Lines with string "unknown" in second and/or third column should be removed from /lib/discover/pci.lst

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas]

Binary package hint: discover1-data

There are lost of problems when /lib/discover/pci.lst contains lines with string "unknown" in second and/or third column like:
 100271c4 unknown unknown M56GL [ATI Mobility FireGL V5200]

These lines couses discover1 parse error's, when discover1 is called during xserver-xorg.postinst or dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and because of this xorg.conf file is creaded incorrectly, with incorrect video driver (vesa) and, pretty often, incorrect Modes.

There are several bugs already reported about such problems, when in /lib/discover/pci.lst are lines with string "unknown" in second and/or third column, look for example bugs #75424, #72446 and #36316

Look at the lines from /lib/discover/pci.lst for according pciids from the bugs, mentioned above:

grep -n "10de0244" /lib/discover/pci.lst
2731: 10de0244 unknown unknown C51 PCI Express Bridge

grep -n "53338d01" /lib/discover/pci.lst
6949: 53338d01 video unknown 86C380 [ProSavageDDR K4M266]

grep "100271c4" /lib/discover/pci.lst
        100271c4 unknown unknown M56GL [ATI Mobility FireGL V5200]

Discover1 output when there are lines with strings "unknown" :

:~$ sudo discover --disable=serial,parallel,usb,ide,scsi --format="%V %M\t%S\t%D\n" video
parse error reading X server string `unknown'
parse error reading X server string `unknown'
nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge unknown unknown

Discover1 output when there are lines with strings "unknown" are removed:

:~$ sudo discover --disable=serial,parallel,usb,ide,scsi --format="%V %M\t%S\t%D\n" video
nVidia Corporation NVIDIA Default Card XFree86 nv

Another solution for such problems is to patch discover1 tool to ignore X server string `unknown' and behave identifically, like when this string is removed (choose default driver for video card manufacturer).

[Kyle McMartin (kyle)]

So the problem is that claiming it is unknown results in discover not attempting to guess? This sounds like the right thing to do in this case, frankly. Choosing "vesa" is a lot better than it choosing wrong resulting in no X server starting...

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Some nVidia cards do not work with "nv" so listing them with "unknown" is the only way to avoid the "NVIDIA Default Card" match, which would yield "nv".

The valid point in this bug report is that discover should not make this "parse error" messages. AFAICT they are harmless.

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

Hi Mantas, is this still an issue in the latest Ubuntu version?

[Petter Reinholdtsen (pere-hungry)]

The discover-data package no longer have the *.lst files for discover v1, so this bug report is irrelevant.