Re: [gentoo-user] struggling with dri

[Holly Bostick]

Fernando Meira schreef:
> On 10/10/05, Jason Cooper <gentoo@××××××××××.net> wrote:
>
>> Fernando Meira (fmeira@×××××.com) scribbled:
>>
>>> I think I have radeon driver built-in the kernel.. does that mean
>>>  that
>>
>> it is
>>
>>> loaded before agpgart? agpgart and intel_agp are both modules...
>>>
>>> should I them recompile my kernel and leave radeon as module?
>>
>> yes.
>
>
>
> Ok, with this modules being loaded at boot: agpgart intel_agp radeon
>
> I still don't have rendering! So, should I try to compile all
> built-in the kernel? Or should I go for x11-drm?
>
> Cheers, Fernando
>

I'm not sure I understand what you're doing here.

As far as I know (and I must stress that I'm not that familiar with
either the radeon driver or how it works with the Mobility chips,
because I have a 9800SE that must use the fglrx drivers to get OpenGL/3D
hardware acceleration/direct rendering), the radeon driver is a 2D
driver that is used in combination with the kernel's DRM and the Mesa
libraries to get direct rendering/3D hardware acceleration enabled.

So my first question would be:

What is the status of DRM in your kernel?

Device Drivers=>Character Devices=>Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86
4.1.0 and higher DRI support)

Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support
  x CONFIG_DRM:

  x

  x Kernel-level support for the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI)
  x introduced in XFree86 4.0. If you say Y here, you need to select
  x the module that's right for your graphics card from the list below.
  x These modules provide support for synchronization, security, and
  x DMA transfers. Please see <http://dri.sourceforge.net/> for more
  x details.  You should also select and configure AGP

  x (/dev/agpgart) support.

  x

  x Symbol: DRM [=m]
  x Prompt: Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)
  x   Defined at drivers/char/drm/Kconfig:7
  x   Depends on: AGP || AGP=n
  x   Location:
  x     -> Device Drivers
  x       -> Character devices
  x


Now, I know that for the fglrx drivers to run, this kernel option must
be *unset*, but it's clear that you can't even have the 'radeon' module
if DRM is not set. However, in looking at these settings in my own
kernel (and assuming that the Mobility chipset in your lappy can use
these drivers to provide 3D hardware acceleration), I noticed that:

- when I had /dev/agpgart set as a module, I could only build DRM as a
module (the kernel gave me a message to this effect);

- setting /dev/agpgart to statically compiled (Y) allowed me to build
DRM statically compiled (but I could still build Radeon as a module, and
intel_agp as a module under agpgart).

Again, I'm no big expert on the radeon kernel drivers, but I find it
hard to believe that in this situation it can be a good thing for
/dev/agpgart and /DRM themselves to be compiled as loadable modules
rather than statically (although the sub-functions, intel_agp and
radeon, most likely *should* be compiled as modules).

So I would suggest that your kernel config "should" look like this:

<*> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)
< >   ALI chipset support
< >   ATI chipset support
< >   AMD Irongate, 761, and 762 chipset support
< >   AMD Opteron/Athlon64 on-CPU GART support
<M>   Intel 440LX/BX/GX, I8xx and E7x05 chipset support
< >   NVIDIA nForce/nForce2 chipset support
< >   SiS chipset support
< >   Serverworks LE/HE chipset support
< >   VIA chipset support
< >   Transmeta Efficeon support
<*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)
< >   3dfx Banshee/Voodoo3+ (NEW)
< >   ATI Rage 128 (NEW)
<M>   ATI Radeon
< >   Intel I810 (NEW)
< >   Intel 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G
< >   Matrox g200/g400 (NEW)
< >   SiS video cards (NEW)

For what it's worth. You could then take agpgart out of
/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 (since it's no longer a loadable
module, you can't load it that way anyway. but then intel_agp should
hopefully load correctly).

You would perhaps also want to check your build of xorg:

emerge -pv xorg-x11

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r4  -3dfx +3dnow +bitmap-fonts
-cjk -debug -dlloader -dmx -doc +font-server -insecure-drivers -ipv6
-minimal +mmx +nls -nocxx +opengl -pam -sdk +sse -static +truetype-fonts
+type1-fonts (-uclibc) +xprint +xv 0 kB

As you see, opengl support is *optional*, and if not compiled,
presumably the Mesa libraries that allow X to render 3D for those
drivers that don't do so natively would also not be available.


Hope this helps,
Holly
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