xforcevesa doesn't work

[Timo Aaltonen]

Binary package hint: xorg

Putting 'xforcevesa' on the livecd cmdline should force the driver as vesa, but that doesn't work because of changes to the xserver-xorg.postinst. DRIVERS_LIST is now empty on !sparc, so there are no debconf choices to choose, and setting the key to vesa doesn't work. This should be rather trivial to fix, but needs testing as always.

Marking as release critical because of it being a regression.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

What are the cases for which we need to be able to force use of vesa? I'm not convinced this is release-critical considering that I've never heard of this boot option before, and given that an override should only be needed in case of bugs in other drivers.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

It's the safe boot option of livecd, used when booting normally doesn't work. That's the case when the proper driver can't do proper modesetting, which is too common at least for nv.

You can lower the priority if you like, but it should still be a simple fix to the postinst, and enough time to get in before RC.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

this should do it, tested it myself:

--- a/debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in
+++ b/debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in
@@ -554,6 +554,7 @@ fi

 if [ -n "$XFORCEVESA" ] || [ -n "$(grep xforcevesa /proc/cmdline)" ]; then
   # don't let the server autodetect the video card, but always use vesa instead
+ DRIVERS_LIST="vesa"
   DISCOVERED_VIDEO="vesa"
 fi

ok to upload?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Steve, this menu item is exposed by the "Safe graphics mode" item on the CD boot loader. I tend to agree with Timo that it's RC if it doesn't work.

In any case, Timo, please upload this and Steve and I can argue about it once it's in the queue. :-)

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

If you have to argue on this, one release manager needs to spend more time triaging xorg/livecd bugs :)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package xorg - 1:7.4~5ubuntu2

---------------
xorg (1:7.4~5ubuntu2) intrepid; urgency=low

  * debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in: If xforcevesa is set on the kernel
    cmdline, feed DRIVERS_LIST with vesa so that setting the DRIVER works.
    Debconf refuses to obey if the list of choices is empty.
    (LP: #285562)

 -- Timo Aaltonen <email address hidden> Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:53:29 +0300