[Jaunty][nvidia] TV out with separate X-screens fails

[Jerome]

I configured xorg.conf to have two separate x-screens, one on my desktop screen and one on my TV (composite cable). It used to work until I upgraded to Jaunty.

What I do :
- Plug composite cable from graphical card to TV
- Start X

What I expect :
- An image on my TV and the possibility to move my mouse pointer to the X-screen displayed on TV.

What happens :
- When I move my mouse to the left (where the 2nd display should be), the mouse gets kinda frozen before reaching the edge of the screen. If I login, all is slow and no bar appear (like taskbar, menubar, I have an empty desktop, at least for an abnormally long time).

Xubuntu Jaunty (Xfce)
Packet : nvidia-glx-180
lspci -> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)

Notes :

- It used to work on Interpid and before

- I tried several xorg.conf
  - built using nvidia-settings
  - built from scratch using ubuntu-fr.org documentation
  - taken from the internet (ubuntu-fr.org documentation)
  and it didn't make any difference.

- My TV is detected. Indeed, I can check that with nvidia-settings. Besides, if the TV is not plugged, everything works like a charm : the 2nd X-screen is not created. That is the behaviour I expect. (At least the behaviour I am used to).

- I tried twinview and it seemed to work : I had an extended desktop on my screen and TV. Perhaps with a black and white image on TV, I don't remember, but I did not investigate any further since twinview does not fit my needs : I want seperate x-screens.

- I found this in syslog : "gdm[11131]: WARNING: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0" I have no idea whether or not it is linked to our issue here, but I thought it might explain the fact the no menubar appears.

- I tried versions 173 and 96 of the driver and I reproduce the issue with those versions as well.

- Attached is a xorg.conf that reproduces the issue. It is a little bit messy. If needed I can try to simplify it to spot the issue.

Please tell me if I can provide any useful information.

(Just read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Reporting, attaching Xorg log ASAP. I don't remember seeing anything that seemed relevant in it, though.)

(The exact package name is nvidia-glx-180, I assumed it corresponds to nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.)

[Jerome (jerome-jolimont)]

Issue reproduced with another NVidia card, FX5500, using 173 driver (180 is not compliant with FX5500).

[Jerome (jerome-jolimont)]

When TV cable is plugged, Xorg.0.log says :

(==) RandR enabled
(II) NVIDIA(1): Initialized AGP GART.
(II) NVIDIA(1): Setting mode "640x480"
(II) NVIDIA(1): NVIDIA 3D Acceleration Architecture Initialized
(==) NVIDIA(1): Disabling shared memory pixmaps
(II) NVIDIA(1): Using the NVIDIA 2D acceleration architecture
(==) NVIDIA(1): Backing store disabled
(==) NVIDIA(1): Silken mouse enabled
(II) NVIDIA(1): DPMS enabled
(==) RandR enabled

I wonder if there could be a compatibility issue between RandR and the driver. I would like to disable RandR (actually I would like it to be compliant, it would be pretty useful...) but I don't know how. I tried adding
Option "EnableRandR12" "false"
in each Device section in xorg.conf as seen here : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1137576
but it does not work and the log says :
NVIDIA(1): Option "EnableRandR12" is not used

How could I achieve disable RandR ?

[Jerome (jerome-jolimont)]

I don't have any "official" confirmation but reading the following bug report :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/347758
I have the feeling that since Jaunty, RandR has been activated by default. And it may well be the cause for the issue because of the lack of compliance of the nvidia drivers with it.

To disable it I've tried the method above (my last comment) but it seems to work only on ATI drivers.

Some manage it through the "services" menu but I didn't find any relevant entry :
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3099099.0

From this thread :
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-September/038328.html
I understand that it can not be done on the fly, but it would need a recompiling of X...

[Jerome (jerome-jolimont)]

If my understanding is correct, and if there is a good reason to enable randr by default, (as it has been done, I suppose there is), perhaps a fix could be to give the user a way of disabling randr.

For instance with an entry like
Option "EnableRandR12" "false"
in the xorg.conf. Currently, this is ignored.

And if this understanding is correct (if RandR is enabled by default and cannot be disabled), then perhaps I should rename the bug report "[jaunty][nvidia] RandR cannot be disabled". It seems I'm not the only one with problems due to RandR being enabled in Jaunty.

[Jerome (jerome-jolimont)]

I'm afraid I won't be able to provide any update on that bug, since I don't
live anymore with someone with a TV, and I don't plan on getting myself one.

--
Jérôme

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Natty Narwhal. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Jerome (jerome-jolimont)]

Hi. I won't be able to do anymore testing for a while as I don't plan on getting myself a TV. Sorry about that.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!