[RS690] Xserver startup messes up the framebuffer

[thouters]

Binary package hint: xorg

The machine boots as normal, showing the bootsplash.
When X starts the screen stays black with purple/green bands of static. (when booting with nosplash several malformed bios splash screen images are
visible) Switching virtual consoles with C-Alt-Fn doesn't work anymore at this
point. Pushing the power button on this desktop machine shuts it down and the
ubuntu boot/shutdown progressbar apears properly.

This problem apeared after an upgrade from Intrepid to Jaunty (which was right
after an upgrade from Gutsy to Intrepid separated by reboots), and I think it
is caused by the xserver.

The problem present independent from the driver used, I tried an empty xorg.conf, and several forcing the ati, fglrx, radeon, vesa, and radeonhd
drivers.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
LsHal:

Package: xserver-xorg 1:7.4~5ubuntu18
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=nl_BE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersion: Linux version 2.6.28-11-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) ) #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009
SourcePackage: xorg
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge [1002:7910]
     Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge [1002:7910]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 [Radeon X1200 Series] [1002:791e]
     Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device [1462:7327]

[thouters (thomas-langewouters)]

I worked around this problem temporarily the folowing way. This problem is on a friends computer, which he uses a lot, and I didn't have time to do a full reinstall of intrepid.
Maybe this can be of use to somebody else.

- installed xserver-xfbdev
- updated grub's menu.lst to include a vga=791 (and removed silent and splash)
 (which initialises the screen to 1024x... and provided /dev/fb0 for Xfbdev, find out usable resolutions using hwinfo --framebuffer)
- Created a basic initscript that
  - launches Xfbdev with default drivers (as found via a google search)
  - runs 'su $USER -c "DISPLAY=:0 gnome-session" ', replace $USER with the user to auto-login
- using sysv-rc-conf disabled gdm and enabled my script in the gdm runlevels

[thouters (thomas-langewouters)]

I neglected to report the type of card (which can be seen in the attachments):

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 [Radeon X1200 Series] [1002:791e]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

A new version of the -ati driver is now available in Karmic.

This is a significant update to -ati which brings in kernel mode-setting
(currently disabled) and scores of fixes for DRI2, EXA, etc.

I've posted the new version of this driver to the following PPA,
would you mind testing it and seeing if it resolves the bug you
reported?

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~bryceharrington/+archive/ppa/+sourcepub/709908/+listing-archive-extra

If you're not running this release of Ubuntu, you can try booting the Karmic
LiveCD and loading the PPA onto it, and then log out/in to restart X.
ISOs are available at http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/

After testing Karmic, report back here whether it's still an issue or not,
and if it is please post a fresh Xorg.0.log and 'dmesg' output.

Note there could be new bugs... please file these as new reports using
the command 'ubuntu-bug xorg'.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.