[Lucid alpha2] ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 not displaying on LVDS [FIXED]

[stefan.witwicki]

Binary package hint: xorg

The built-in (laptop) LCD fails to display anything, but the VGA output (to external monitor) displays fine.

Browsing the log, it appears that no supported mode can be found for LVDS.

Further details follow...

---
Bug appears in: Ubuntu 10.04 (Ludic) Alpha 2
Worked in: Ubuntu 9.10
---
Hardware details:
IBM Thinkpad T43P running ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
---
Side-effects:
When attempting to install Lucid, the Grub menu is displayed properly, but selecting "Install..." or "Try..." results in a blank/black screen on the laptop LCD.
---

Xorg log attached.

[juniper (surispeed)]

ditto same problem same hardware. affected 10.04 ubuntu

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

Update:

I got the display working properly by installing the following package: fglrx-kernel-source. Does that make sense to anyone?

Should fglrx-kernel-source be installed by default when ubuntu encounters this particular hardware? Perhaps the bug is somehow related to hardware detection?

At the moment, the Lucid install process is severely crippled, requiring that the user plug in an external monitor to see the install dialogs. (It was only after having installed Ubuntu Luci this way that I added fglrx-kernel-source.)

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

Even with the additional package, I am unable to get desktop effects working. Typing "compiz" results in the following output:

compiz (core) - Fatal: Software rendering detected.
compiz (core) - Error: Failed to manage screen: 0
compiz (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0
Launching fallback window manager

This seems to be closely-related to the original problem.

Note: Effects were working for this hardware in the Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) release, without having to install any proprietary drivers.

[Pauli (paniemin)]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 7:03 PM, stefan.witwicki <email address hidden> wrote:
> Even with the additional package, I am unable to get desktop effects
> working.  Typing "compiz" results in the following output:
>
> compiz (core) - Fatal: Software rendering detected.
> compiz (core) - Error: Failed to manage screen: 0
> compiz (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0
> Launching fallback window manager
>
> This seems to be closely-related to the original problem.
>
> Note: Effects were working for this hardware in the Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)
> release, without having to install any proprietary drivers.
>

dmesg and xorg.log, please. You have some problem that disables dri.

[Pauli (paniemin)]

fglrx-kernel-source is not part of driver that you want. You should remove it.

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 7:35 PM, stefan.witwicki <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> ** Attachment added: "Xorg log after installing  fglrx-kernel-source"
>   http://launchpadlibrarian.net/39370583/Xorg.0.log
>

Your 3D rendering is disabled because radeon kernel module is not
loaded in boot. Kernel module is required for all acceleration in open
source drivers.

[Pauli (paniemin)]

The initial black screen problem looks like kernel modesetting bug. So workaround would be booting with radeon.modeset=0 to use old UMS driver.

There has bee quite a lot fixes to mode selection in 2.6.33 kernel which Ubuntu should backport to 2.6.32 kernel to fix the bugs in 2.6.32.

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

Is it definite that Lucid will not use the 2.6.33 kernel?

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

Pauli,

Thanks for the help.

> fglrx-kernel-source is not part of driver that you want. You should
> remove it.

After removing that package, I was back to the blackscreen problem
(e.g. display showing up only on the external monitor), but my visual effects (compiz) were indeed working!

> The initial black screen problem looks like kernel modesetting bug. So
> workaround would be booting with radeon.modeset=0 to use old UMS driver.

This workaround fixed the blackscreen problem! However, compiz doesn't seem to play nicely with the old driver:
---
$ compiz
WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function "glXCreatePixmap" when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug!
^X^CWARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function "glXDestroyPixmap" when GLX 1.3 is not supported! This is an application bug!
---
The visual result is that the far right section of the display area (effecting about 2/3 the screen of one of my monitors) wasn't displaying properly... a colorful lack of refreshing and some blackness.

So it seems that at the moment, I can't have my cake (compiz) and eat it too (on dual monitors).

[Pauli (paniemin)]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 11:41 PM, stefan.witwicki <email address hidden> wrote:
> Pauli,
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
>> fglrx-kernel-source is not part of driver that you want. You should
>> remove it.
>
> After removing that package, I was back to the blackscreen problem
> (e.g. display showing up only on the external monitor), but my visual effects (compiz) were indeed working!
>
>> The initial black screen problem looks like kernel modesetting bug. So
>> workaround would be booting with radeon.modeset=0 to use old UMS driver.
>
> This workaround fixed the blackscreen problem!  However, compiz doesn't seem to play nicely with the old driver:
> ---
> $ compiz
> WARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function "glXCreatePixmap" when GLX 1.3 is not supported!  This is an application bug!
> ^X^CWARNING: Application calling GLX 1.3 function "glXDestroyPixmap" when GLX 1.3 is not supported!  This is an application bug!
> ---
> The visual result is that the far right section of the display area (effecting about 2/3 the screen of one of my monitors) wasn't displaying properly... a colorful lack of refreshing and some blackness.
>

How big is your dual head?

default virtual size maybe too small so you have to set it to size
that your full desktop should be.
see http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12 for details

> So it seems that at the moment, I can't have my cake (compiz) and eat it
> too (on dual monitors).
>

KMS would auto adjust virtual desktop sizes when you add monitors to
system. If you want KMS you could try mainline kernel builds from
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/MainlineBuilds

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

Hm.. xrandr reports my virtual screen dimensions as 3200 x 1200, which is correct (1600x1200 on VGA + 1600x1200 on LVDS). But maybe my hardware does not actual support that large a display area.

[Pauli (paniemin)]

On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 1:01 AM, stefan.witwicki <email address hidden> wrote:
> Hm.. xrandr reports my virtual screen dimensions as 3200 x 1200, which
> is correct (1600x1200 on VGA + 1600x1200 on LVDS). But maybe my hardware
> does not actual support that large a display area.
>

Good catch. Your card only support only 2048x2048 rendering target. So
even 1600x2400 is too much.

I guess zaphod mode might work for dual screen if you want to
experiment with it. But it will only work with KMS.

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

I just installed today's mainline build. With that, the blackscreen problem goes away without having to set radeon.modeset=0.
Can you point me at info on how to run in zaphod mode? I'm not sure where to begin.

[juniper (surispeed)]

 i'm getting garbled display with multicolored vertical lines after installing ubuntu 10.04 using the desktop now.

also i've tried the latest daily build of 19th feb and this bug is still outstanding!

please have this bug ironed out asap!

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 4:10 AM, juniper wrote:

> i'm getting garbled display with multicolored vertical lines after
> installing ubuntu 10.04 using the desktop now.
>
> also i've tried the latest daily build of 19th feb and this bug is still
> outstanding!
>
> please have this bug ironed out asap!
>
>
Try the radeon.modeset=0 trick.

[juniper (surispeed)]

thanks for the suggestion witwicki i'm using the mainline kernel 2.33.999 now with 9.10 without this bug!

[stefan.witwicki (witwicki)]

This display problem is now fixed in Ubuntu Lucid (with Kernel "2.6.32-16-generic" and later). Ubuntu now displays on the laptop monitor without having to alter any settings or drivers.

Note: I had been running Lucid since Alpha 2, and in order to apply this fix, I had to use the command "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade". The Update Manager GUI alone did not grab the fix.