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/"
         FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/"
         FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/CID/"
         FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/"
         FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
         Load  "xtrap"
         Load  "dbe"
         Load  "glx"
         Load  "dri"
         Load  "extmod"
         Load  "record"
         Load  "type1"
         Load  "freetype"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier  "Keyboard0"
         Driver      "kbd"
         Option      "XkbModel" "pc105"
         Option      "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier  "Mouse0"
         Driver      "mouse"
         Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
         Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
         Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
         # Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
         Identifier   "Monitor0"
         VendorName   "LG Electronics"
         ModelName    "StudioWorks 700i"
         HorizSync    30 - 70
         VertRefresh  50 - 160
         Option       "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
         ### Available Driver options are:-
         ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
         ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
         ### [arg]: arg optional
         #Option     "ShadowFB"                  # [<bool>]
         #Option     "VGAClocks"                 # [<bool>]
         #Option     "KGAUniversal"              # [<bool>]
         Identifier  "Videocard0"
         Driver      "via"
         VendorName  "VIA Technologies, Inc."
         BoardName   "S3 Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter (rev 01)"
         BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
         Option      "ForcePCIMode" "True"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
         Identifier "Screen0"
         Device     "Videocard0"
         Monitor    "Monitor0"
         DefaultDepth 24
         SubSection "Display"
                 Viewport   0 0
                 Depth     16
                 Modes     "800x600" "640x480"
         EndSubSection
         SubSection "Display"
                 Viewport   0 0
                 Depth     24
                 Modes     "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" 
"640x480"
         EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
         Group      0
         Mode       0666
EndSection


> And 'grep "^(--\|^(WW\|^(EE" /var/log/Xorg.0.log'.

Well, I can't get you those results for Unichrome on this Gentoo 
machine. It's all NVIDIA in there now, even in the FC4 logs...

> Benno

Mrugesh
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Re: [gentoo-user] Xorg.. twm not starting and terrible performance with fluxbox

[Mrugesh Karnik]

Benno Schulenberg wrote:

> You've said you have an MSI K8M800 motherboard.  Looking at 
> http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_list.asp?class=mb&cpu=3, such 
> boards only support "Sempron 2600+, 2800+, 3000+, 3100+, 3300+", 
> not a 2500+.  This may not be a problem, but then again, it might 
> not be listed for a reason.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=647

That's the motherboard actually. K8M800-CE is the chipset name from VIA.

Mrugesh
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