uvesafb not working on Saucy

[Steven Shiau]

Recently (<=7 days) on my Saucy box, after upgrading to Linux kernel 3.11, I found uvesafb is not working anymore.
How to reproduce:
root@saucy-x86:~# modprobe uvesafb mode_option=1024x768-32
From the output of dmesg, it showed me:
=================================
[ 124.535417] uvesafb: VMware, Inc, VMware virtual machine, 2.0, OEM: V M ware, Inc. VBE support 2.0, VBE v2.0
[ 124.586342] uvesafb: NX protection is active, better not use the PMI.
[ 124.586345] uvesafb: no monitor limits have been set, default refresh rate will be used
[ 124.586511] uvesafb: VBE state buffer size cannot be determined (eax=0x0, err=0)
[ 124.586520] uvesafb: scrolling: redraw
[ 124.586530] uvesafb: cannot reserve video memory at 0xd0000000
[ 124.586621] uvesafb: probe of uvesafb.0 failed with error -5
=================================
root@saucy-x86:~# uname -r
3.11.0-2-generic

It was working on Linux kernel 3.10.0-6-generic.

Any suggestion?
Thanks.

Steven.

[Steven Shiau (stevenshiau)]

This issue still exist in "Linux version 3.11.0-3-generic (buildd@allspice) (gcc version 4.8
.1 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.8.1-9ubuntu1) ) #8-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 23 16:49:15 UTC 2013 (
Ubuntu 3.11.0-3.8-generic 3.11.0-rc6)".

BTW, more info in the output of dmesg:
===========================
[ 14.957517] uvesafb: VMware, Inc, VMware virtual machine, 2.0, OEM: V M ware, Inc. VBE support 2.0, VBE v2.0
[ 15.014600] uvesafb: no monitor limits have been set, default refresh rate will be used
[ 15.014913] uvesafb: VBE state buffer size cannot be determined (eax=0x0, err=0)
[ 15.014926] uvesafb: scrolling: redraw
[ 15.014936] uvesafb: cannot reserve video memory at 0xd0000000
[ 15.014948] uvesafb: probe of uvesafb.0 failed with error -5
===========================
It looks like this issue is only on VMWare workstation. No such issue on Virtualbox 4.2.

Steven.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Steven Shiau (stevenshiau)]

Today I upgraded to linux kernel 3.11.0-9-generic, and this issue still remains:
=============================
[ 21.274317] uvesafb: VMware, Inc, VMware virtual machine, 2.0, OEM: V M ware, Inc. VBE support 2.0, VBE v2.0
[ 21.331168] uvesafb: NX protection is active, better not use the PMI.
[ 21.331172] uvesafb: no monitor limits have been set, default refresh rate will be used
[ 21.331466] uvesafb: VBE state buffer size cannot be determined (eax=0x0, err=0)
[ 21.331481] uvesafb: scrolling: redraw
[ 21.331490] uvesafb: cannot reserve video memory at 0xe8000000
[ 21.331501] uvesafb: probe of uvesafb.0 failed with error -5
=============================

Steven.

[Steven Shiau (stevenshiau)]

BTW, the vmware workstation version I am testing is 10.0.0-1295980. This issue also exists on VMWare workstation 9.0.2-1031769.

steven.

[Steven Shiau (stevenshiau)]

This issue still exists on the released saucy, i.e. linux kernel 3.11.0-12-generic.
Apparently the issue is about vmwgfx, so a workaround is to disable vmwgfx by adding a boot parameter like "vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=no" because if "vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=0" is used, vmwgfx module is still loaded.
The boot parameter "vmwgfx.enable_fbdev=no" makes kernel complain "vmwgfx: `no' invalid for parameter `enable_fbdev'" so it won't be loaded. Ugly workaround but it works.
It would be better that KMS mode could work with uvesafb.

Steven.