[RS482] garbled desktop background with 8.10 and ATI Xpress 200 if compiz is enabled

[Andreas Gustafsson]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-ati

I tried booting the Ubuntu 8.10 i386 live CD on a machine with a MSI RS482M4 motherboard, connecting the VGA output of the on-board graphics adapter to an iiyama ProLite E380s 1024x768 LCD display (same machine and display as bug #138084, bug #138087, bug #188660, and my confirmation of bug #222297).

With this Ubuntu version, the live CD successfully boots into a desktop, but the desktop background is all black with a large white rectangle in the middle of the screen. When opening menus or dragging windows, they leave droppings on the background, consisting of enlarged portions of other windows (I will attach some screenshots demonstrating this shortly).

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge [1002:5950] (rev 10)
 Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge [1002:5950]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200] [1002:5974]
 Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device [1462:7141]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi gson,

Thanks for including an image to demonstrate the issue. Could you also please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log or Xorg.0.log.old file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

(Well, I see you attached lspci already, so just the Xorg.0.log should be enough)

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

I haven't made any customizations to xorg.conf, or to anything else for that matter - this is a fresh boot of a live CD.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thanks Andreas,

Can you check if compiz is running with that? From the screenshots it sort of looks like a compositing issue, although I'm not certain.

Also, would you mind re-testing this against Jaunty? There's been significant improvements in support for r400/r500 class chips, particularly in 3d/compiz functionality, so it would be useful to know if this issue still exists in the development version before forwarding upstream.

ISO images are available at http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/. After booting a livecd, make sure to do a full update and logout/login, to be sure you're on the 6.11.0 -ati driver, since upstream will want to know if the problem still occurs on that.

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Can you check if compiz is running with that?

How do I do that?

> Also, would you mind re-testing this against Jaunty?

I can test a live CD ISO easily enough, but setting up Internet connectivity for updating the driver is harder.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

`ps aux | grep compiz` would be sufficient to indicate if compiz is running. Or just look in System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects and see what it's set to.

> I can test a live CD ISO easily enough, but setting up Internet connectivity for updating the driver is harder.

Alpha-5 will be published within a day or two, and if you test against that, you won't need to do any updates.

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Can `ps aux | grep compiz` would be sufficient

This shows four processes: /bin/sh running compiz, compiz.real, and two copies of compiz-decorator.

> Alpha-5 will be published within a day or two

I will try that when it comes out.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Does the issue go away if compiz is shut off?

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Does the issue go away if compiz is shut off?

Yes - when I set System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects to None,
a normal background appears, and I can move windows without any display
corruption. This was tested with 8.10, since alpha 5 still isn't out.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Have you had a chance to test with alpha-5 now that it's out?

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Have you had a chance to test with alpha-5 now that it's out?

I have now, and I'm happy to report that the problem does not occur with alpha 5.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Ah, that's the best news. Thanks for letting us know the issue is resolved.