install failure (regression) with ProSavageDDR graphics chipset

[Norbert Bollow]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

On my desktop PC, installing from the Hardy Beta iso fails unless "safe graphics mode" is chosen (which results in an install that uses a low graphics resolution). Ehat happens when trying to install in normal mode is not always the same. Sometimes I get an X-based dialog saying "Ubunto is running in low-graphics mode / Your screen and graphics card could not be detected correctly...", I have then clicked on "continue", and the screen went black; I haven't been able to retrieve and useful logfile data in that case. However sometimes starting X failed completely and I arrived in console text mode, logged in as user "ubuntu". I'm attaching /var/log/Xorg.0.log from that situation as well as the output of lspci -vvnn and dmesg.

By contrast, installing from the Gutsy iso works ok, I'm attaching the corresponding files from a fresh gusty install for comparison.

Also, I'm attaching Xorg.0.log and dmesg from the "safe graphics mode" installation (which seems to work apart from using an unacceptably low screen resolution).
[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M266 Host Bridge [1106:3148]
     Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. Unknown device [1106:0000]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266] [5333:8d04] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
     Subsystem: S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266] [5333:8d04]

[Norbert Bollow (nb-bollow)]

Xorg.0.log from gutsy

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Sounds like an X problem rather than an installer problem, unless I'm misunderstanding the report.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

The driver seems to be buggy. The monitor does not provide any DDC information, and then the driver uses these values by default:

(II) SAVAGE(0): Configured Monitor: Using hsync value of 0.00 kHz
(II) SAVAGE(0): Configured Monitor: Using vrefresh value of 0.00 Hz

which, obviously, is going to fail..

[Norbert Bollow (nb-bollow)]

Maybe in the case that no useful hsync and vrefresh info can be obtained from the monitor (in my case, a Highscreen MS 2195P), the installation system should ask the user to make a selection from a list?

[Norbert Bollow (nb-bollow)]

What happens in gutsy's install process is that during xserver-xorg postinst, MONITOR_IDENTIFIER is set to "Generic Monitor", for which (somewhat reasonable) hsync and vrefresh values are then obtained from the monitors database.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I am having a similar problem with a gBox system with a S3 ProSavageDDR display chip and VIA chipset on the motherboard.

I have Ubuntu 8.04.1 installed.

Here's some lspci info:

# lscpi
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266]

# lspci -n
01:00.0 0300: 5333:8d04

In my case, the display chip worked fine with a generic tube monitor, then I was given a Samsung SyncMaster 570S TFT flatscreen monitor. Initially, after that monitor was attached, it displayed a 'display mode not supported' message.
(Also I initially had a similar problem with Windows XP - this is a dual boot system - but that was fixed after a bit of fiddling - it worked fine in 1024x768 mode)

Ultimately I was able to get the display to work in 800x600 mode, but not in higher resolutions under 8.04.1.

I'll attach the xorg.conf file that finally worked - it's pretty generic.

Also I tried running knoppix and Mandriva live CDs. These both did work, but with different selections of display drivers. I'll attach the xorg.conf files for all 3 cases. Note that both Knoppix and Mandriva were able to run the display at 1024x768, but one chose 60 Hz and the other chose 76 Hz. I believe the preferred refresh rate for this display is 75 Hz.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

Also I was able to run successfully at 1024x768 using a Gentoo live CD, version 1.6.14. I have attached the xorg.conf file from that.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I just submitted another bug (# 255561) regarding a similar problem with the same Samsung monitor on another system (Dell PowerEdge 400SC), where Ubuntu fails to set up xorg.conf properly, but Knoppix does.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I have attached Xorg.0.log for the system *I* have been reporting on in this bug report.

It shows the reason the system rejected the 1024x768 screen mode - "(II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "1024x768" (width too large for virtual size)"

This is the same reason shown in the log for my system in Bug #255561 - regarding the same problem, with the same monitor, on a Dell PowerEdge 400SC. So that bug is actually identical with my additions to this bug.

Peter

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

In my case, the issue is the Samsung SyncMaster 570S TFT monitor not being recognized by automatic configuration. The workaround I used was to boot a 7.04 live CD, save the xorg.conf file generated by that, and then to copy that to /etc/X11 after rebooting to 8.04.1. After that I reboot to make the new xorg.conf effective.

See bugs: #212510, #255561, #254708.

The original bug reported by Norbert Bollow might be fixed by this workaround. The similarity with my problem is that the software doesn't recognize the monitor, and ends up using a default low resolution.

Hopefully the proposed fixes for #255561 may fix the original problem.

Otherwise, a manual configuration might solve that problem (as was suggested above).

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

This bug is NOT fixed with Intrepid 8.10 for my gBox computer with a S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266] display controller, connected to a Samsung SyncMaster 570S TFT display. (see above).

I downloaded the 8.10 desktop ISO, and booted that on this system as a live CD. The system was unable to determine the controller and display type, and defaulted to low-resolution mode. I did not proceed further, but will try again by copying the xorg.conf file generated by running 7.04 as a live CD into the 8.10 /etc/X11 on ramdisk (this worked for 8.04 in a full install).

I have not tried booting on the other system I have connected to the Samsung display, as yet.

I'll report further progress under bug #212510.

[Norbert Bollow (nb-bollow)]

I can confirm that the bug is NOT fixed in Intrepid 8.10 for me either.

[jacobS (jacsalomon)]

More of this bug, but unfortunately the developer do not have a idea that the issue.

[jacobS (jacsalomon)]

My attention in the lines:

II) Loading sub module "ddc"
(II) LoadModule: "ddc"
(II) Module "ddc" already built-in
(--) SAVAGE(0): No DDC signal

[jacobS (jacsalomon)]

And my Xsesion error

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Norbert, can you please try the savage driver 2.2.1+git20081230.aea0496f-0ubuntu0tormod3 in my PPA https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive for Jaunty?

It is best if you boot the Jaunty alpha 3 live CD with the "text" kernel (boot) parameter, then install the package:
Mount your hard drive or USB stick containing the driver deb package with "sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt" (replace sda1 with the name of the right partition) and install the driver with "sudo dpkg -i /mnt/home/me/Desktop/xserver-xorg-video-savage*" or whatever is the right path to the deb package.

Then run X with "sudo Xorg -probeonly" (it will end after a few seconds) and copy the /var/log/Xorg.0.log to your drive again. Then you can try "startx" and see if everything works, if so, copy the new log instead.

[Norbert Bollow (nb-bollow)]

Ok, done.

Well, I didn't try installing your package on the live CD system (I'd be surprised if that's possible), but I made a jaunty alpha 3 install on a disk partition that has no valuable data. I had to use the "alternate" install CD for this: Installation with the "desktop" CD totally fails without "safe graphics mode" (the CD boots to a shell prompt, without any indication of how to start an installation) and crashes even in "safe graphics mode", probably due to an xserver bug, as follows: The installation appears to proceed ok until after "importing documents and setting". Then the screen goes black, the monitor goes into power save mode (this happens even if I am moving the mouse curser at that moment), then there is some brief cdrom drive activity, then everything is silent. I believe that this is an xserver bug because when I first booted by successfully installed jaunty alpha 3 system (installed with the "alternate" install CD) and booted for the first time, I didn't use the "text" boot option, then the following happened: I got a warning popup about "low resolution graphics mode", where IIRC I clicked "cancel"... I got a message "stand by for one minute while the display restarts", then the screen went black in the same manner again with the monitor going into power save mode.

Then I remembered your advice to boot with "text" as an additional boot parameter, so I did that, and successfully tested your package -- both the tormod3 and the tormod4 version. Results were identical. startx works, although the resolution is still unpleasantly low IMO. I'm attaching the Xorg.0.log from running startx using the tormod4 version.

Thank you for your work on this bug!

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Yes, you can install the driver on the live CD (explained in comment 26) but installing Jaunty is good also.

You get poor resolution because the EDID information from the monitor can not be retrieved, and X falls back to conservative settings. You will need to add sync ranges to your xorg.conf manually. You can file a new bug on this, although I don't think there's anything we can do about it. There will be a GUI for adjusting this, probably in Jaunty+1.

However, the startup failure seems to be fixed by the patch in my PPA which is also applied upstream, so I'll mark this bug Fix Committed.

[Bernd Schlapsi (bernd-sch)]

I can confirm that your patch (xserver-xorg-video-savage_2.2.1+git20081230.aea0496f-0ubuntu0tormod4_i386.deb) fix the startup problem.
Today I installed jaunty on a pc with a S3 ProSavage8 (KM266/KL266) graphic card and X didn't start. So I search on launchpad for a bug report and found this one. I installed your patch and X starts now as expected.

Thanks for your work/patch

[D. Hugh Redelmeier (hugh-mimosa)]

Is there a fix for Intrepid? I'm trying to install Mythbuntu 8.10 and have hit this problem. I duplicated the problem with Ubuntu 8.10.

(For what it is worth, Fedora 10 has this problem too.)

[Norbert Bollow (nb-bollow)]

Hugh,
  what I did is that I installed from the Ubuntu 8.10 server CD. IIRC I then installed GNOME manually with apt-get (which of course pulled in X11) and used an old xorg.conf file.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

The patch that was reported to fix the startup failure in this bug report is now included in Jaunty, so I am closing the bug. Please reopen if the same failure persists, but file new bugs for other bugs.

xserver-xorg-video-savage (1:2.2.1-4ubuntu2) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Cherry-pick 0fae48235841f05d7e52e61a2450835fdb8892b3
    Do not add panel modes when there is no panel.
    Fixes startup failure in some cases (LP: #294899)

 -- Tormod Volden <email address hidden> Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:56:24 +0100

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I recently did a new installation on the gBox computer mentioned above. It now runs hardy 8.04.3 LTS with a vesa driver - I installed it by installing first 6.06.1 LTS (in safe mode with screen resolution specified explicitly) then upgrading. This system works, but crashes when switching to a text console, when logging out (to switch to another user), and when shutting down. I was able to install apache2, php, an ssh server, and make a web site work, etc.

I'll file a separate detailed bug report when Launchpad allows me to do so.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Peter, I updated the Hardy xserver-xorg-video-savage package on https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ppa to the latest version, so you can try it (I haven't tested it myself).

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

Thanks, Tormod - I just downloaded

xserver-xorg-video-savage_2.3.1~git20090813.36ab23a9-0ubuntu0tormod~hardy_i386.deb

to my laptop ... is that the right one?

I'll install it once I get back to that system.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Tormod Volden<email address hidden> wrote:
> Peter, I updated the Hardy xserver-xorg-video-savage package on
> https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ppa to the latest version,
> so you can try it (I haven't tested it myself).
>
> --
> install failure (regression) with ProSavageDDR graphics chipset
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/217004
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

Tormod - installing your savage driver solved the problem. After
installing it, I disabled Xorg running at runlevel 2 by renaming the
symlink to gdm in /etc/rc2.d and restarting the system (with the reset
button this time), then booting and determining that 'reboot' works
properly from the shell, with Xorg and the vesa driver disabled. I
changed 'vesa' to 'savage' in xorg.conf, and tried startx from my user
account, and determined that shutdown worked fine. Then I renamed the
symlink back again, and rebooted again. After that, I can logout,
switch to a console and back, reboot, etc properly.

I'll submit that as a bug against the vesa driver. (Actually I didn't
try the savage driver that comes with 8.04 LTS - I understand the
fixes didn't get into a release before Jaunty).

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Peter Belew<email address hidden> wrote:
> Thanks, Tormod - I just downloaded
>
> xserver-xorg-video-savage_2.3.1~git20090813.36ab23a9-0ubuntu0tormod~hardy_i386.deb
>
> to my laptop ... is that the right one?
>
> I'll  install it once I get back to that system.
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Tormod Volden<email address hidden> wrote:
>> Peter, I updated the Hardy xserver-xorg-video-savage package on
>> https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ppa to the latest version,
>> so you can try it (I haven't tested it myself).
>>
>> --
>> install failure (regression) with ProSavageDDR graphics chipset
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/217004
>> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
>> of the bug.
>>
>

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I've been unable to report the bug on the vesa driver - Launchpad
won't let me report any new bugs!

BTW this system is set up to triple-boot into XP, Ubuntu, and FreeBSD
7.1. I just set up Xorg and Gnome on the FreeBSD partition - and the
vesa driver on that behaves the same way - the system locks up on
exiting from Gnome. I haven't tried the savage driver on that system,
if it has one.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Peter Belew<email address hidden> wrote:
> Tormod - installing your savage driver solved the problem. After
> installing it, I disabled Xorg running at runlevel 2 by renaming the
> symlink to gdm in /etc/rc2.d and restarting the system (with the reset
> button this time), then booting and determining that 'reboot' works
> properly from the shell, with Xorg and the vesa driver disabled. I
> changed 'vesa' to 'savage' in xorg.conf, and tried startx from my user
> account, and determined that shutdown worked fine. Then I renamed the
> symlink back again, and rebooted again. After that, I can logout,
> switch to a console and back, reboot, etc properly.
>
> I'll submit that as a bug against the vesa driver. (Actually I didn't
> try the savage driver that comes with 8.04 LTS - I understand the
> fixes didn't get into a release before Jaunty).
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Peter Belew<email address hidden> wrote:
>> Thanks, Tormod - I just downloaded
>>
>> xserver-xorg-video-savage_2.3.1~git20090813.36ab23a9-0ubuntu0tormod~hardy_i386.deb
>>
>> to my laptop ... is that the right one?
>>
>> I'll  install it once I get back to that system.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Tormod Volden<email address hidden> wrote:
>>> Peter, I updated the Hardy xserver-xorg-video-savage package on
>>> https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ppa to the latest version,
>>> so you can try it (I haven't tested it myself).
>>>
>>> --
>>> install failure (regression) with ProSavageDDR graphics chipset
>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/217004
>>> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
>>> of the bug.
>>>
>>
>

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I finally submitted this problem with the vesa driver as bug 414330
half an hour ago, using the ubuntu-bug program.

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 10:20 PM, Peter Belew<email address hidden> wrote:
> I've been unable to report the bug on the vesa driver - Launchpad
> won't let me report any new bugs!
>
> BTW this system is set up to triple-boot into XP, Ubuntu, and FreeBSD
> 7.1. I just set up Xorg and Gnome on the FreeBSD partition - and the
> vesa driver on that behaves the same way - the system locks up on
> exiting from Gnome. I haven't tried the savage driver on that system,
> if it has one.
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Peter Belew<email address hidden> wrote:
>> Tormod - installing your savage driver solved the problem. After
>> installing it, I disabled Xorg running at runlevel 2 by renaming the
>> symlink to gdm in /etc/rc2.d and restarting the system (with the reset
>> button this time), then booting and determining that 'reboot' works
>> properly from the shell, with Xorg and the vesa driver disabled. I
>> changed 'vesa' to 'savage' in xorg.conf, and tried startx from my user
>> account, and determined that shutdown worked fine. Then I renamed the
>> symlink back again, and rebooted again. After that, I can logout,
>> switch to a console and back, reboot, etc properly.
>>
>> I'll submit that as a bug against the vesa driver. (Actually I didn't
>> try the savage driver that comes with 8.04 LTS - I understand the
>> fixes didn't get into a release before Jaunty).
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Peter Belew<email address hidden> wrote:
>>> Thanks, Tormod - I just downloaded
>>>
>>> xserver-xorg-video-savage_2.3.1~git20090813.36ab23a9-0ubuntu0tormod~hardy_i386.deb
>>>
>>> to my laptop ... is that the right one?
>>>
>>> I'll  install it once I get back to that system.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Tormod Volden<email address hidden> wrote:
>>>> Peter, I updated the Hardy xserver-xorg-video-savage package on
>>>> https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ppa to the latest version,
>>>> so you can try it (I haven't tested it myself).
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> install failure (regression) with ProSavageDDR graphics chipset
>>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/217004
>>>> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
>>>> of the bug.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>