[M76 Mobility HD 2600] X fails to start - undefined symbol: exaDriverAlloc

[Stéphane Graber]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-ati

On jaunty, after upgrading from git20081003.f9826a56-0ubuntu5 to git20081003.f9826a56-0ubuntu6 X stopped working.
Starting it produces the attached stdout and Xorg.log file.

The summary being:
X: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//radeon_drv.so: undefined symbol: exaDriverAlloc

That happens with either no xorg.conf, with an xorg.conf forcing AccelMethod to XAA or an xorg.conf forcing AccelMethod to EXA. Before the upgrade all these three cases were working fine.

lspci output:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc M76 [Radeon Mobility HD 2600 Series] [1002:9581]

This bug makes anyone with similar hardware and running a recent Jaunty to get no X starting after install or update.
This system was installed just after UDS with the first installable Alpha-2 candidate and updated since then.

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

I just upgraded to 1:6.9.0.91-1ubuntu1 and the issue is still here so the new upstream didn't help.
Something else that I didn't mention before but may be of importance is that I'm running on amd64.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Confirmed; I'm able to reproduce this issue on a RV630 [Radeon HD 2600XT] [1002:9588].

Reverting the EXA patch solved the issue. Oddly, EXA works fine if I specify it in the xorg.conf, so it seems to be an issue with the patch itself, not with EXA.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-video-ati - 1:6.9.0.91-1ubuntu2

---------------
xserver-xorg-video-ati (1:6.9.0.91-1ubuntu2) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Disable 104_use_exa.patch. On at least two systems, both EXA and XAA
    work if specified in xorg.conf, but this patch results in failure to
    start X.
    (LP: #311867)

 -- Bryce Harrington <email address hidden> Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:37:37 -0800

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

On further analysis, I figured out what was going on (it was pretty obvious). Neither XAA nor EXA is supported on R600 yet, as the man page and the source code quite clearly state but I failed to read. The original patch was turning EXA accel on by default for everyone including R600. I've uploaded a new patch which honors the check for R600 and continues to avoid trying to accelerate it. Also updated the man page.

Should work fine now. Feel free to reopen this bug if the problem occurs again; I'm fairly sure it won't though.