Ubuntu
xserver-xorg-video-ati package

  1. Bug #444139
  2. Comment #42

Comment 42 for bug 444139

Revision history for this message
bjaglin (bjaglin) wrote : Re: (Needs KMS) Background and full screen apps don't show up when Normal Visual Effects on (Radeon 7500)

Could someone change the title? It does not seem to be specific to Radeon 7500, but applies to all R200 chipsets from what I can see here. Still reproducable with the latest xorg-edgers.

For those who are looking for a workaround that does not introduce performance hit, result in tearing, or require a change in resolution/bit depth, you can have a look at bug #433173 and bug #420599 which, to me, sound like duplicates to this one. This does not use KMS, but just an old version of the DRI module for Mesa. It is always unfortunate to have to revert to a previous version, but that is the best alternative I have to enjoy Karmic, so here is a step by step, tested on a T40p (Radeon Mobility 9000 [RV250]):

1. Download the latest version you can find of libgl1-mesa-dri on the 7.5 branch. It looks like it is not easy to get a .deb anymore, so I uploaded the one I am using (retrieved from the Debian squeeze repositories a few weeks ago):
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2114917/libgl1-mesa-dri_7.5.1-1_i386.deb

2. Install it using dpkg:
sudo dpkg -i libgl1-mesa-dri_7.5.1-1_i386.deb

3. Restart your X server. If you are using gnome:
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

At that point the bug should be fixed and the performance be back to Jaunty level. If it is not, just run sudo apt-get upgrade to revert your changes. If it works and you want to keep this solution, the next problem is that the newer version of libgl1-mesa-dri will appear in the upgrade list each time you want to upgrade your packages and override the package that you installed manually. There is a way to tell apt to stay with a specific version using Pin:

1. Edit /etc/apt/preferences. This file might not exist on your system.
sudo gedit /etc/apt/preferences

2. Append the following lines:
Package: libgl1-mesa-dri
Pin: version 7.5.1-1
Pin-Priority: 1001

From now on, any specific update on libgl1-mesa-dri will be ignored. When the bug is fixed, KMS gets more stable, or another package require a newer version of libgl1-mesa-dri, just remove the /etc/apt/preferences file (or the lines you added if the file was already present) and run sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade to get the latest version from the ubuntu repositories.