After upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 Screen does not work properly

[brpaolo]

Binary package hint: displayconfig-gtk

Dell Inspiron 9300, with Radeon X300 video, and 1920x1200 screen.
Ubuntu 7.04 was originally installed last year, and upgraded through 7.10 to 8.04 two days ago.
The screen is so slow as to be practically unusable. Something is wrong with the driver.

Typing :
~$ glxinfo | grep
stringserver glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
client glx vendor string: SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (2.1 Mesa 7.0.3)

System | Preferences | Appearance | Visual Effects is set to "None".
In Screen and Graphics Preferences, Screen 1 is set to LCD Panel 1920x1200 (widescreen)
Resolution: 1920x1200 at 60 Hz
Graphics Cards is set to "ati - ATI Mach8, Mach32, ...etc."
I would like to change this last setting to "radeon - ATI Radeon cards, including Radeon Mobility and FireGL", which would seem to correspond to what I have. But it won't have it: each time I log in again, it's been set back to "ATI - Mach8, Mach32, etc."
It is while trying to do this that the "display config-gtk"crashed.

I am attaching the xorg.conf file.

The computer is almost unusable. (help!)

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Apr 25 10:10:32 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/displayconfig-gtk
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.5
Package: displayconfig-gtk 0.3.10
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/displayconfig-gtk
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/displayconfig-gtk']
SourcePackage: displayconfig-gtk
Title: displayconfig-gtk crashed with IndexError in _resyncResolution()
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686
UserGroups:

[brpaolo (brpaolo)]

I forgot to mention:
When I go to System | Preferences | Screen Resolution, I can't open it. I get the message:
"The X Server does not support the XRandR extension.
Runtime resolution changes to the display size are not available."

[Onderstekop (rhijnauwen)]

Same problem here!

[Onderstekop (rhijnauwen)]

I just tried to login on a failsafe GNOME session and it works like a charm. Faster than it has ever run!

[brpaolo (brpaolo)]

Yes, a failsafe Gnome session works fine for me, too.
So how do we repair the "normal" session to run like that!?

[Onderstekop (rhijnauwen)]

I'm not sure. Does your fglrxinfo also change after you login to a failsafe session? For me, normally, it will display the SGI and mesa driver, but in failsafe it displays ATI.

[brpaolo (brpaolo)]

In my normal session (which was, I see "Run Xserver scripts") fglrxinfo gave:

display: :1.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (2.1 Mesa 7.0.3)

- - - -

Currently, in failsafe session, it is:

display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: DRI R300 Project
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R300 20060815 x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.3 Mesa 7.0.3-rc2

- - - - -

In failsafe, glxgears gives me about 1400 fps, in normal login it was about 50 fps.

[Onderstekop (rhijnauwen)]

I have the same thing; changes from display: :1.0 screen: 0 to display: :0.0 screen: 0. I'm using a monitor connected to my laptop, maybe that got something to do with it.

[brpaolo (brpaolo)]

1) I don't know why the display 1.0 screen:0 -- I don't have any external monitor connected.

2) On thing which has helped a little more (but still for only for failsafe mode), is creating this link:
   sudo ln -s /usr/lib/dri /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri
so it finds the drivers.

I have uninstalled fglrx (the proprietary ATI driver). So fglrxinfo no longer works. But glxinfo now reports "direct renedering: yes", which I'm told is good ...

I cannot play the video clips on the news.bbc.co.uk website. But I think this maybe more a Firefox 3 bug than a general screen bug.

[Onderstekop (rhijnauwen)]

I reconfigured xorg.conf and everything seems back to normal.

[brpaolo (brpaolo)]

I found (cf. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22/+bug/153733 ) that
  $ DISPLAY=:0 glxinfo
corrects the name of the screen and gives "direct rendering: yes".

And
 sudo apt-get remove xserver-xgl
followed by a reboot has now given me a good, fast normal session.

I have also run
  sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
to hopefully improve xorg.conf (but it does not seem to have made any difference).

Now,
Applications | Other | Screens & Graphics
on its "Graphics Card" tab, has an empty box for "Location" and the Driver box says "None".
which doesn't seem right. The "Test" button gives me a strange grey screen (as it did before).

Maybe this is just a workaround, waiting for a real fix?