KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

[tkteo]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

Note: right now I have managed to update my kernel boot options in menu.lst to include "radeon.modeset=1" by referring to the following:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/RadeonKMS
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

I added "radeon.modeset=1" to the end of the "# kopt=root=" line in menu.lst , then ran "sudo update-grub".

[tomp01]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?


The crashing occurs in KDE but not in Gnome which would be fine only I now have the problem that wicd won't run either so I can't connect to the internet to get more updates. I will have to put networkmanager back and see if that makes a difference.

[tkteo]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

If wicd does not work, give nm-applet a try. That's under the networkmanager-gnome package I think. It has worked better than the knetworkmanager.

[molostoff]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

I will have to put networkmanager back and see if that makes a difference.

I am not sure but it seems to me that radeon driver (and new KMS modeset enabled) detects adapter memory incorrectly. I checked dmesg radeon and drm messages and found that they differ from one boot to another. In one moment dmesg reported that there are over 600MiB of mem while I have only max 384MiB for graphic and 1G at all (e.g. more than 60% of system).

If somebody can test it on his/her hardware?

[tkteo]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

I am not sure but it seems to me that radeon driver (and new KMS modeset enabled) detects adapter memory incorrectly. I checked dmesg radeon and drm messages and found that they differ from one boot to another. In one moment dmesg reported that there are over 600MiB of mem while I have only max 384MiB for graphic and 1G at all (e.g. more than 60% of system).

If somebody can test it on his/her hardware?

I will be glad to check on my system. How do I go about doing so? (Think of me as a total newbie if that helps!)

[molostoff]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

I will be glad to check on my system. How do I go about doing so? (Think of me as a total newbie if that helps!)

just do dmesg and see what is radeon or drm reports at each boot. if there is difference between boots or values are not equal to your hardware capabilities - this is the case. If you will see all ok - no problems.

Also I have digged some hopeful posts here:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showp...2&postcount=53
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showp...3&postcount=56

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19325

[tkteo]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

Also I have digged some hopeful posts here:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19325

This particular phoronix forum thread appears very relevant to our problem. I also noticed that you posted in your bug report whether it is the same problem already reported by the phoronix members. Yes, sure seems like a duplicate to me.

[molostoff]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

Also I think that in regards to new release of RadeonHD 1.3 http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19518
it would be fine to see the update of http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/xs...video-radeonhd which is stay at 1.2.5 and (with taking into account new mesa updates) this radeonhd is strangely unsupported (universe).

Please, give us more drivers to test.

[tkteo]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

Installing a ppa version of Mesa which has the potential problem removed seems to work so far. I updated current status at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/mesa/+bug/446578

[sblass]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

The burning question is when will it be safe to go back in the water..... er, I mean, when will it be safe to upgrade again. I see there are new kernel and Mesa version in the 62 items which are available for me to download/upgrade. With the radeon modeset forced as it is now, by system eventually slows to a crawl.

Even more disturbing, though, is the boot process. Yesterday the boot process (no splash, of course) went through the usual early on-screen messages and then hung. After hitting the reset button, the next boot brought up the GRUB screen (which has NEVER appeared under Karmic before), and then proceded to boot okay.

Today, the first foot hung, and I hit the reset button. Saw GRUB on the second boot, but it also hung. Hit the reset button again. Third boot had no GRUB, but finally made it to the KDE login.

Hopefully an upgrade - when it's safe - will cure this, but given the wacky GRUB stuff, I may be well advised to do an install from scratch once the 9.10 final is released.

[dibl]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

@sblass that sounds more like failing hardware than a software issue -- just my two cents. I'd be backing up my data and considering how to test the hard drive, PSU, and memory. :P

[molostoff]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

@sblass that sounds more like failing hardware than a software issue -- just my two cents. I'd be backing up my data and considering how to test the hard drive, PSU, and memory. :P

I have got the same about 4-5 days ago (suppose last kernel and grub update this did)...

In general, troubleshooting of mistakes we receive sometimes (with package updates, fully or partially) is too complicated to display... Nobody can say in which state its own system, except using apport 20meg report...

I keep /home separately from other system.

Also I think that usual user installed packages (browsers, readers, etc) should be kept separatelry from /usr (as an example - /opt or /usr/local fs, as it is usually in sunos)

[sblass]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

I have got the same about 4-5 days ago (suppose last kernel and grub update this did)...
...
Also I think that usual user installed packages (browsers, readers, etc) should be kept separatelry from /usr (as an example - /opt or /usr/local fs, as it is usually in sunos)

Although reassuring to see I'm not alone in this boat (misery loves company and all that) and confirming - as I pretty much knew - that this wasn't a failing H/W issue, we're still left wanting on the Radeon driver issue.

I grew tired of waiting, and since my system performance was so degraded, I updated with the 62 packages available to me this A.M. I now am seeing the graphical bootup progress indicator, although near the very end a broken purple line probably at least 10 pixels wide appears about 1/3 of the way from the progress indicator to the bottom of the screen (looks like high-speed, deep purple Morse code!).

After logging in, I'm unfortunately back to the point I was when I originally started this thread. Even though I'm forcing the radeon modeset in /etc/modprobe.conf, it seemingly has no effect. Once again I can reliably run Kontact (KMail), Adept, and Opera - but not all at once! Opera works fine from the moment of fresh system availability, so long as I simply browse and never go to the menus to do any operation that has ties to OS hooks. If I do, then I'm screwed.

[molostoff]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

Even though I'm forcing the radeon modeset in /etc/modprobe.conf,

/etc/modprobe.conf does not work anymore, because radeon driver now acts as a console driver too, that modeset option should be set before kernel is loaded - e.g. as a boot parameter.

I use /etc/default/grub to supply modeset option, also I have added ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates into repo sources, so I have got updates for all radeon-kms stuff, so at this moment - all is work (no morse, as it is a patented work), but the speed of KDE has dramatically degraded ...

I have tried also 7.7 mesa from x-edgers repo - same result, works but slowly, and looks like no much progress for last week.

[tkteo]

Re: KDM Problem (??) - New KDE BSOD-Like Feature?

Well, I took the big risk: I manually edited the /boot/grub/menu.lst to include the "radeon.modeset=1" option. I also removed the "splash" option. Then sudo update-grub.

And I downgraded Mesa to use Bryce Harrington's version which removes the potential problem with ATI cards.

I won't detail the steps here cos I don't want to appear that I recommend manually editing grub entries.

But I share molostoff's observation that enabling radeon.modeset=1 does really slow down the system. Right now I enable it but leave desktop effects turned off just to not slow down the system too much.

Meanwhile on the launchpad bug reports there is no update on whether a newer bug-fix version of mesa will be committed to the karmic repositories. Sigh.