[SOLVED] Xorg / xf86-video-radeon (X1300 mobility)

man_jose · Last edited by man_jose on Sat Jan 02, 2010 4:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

Good afternoon,
I have spent several days trying to resolve my issues with my graphic card. Everything started when ATI/AMD decide to stop supporting my card under linux from their catalyst driver. This will drive my future buying decision without hesitation (in the same manner I won't never buy/recommend a Canon scanner after suffering the 4200F mistake).

After updating the kernel, I had to move to Mesa drivers (impressive work what they are doing with Gallium, by the way). I tried to update to the latest version (my video performance wasn't good enough): Mesa 6.6.1 didn't work. The same happenned with Mesa 7.7. Finally I moved to layman and I am trying Mesa-9999 and a few others -9999 (yes I know this is not the best approach, but here I am).

The problem
1. When I execute "startx", it tries to start X (everything goes black) and it immediately returns to the console without any error messages. It exits with the message: "waiting for X server to shut down".
2. When I execute just "X", it starts X (everything goes black) and it keeps on being like that. It is not frozen (I can switch to other terminals using CTRL+ALT+Fn). I have to press CTRL+ALT+BCKSPC to stop that status. Now it doesn't shows the message "waiting for X server to shut down".
3. Finally, if I execute "X" and I press the Power button on my laptop while the screen is black, the cross representing the mouse position appears and I can even move it in the black screen of death until everything gets shut down.

I have tried with my prior xorg.conf, with a xorg.conf created using "X -configure" and without xorg.conf. The file /var/log/Xorg.0.conf doesn't show any errors. In fact it looks pretty good. I am using XFree DRI in the kernel, the latest DRM, kernel 2.6.32-r1 and KMS.

Any suggestion about what could I try?

Regards,
José M.
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Jose Maria Garcia Perez

man_jose · Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 7:51 pm Post subject: Detailing more info

Some details:
1. I boot with the line:

DaggyStyle · Watchman Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5941

it seems that you problem might be caused by wrong input configuration in xorg.conf, from the log I'm deducing that you are using xserver with hal flag but defining the input via xorg and not hal, first, migrate to the hal method or diable hal (see the sticky) then if it isn't working, try to disable kms.
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Vorlon · Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:07 pm Post subject:

I have had all kinds of problems with ATI cards, especially with on-board cards. I've also had the "black screen" problem, but was never able to solve it. This has happened on 2 recent motherboards with fairly recent radeon chips.

My solution was to give up and buy an nVidia-based card and use the binary driver. I would much prefer to use the open source ATI systems, but they just didn't work for me in my last 2 new computers.
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EzInKy · Veteran Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 1742 Location: Kentucky

This may be a weird question, but did you install a window manager?
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Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

Vorlon · Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:24 pm Post subject:

Yes, usually KDE, but I always start slowly and install X first. Once I know X is working, I proceed with KDE (or sometimes LXDE or XFCE)
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The NerdWorld Organisation

EzInKy · Veteran Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 1742 Location: Kentucky

The reason I asked is I saw a couple of posts that said that X no longer came with a default window manager.
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Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

pilla · Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:56 pm Post subject:

I have the same chipset in my Thinkpad T60 and kernel modesetting does not work. I recommend that you disable it. You may want to disable the framebuffer too, as Xorg sometimes dislikes it.
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"I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." -- Calvin

man_jose · Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 4:08 pm Post subject: Long life to Gentoo

Right now the issue looks SOLVED and this is the reason why I keep on trusting on Gentoo.

Which was the problem
People use Gentoo for different reasons. In my case, I liked Gentoo because it avoids the need for a reinstall each year to be able to keep up with things like Gnome or KDE (my former distributions always complaint about missing libraries after a year or so). My installation is now about 3-4yo (I was completely new to Gentoo). Besides, I don't do this for a living, so my knowledge about Gentoo is not that big.

As a result, I have used the same computer for many stuff: sci, www, games, ... in different phases of my life. I have screw it up a few times, always being able to resolve the situation.

So my installation is mix of stable/not stable packages and probably, if some of the veterans analyze it would think... "Oh my God!"

Solution
I did (I would better say I'm doing) an emerge world:

pilla · Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:36 am Post subject:

A quick question, have you disabled kernel modesetting?
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"I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." -- Calvin