Re: [gentoo-user] Re: xorg-server-1.5 update/old kernel+old fglrx

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 12:46 AM, Neil Bothwick<neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:42:11 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
<SNIP>
>
>> A different short-term solution might be to find another old junker
>> machine that is supported, building it out of junker parts. This would
>> be good if I had any certainty that when the work was completed
>> portage wouldn't immediately create the same havok.
>
> Your real problem is that you are using outdated and unsupported
> hardware. Not unsupported by Gentoo but unsupported by ATI. Incidentally,
> have you filed a bug report about this, if the only available driver for
> your hardware has been removed from portage, you should post a bug asking
> it to be reinstated.
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> "I laugh in the face of danger, then I hide until it goes away"
>

Unfortunately for me:

1) It absolutely isn't that the hardware is unsupported, it's that a
*feature* of the hardware (TV Out S-Video) became unsupported. The
machine works (AFAIK) with Gentoo. It boots, it probably runs X just
fine using the VGA output. It's that the S-Video output feature (TV
Out) has become unsupported by ati-driver. Who would have ever guessed
when you purchased a machine that uses and ATI chipset with a built-in
ATI graphics controller that it would be ATI that chose to obsolete
it? Amazing...

2) Following your Bugzilla suggestion about asking that it be put back
into portage to it's logical conclusion and it gets scary. Here's the
paraphrased request:

a) I need ati-driver-8.28.8 put back into portage because it's the
last driver that supports TV out for the 9100 IGP chipset.
b) Unfortunately I need 2.6.19 added back into portage because it's
the last kernel that ati-driver-8.28.8 runs on.
c) Because all this old stuff doesn't work on the new xorg-server I
need xorg-server-1.1.1 to remain in portage.

Multiply this sort of requirement up by whatever additional packages
are required to get the stuff above actually working and it looks
unlikely, 'eh? Granted, I don't need the kernel because I can just get
that and manage it myself. (I.e. - I don't need gentoo-sources)

I really think this is what a personal overlay is for, but as I've
said for years, it's hard to build an overlay when you don't know what
needs to be in it until it's been removed. And yes, *something* has
removed these files, at least from my distfiles directory and I'm
pretty confident it wasn't me by hand because the machines all have
disk space which is the only reason I ever remove packages from there
by hand. There are still things lurking around in /var/db/pkgs or
whatever it's called so maybe I can learn how to create a personal
overlay form what's left and then go look elsewhere for other things
required.

Anyway, thanks for the inputs. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next
other than take some time and figure things out.

As always I appreciate your help.

Cheers,
Mark