gfx artifacts and low res on redcloud chipset

[Steven McCoy]

A GX2 Redcloud chipset based AMD Geode thin client as listed here:

http://tinyurl.com/y9yomv

With the VESA driver 1280x1024 works and display is correct. With the NSC or AMD driver the Ubuntu login screen has a grey vertical bar on the right hand side, the Gnome splash is corrupted and only 1024x768 resolution can be viewed. Intermittently icons and gfx will not appear in gnome, either blank, grey or corrupted.

Corruption usually occurs on the first terminal connected, if VESA terminals are loaded on the same server (LTSP) the NSC/AMD driver works fine.

The NSC driver loses access to the console so I have not captured the Xorg log, this is a known limitation of that driver.

The AMD driver allows access to the console.

For bootsplash to work I need to force VGA=791 or else the terminal hangs.

Hardware detection summary:

00:01.1 VGA compatible controller: National Semiconductor Corporation Geode GX2 Graphics Processor

(--) PCI:*(0:1:1) National Semiconductor Corporation Geode GX2 Graphics Processor rev 0, Mem @ 0x41000000/24, 0x40ffc000/14, 0x40ff8000/14, 0x40ff4000/14

(II) VESA(0): VESA BIOS detected
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Version 2.0
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 16384 kB
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM: Advanced Micro Devices
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Software Rev: 1.0
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Vendor: Elpin Systems VGA BIOS
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Product: GEODE GX
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Product Rev: Version 5.31

(II) AMD: AMD Xorg LX/GX display driver 04.00.0001 for chipsets : GeodeLX,
        REDCLOUD
(--) Chipset REDCLOUD found

[Steven McCoy (dsbunny)]

Unit now available in the US through CappuccinoPC.com:

http://www.cappuccinopc.com/star-466.asp

Contact me if you need a hardware sample, HK or NYC easiest.

[Steven McCoy (dsbunny)]

With nsc 2.8.1 disabling all the Xorg modules but extmod seems to remove artifacting, as LTSP 4.2 views correctly. nsc 2.8.2 has a bug regarding mmap() of the framebuffer. New upstream version exists in Gutsy. Need to re-test a.s.a.p.

[Steven McCoy (dsbunny)]

amd module drops GX2 support for the nsc module, now only covers GX/LX, changed affected package appropriately.

nsc problem report:

http://muzso.hu/node/3929#comment-183

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Have you tried the new -geode driver?

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Could the people affected by this bug please upgrade to Hardy and try the GEODE package that is in hardy-proposed (2.9.0-1ubuntu2.5). Alternately, the bug should also be fixed on Intrepid.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Marking this bug as Invalid, due to incomplete information. Feel free to mark this bug as New again if you can confirm that it wasn't fixed by 2.9.0-1ubuntu2.5 (hardy-proposed), 2.10.1-3build1 (intrepid) or 2.11.0-1 (jaunty).