Video Driver Questions (kernel/xorg)

FastTurtle

I'm using the radeon module (after installing the linux-firmware) and was wondering if it's worth including the vesa driver support for xorg (VIDEO_CARDS="radeon vesa").

Is it worth it to include the radeon and vesa entries if the video driver is built into the kernel?

I understand the benefit of the module in replacing/updating but I'm seriously interested in whether there's any benefit if the vid driver crashes and takes the kernel down and when it does, the only recourse is to power cycle to fix it.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 6:41 pm Post subject:

FastTurtle,

Only half of the radeon video driver is built into the kernel. The other part is provided by xf86-video-ati.
Xorg will prefer radeon over vesa for your hardware, as its faster and provides both 2D and 3D acceleration.

If you want to use the vesa driver when you have them both available, you will have to write a small xorg.conf to say so.
Switching drivers then becomes exit xorg.conf and restart Xorg.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

FastTurtle · Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 10:07 pm Post subject:

I figured that out since the vesa driver wasn't loading if the radeon was available - means the only way to do what I want is to build it in.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 10:15 pm Post subject:

FastTurtle,

What do you mean by build it in?

If you mean the vesa frambuffer driver in the kernel, that will break the radeon driver.
KMS depends on all framebuffer drivers being configured off.

The concept of built in does not apply to xf86-video-vesa. Its a piece of Xorg, unrelated to anything in the kernel.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.