Ubuntu crashes when starting X after installation

[Marcus Pearce]

Machine: Apple PowerPC G5
Graphics card: ATI Radeon X850 XT (ATY, R481)
Display: 1680 x 1050 LCD (32-bit colour)

OS: Ubuntu 5.10 Daily Snapshot 2005-10-03
install command: install-powerpc64 video=ofonly

After autoconfiguration during installation, Ubuntu crashes when trying to start
X for the first time.

[Marcus Pearce (m-t-pearce)]

Created an attachment (id=4331)
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

[Marcus Pearce (m-t-pearce)]

Created an attachment (id=4333)
/var/log/Xorg.0.log

[Marcus Pearce (m-t-pearce)]

Created an attachment (id=4334)
lspci output

Note the following line:

0000:f0:10.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device
4a48

<http://pci-ids.ucw.cz/pci.ids> lists the following ATI pci ids:

...
4a48 R420 JH [Radeon X800]
...
4b49 R480 [Radeon X850XT]
4b4c R481 [Radeon X850XT-PE]
4b69 R480 [Radeon X850XT secondary]
4b6c R481 [Radeon X850XT-PE] Secondary
...

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

how does it 'crash'? the log shows it getting about halfway through, but nothing
after that. does it oops? the x server should catch fatal signals and log them.
 maybe a more complete logfile could be obtained by booting in 'expert' mode and
mounting the partition containing /var/log with 'sync'?

[Marcus Pearce (m-t-pearce)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> how does it 'crash'? the log shows it getting about halfway through, but nothing
> after that. does it oops?

No, it just freezes without oopsing.

> the x server should catch fatal signals and log them.
> maybe a more complete logfile could be obtained by booting in 'expert' mode and
> mounting the partition containing /var/log with 'sync'?

I'll not be at the office again until Monday but I'll give this a try then. The
install seems
fine otherwise, so I can just boot up in single user mode and poke around from the
console. Let me know if there is any other information (log files etc) I can
send that might
be useful.

[Marcus Pearce (m-t-pearce)]

Created an attachment (id=4491)
/var/log/Xorg.0.log (complete)

> maybe a more complete logfile could be obtained by booting in 'expert' mode
> and mounting the partition containing /var/log with 'sync'?

Seems to have done the trick!

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

does Option "NoAccel" in the Device section help?

[Christophe Rhodes (csr21-cantab)]

Created an attachment (id=4634)
Xorg.0.log (with Option "NoAccel")

[Christophe Rhodes (csr21-cantab)]

Created an attachment (id=4635)
Photograph of screen (Option "NoAccel")

Sorry about the poor quality; this is a photo of the screen after X has started
(with Option "NoAccel" in xorg.conf). The mouse cursor is drawn correctly and
moves responsively, and can be used to select the menu in the bottom left
corner. However, the rest of the display is messed up, with vertical stripes
as in the picture.

[Marcus Pearce (m-t-pearce)]

(In reply to comment #9)

> Sorry about the poor quality; this is a photo of the screen after X has started
> (with Option "NoAccel" in xorg.conf). The mouse cursor is drawn correctly and
> moves responsively, and can be used to select the menu in the bottom left
> corner. However, the rest of the display is messed up, with vertical stripes
> as in the picture.

Having just upgraded to the 5.10 release (xserver-xorg-*_6.8.2-77) we now get
the messed up
screen described above both with and without the NoAccel option (it doesn't
crash in either case).

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Hello,

Have you had a chance to test your hardware with dapper (a live CD perhaps)? If so are you still seeing this problem? Thanks.

- Henrik

[Marcus Pearce (m-pearce)]

Dapper (xserver-xorg--*_7.0.0-0ubuntu26) appears to be working fine but only with the "NoAccel" option -- X is bit slow and unresponsive but usable.

Without this option the server crashes when starting up as before.

Marcus

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto (fabbione)]

One of the last ati driver upload should have fixed this problem.

Fabio

[Marcus Pearce (m-pearce)]

I've tried using xserver-xorg-driver-ati version 1:6.5.7.3-0ubuntu7.

Without the NoAccel option, the machine still becomes entirely unresponsive when starting X. I'm posting the log file in case that helps.

[Marcus Pearce (m-pearce)]

Xorg log file obtained after starting without the NoAccel option for the ati driver which leads to the machine crashing.