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Nikos Chantziaras posted on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:10:23 +0200 as excerpted: |
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> On 01/26/2010 01:20 AM, Mark Knecht wrote: |
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>> Hi, |
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>> I've been working on trying to get this new machine to run X. So |
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>> far no luck |
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=:^( |
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>> but I'm learning so it's interesting. |
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=:^) |
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>> My quick question goes like this - if I boot with no drivers I get |
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>> a VGA console. If I modprobe a frame buffer driver at boot time then I |
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>> get a nice looking but slow frame buffer console. All good so far. |
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>> However my graphics adapter is supposed to use the i915 driver and when |
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>> I modprobe that - either in auto-load or at the command like after |
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>> logging in - my screen goes 'black'. I'm wondering what I do - other |
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>> than look at what's in dmesg - to figure out what state the machine is |
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>> in. Is the screen turned off? Is the driver running and putting out |
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>> 'black'? |
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> |
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> I might be wrong, but it sounds like the driver tries to use KMS (kernel |
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> mode setting) which conflicts with other framebuffer drivers (KMS |
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> provides a fast framebuffer console on its own). |
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Yes. See below... |
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> So two things to try here: |
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> |
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> A. Completely disable the vesafb driver. |
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> B. Disable KMS in the i915 driver: |
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> . When built as a module, use the "modeset=0" parameter . When built |
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> in the kernel, use "i915.modeset=0" in Grub |
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> |
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> Of course this assumes that KMS is indeed the problem. |
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I'm using the Intel X driver on my netbook now, so am beginning to follow |
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it, but I don't know as much about it, particularly the xorg.conf settings |
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as so far I've been running entirely xorg.conf-less, as I do the radeon |
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freedomware driver I use on my desktop. However... |
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If I'm remembering what I've been reading correctly, the newest Intel |
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drivers are KMS *ONLY* -- they have *NO* non-kms mode. Of course, the |
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kernel vgacon should still work for text mode, but once X starts, you'll |
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get, probably, a black screen, unless you're running KMS. KMS being the |
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only choice, you better make sure that's what the kernel is using, no |
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vgacon, and no vesafb (thus choice A above). |
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That said, "newest" is new enough it's probably not yet gentoo-stable, so |
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if you're running stable, you can probably use choice B, if desired. But |
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it's probably wise to get KMS working now, since that's soon to be the |
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only choice (unless you want to run the unaccelerated X vesa-framebuffer |
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driver, IDR the exact name ATM, instead of the intel driver). |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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