xserver-xorg-driver-ati

Bug #556782
Comment #2

Comment 2 for bug 556782

Revision history for this message

Brian Ealdwine (eode) wrote on 2010-04-06: Re: Graphics corruption with ati x1200 (rs690m)

First: I've upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04 beta. My system updates are current.
I have a radeon rs690m (x1200)

This is the problem I ran into:
  * Small, horizontal white lines that appear a bit like static. Not very noticeable, and not present currently.
  * Medium and large horizontal lines / areas of corruption.
    * Stripes are often screen-wide
    * Stripes can be scrolled, e.g., in Firefox or Nautilus.
    * Refresh of graphical object clears up corruption -- E.g., a mouseover of a link or highlighting an icon
  * Mouse Pointer gets corrupted at some points, until refreshed (e.g., when the cursor changes from pointer to question mark, or to a hand, or from hand to arrow, etc.).
    * Corruption occurs regardless of whether or not Desktop Effects are enabled (important later)
      * Corruption might only occur after desktop effects *have* been enabled during this run.
  * Some fonts become corrupted. If they do, the letters corrupted stay corrupt. I.e., if "k" gets corrupted, and I type "k" elsewhere in the same font, that too will be corrupted.

It would be really nice to fix this before the release of Lucid -- I can't imagine what would happen with all the rs690 users out there. Not that there are a lot, but, there are enough.

Workaround (sort of):
In /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf, I set:
options radeon modeset=0

Why just "sort of"?
  * Logging into the (only) account created when the system was 9.10 fails, at best booting me back to the login screen.
  * Logging into an account created since the system has been upgraded to 10.04 works fine, desktop effects and all, no graphics glitches.
  * Logging into the 9.10-made account with desktop effects disabled works fine.
  * Enabling desktop effects once logged in makes the system visually unusable -- cannot switch to console, graphical screen black except for mouse, but the system is still running. I can ctrl-alt-delete from a 'text' console, although there is no text -- it just shows what was last in the graphics buffer (a black screen with the mouse pointer present).

Note that although there were glitches graphically, desktop effects or not, the system worked with desktop effects enabled when kms was enabled.

I think there are probably two problems here:
1) KMS causing or making visible some kind of horrible memory badness that I don't understand
2) Desktop Effects config in 9.10 can be set to a state that doesn't play nicely in 10.04 with KMS disabled.

Any further information I will be happy to provide. I have a workable system, I can just transfer everything over to a new account on my system, but I want to make sure others aren't affected problematically -- and it would be nice just to use my old account.

-Brian

Note: Included screenshots are *screenshots*, not photos. The actual images in memory are corrupt.

First: I've upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04 beta. My system updates are current.
  I have a radeon rs690m (x1200)

This is the problem I ran into:
  * Small, horizontal white lines that appear a bit like static. Not very noticeable, and not present currently.
  * Medium and large horizontal lines / areas of corruption.
    * Stripes are often screen-wide
    * Stripes can be scrolled, e.g., in Firefox or Nautilus.
    * Refresh of graphical object clears up corruption -- E.g., a mouseover of a link or highlighting an icon
  * Mouse Pointer gets corrupted at some points, until refreshed (e.g., when the cursor changes from pointer to question mark, or to a hand, or from hand to arrow, etc.).
    * Corruption occurs regardless of whether or not Desktop Effects are enabled (important later)
      * Corruption might only occur after desktop effects *have* been enabled during this run.
  * Some fonts become corrupted.  If they do, the letters corrupted stay corrupt.  I.e., if "k" gets corrupted, and I type "k" elsewhere in the same font, that too will be corrupted.

It would be really nice to fix this before the release of Lucid -- I can't imagine what would happen with all the rs690 users out there.  Not that there are a lot, but, there are enough.

Workaround (sort of):
In /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf, I set:
 options radeon modeset=0

Why just "sort of"?
  * Logging into the (only) account created when the system was 9.10 fails, at best booting me back to the login screen.
  * Logging into an account created since the system has been upgraded to 10.04 works fine, desktop effects and all, no graphics glitches.
  * Logging into the 9.10-made account with desktop effects disabled works fine.
  * Enabling desktop effects once logged in makes the system visually unusable -- cannot switch to console, graphical screen black except for mouse, but the system is still running.  I can ctrl-alt-delete from a 'text' console, although there is no text -- it just shows what was last in the graphics buffer (a black screen with the mouse pointer present).

Note that although there were glitches graphically, desktop effects or not, the system worked with desktop effects enabled when kms was enabled.

-Brian

Note:  Included screenshots are *screenshots*, not photos.  The actual images in memory are corrupt.