[gentoo-user] XV locks up X server after recent update

[gentoo-user] XV locks up X server after recent update

[Grant Edwards]

After an update a coule days ago, any attempt to use the XV
extension (xine, mplayer, etc.) locks up the X server hard
(100% CPU usage).  Until the update a couple days ago XV had
worked with no problems for about 14 months on this machine.

I've rolled xorg-server back to 1.1.1-r1, but that didn't seem
to help.  Neither the ati-drivers version nor kernel has changed.

Any ideas what else the update might have broken that I should
try to undo?

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Yow! I'm imagining
                                  at               a surfer van filled with
                               visi.com            soy sauce!

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: XV locks up X server after recent update

[Hamie]

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On Tuesday 20 February 2007 17:36, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2007-02-20, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> > Neither the ati-drivers version nor kernel has changed.
>
> Bzzt, wrong!
>
> The ati-drivers package was updated from 8.27.10-r1 to 8.32.5.
> Rolling it back to 8.27.10-r1 made xv work again.  The lock up
> occurred with xorg-xserver versions 1.1.1-r1, 1.1.1-r4,
> 1.2.0-r1.  ati-drivers 8.33.6-r1 also locked up.
>

Hmm... My ati-drivers actually crashes the XServer completely. And (Usually) 
restarts (Sometimes kdm just gives up as well).

I did attempt to raise a support request about it... And got an email back 
from ATI/AMD saying I shuld be thankful for what they've given me & not to 
bother them about it... Not sure why they even bother to solicit feedback 
myself...

H

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[gentoo-user] Re: XV locks up X server after recent update

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-02-21, Hamie <hamish@travellingkiwi.com> wrote:

>> The ati-drivers package was updated from 8.27.10-r1 to 8.32.5.
>> Rolling it back to 8.27.10-r1 made xv work again.  The lock up
>> occurred with xorg-xserver versions 1.1.1-r1, 1.1.1-r4,
>> 1.2.0-r1.  ati-drivers 8.33.6-r1 also locked up.

On my list of things to do is check to see if 8.28.8 with the
2.6.19 patch works...

> Hmm... My ati-drivers actually crashes the XServer completely.
> And (Usually) restarts (Sometimes kdm just gives up as well).
>
> I did attempt to raise a support request about it... And got
> an email back from ATI/AMD saying I shuld be thankful for what
> they've given me & not to bother them about it...

I was bying ATI cards because the open-source driver supported
DRI (it was a bit flakey, but it mostly "just worked"). But,
that ended with the 92xx series.  My experience (and the
general consensus, AFAICT) is that the NVidia closed-source
drivers are far less problematic than the ATI ones.

I've got a 3 year old ATI card that ATI doesn't support at all
anymore with Linux drivers.  I've got a 6 year old NVidia card
that still works perfectly and all I had to do is "emerge
nvidia-drivers"

So I think NVidia is the way to go in general.

[The problem is that you don't get much of a choice with
laptops.  My IBM ThinkPad was too good a deal to pass up even
though it came with an ATI M300.]

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I always wanted a
                                  at               NOSE JOB!!
                               visi.com            

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: XV locks up X server after recent update

[Hamie]

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On Wednesday 21 February 2007 17:37, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2007-02-21, Hamie <hamish@travellingkiwi.com> wrote:
> >> The ati-drivers package was updated from 8.27.10-r1 to 8.32.5.
> >> Rolling it back to 8.27.10-r1 made xv work again.  The lock up
> >> occurred with xorg-xserver versions 1.1.1-r1, 1.1.1-r4,
> >> 1.2.0-r1.  ati-drivers 8.33.6-r1 also locked up.
>
> On my list of things to do is check to see if 8.28.8 with the
> 2.6.19 patch works...
>
> > Hmm... My ati-drivers actually crashes the XServer completely.
> > And (Usually) restarts (Sometimes kdm just gives up as well).
> >
> > I did attempt to raise a support request about it... And got
> > an email back from ATI/AMD saying I shuld be thankful for what
> > they've given me & not to bother them about it...
>
> I was bying ATI cards because the open-source driver supported
> DRI (it was a bit flakey, but it mostly "just worked"). But,
> that ended with the 92xx series.  My experience (and the
> general consensus, AFAICT) is that the NVidia closed-source
> drivers are far less problematic than the ATI ones.
>
> I've got a 3 year old ATI card that ATI doesn't support at all
> anymore with Linux drivers.  I've got a 6 year old NVidia card
> that still works perfectly and all I had to do is "emerge
> nvidia-drivers"
>
> So I think NVidia is the way to go in general.
>
> [The problem is that you don't get much of a choice with
> laptops.  My IBM ThinkPad was too good a deal to pass up even
> though it came with an ATI M300.]
>

If you have anything up to X600 (Maybe even X700) graphics (basically 9600 on 
PCIe) then the open source drivers should work fine... Mine is an X1400 
sadly, so I don't even get LCD native resolution without the damned ATI 
drivers (Because it's flakey as hell with their DRI, and suspend to RAM 
doesn't work... Still... So why even bother).


Hamish.

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[gentoo-user] Re: XV locks up X server after recent update

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-02-23, Hamie <hamish@travellingkiwi.com> wrote:

>> I was bying ATI cards because the open-source driver supported
>> DRI (it was a bit flakey, but it mostly "just worked"). But,
>> that ended with the 92xx series.  My experience (and the
>> general consensus, AFAICT) is that the NVidia closed-source
>> drivers are far less problematic than the ATI ones.
>>
>> I've got a 3 year old ATI card that ATI doesn't support at all
>> anymore with Linux drivers.  I've got a 6 year old NVidia card
>> that still works perfectly and all I had to do is "emerge
>> nvidia-drivers"
>>
>> So I think NVidia is the way to go in general.
>>
>> [The problem is that you don't get much of a choice with
>> laptops.  My IBM ThinkPad was too good a deal to pass up even
>> though it came with an ATI M300.]
>>
>
> If you have anything up to X600 (Maybe even X700) graphics
> (basically 9600 on PCIe) then the open source drivers should
> work fine...

I know the OS driver is supposed to work -- and it did work for
a while -- at leastit worked in in a manner: the frame rates
weren't very good and there were a lot of noticable rendering
glitches.

Then one day after an "emerge update", the open source
driver no longer worked: any time an OpenGL program ran, the X
server crashed.  I futzed around with the open-source DRI
driver for a while, but was unable to get it to work again --
so I gave up and switched to ATI's driver (which ATI has now
abandonded).

Once I get the ATI drivers to work, they seem to work well (at
least for me) with much higher frames rates than the
open-source driver and no noticable rendering problems.

> Mine is an X1400 sadly, so I don't even get LCD native
> resolution without the damned ATI drivers (Because it's flakey
> as hell with their DRI, and suspend to RAM doesn't work...
> Still... So why even bother).

Next time I'm picking NVidia if I can...

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I want to kill
                                  at               everyone here with a cute
                               visi.com            colorful Hydrogen Bomb!!

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