Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Xorg 1.9.2 and wrong display size

[Mick]

On Monday 03 January 2011 01:21:46 felix@×××××××.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 03, 2011 at 12:33:18AM +0000, Mick wrote:
> > On Sunday 02 January 2011 21:18:14 felix@×××××××.com wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jan 02, 2011 at 01:07:40PM -0800, walt wrote:
> > > > On 01/02/2011 11:25 AM, felix@×××××××.com wrote:
> > > > > My 1.9.2 upgrade didn't lose the keys, but it thinks the screen has
> > > > > fewer pixels than before, and what it does use is pushed off to the
> > > > > right (there is a column down the left side, roughly 10-20% of the
> > > > > screen, which is inaccessible).
> > > > >
> > > > > I've included 3 logs -- the working 1.8.2, the failing 1.9.2, and
> > > > > the failing /var/log/Xorg.0.log...
> > > >
> > > > The 'failing' log shows that the new Xorg-server is using the MACH64
> > > > driver, but your 'working' 1.8.2 log is truncated, so it doesn't tell
> > > > us which video driver it was using successfully.
> > >
> > > I'm about 99% certain that it has always used the mach64 driver.  I
> > > wish I had an old enough backup to recover an old log, but this
> > > current size screwup has been in effect for a while.  It's mostly a
> > > server, so X isn't vital, but I do want to get it working again.
> > >
> > > > Given only 8MB of video memory, maybe the vesa driver would work
> > > > better? Dunno.  Does your BIOS have a setting for the video
> > > > "aperture"?
> >
> > You may get better results if you enable KMS in your kernel.
>
> Hmmm ... I hadn't remembered KMS until I googled it, so I tried this ...
>
>     # grep KMS /usr/src/linux/.config
>     CONFIG_DRM_KMS_HELPER=m
>     CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_KMS=y
>     # CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS is not set
>
> Is that good enough?  I gather I915 is the Intel graphics.
>
> I modprobe'd drm_kms_helper and the resultant Xorg log was exactly the
> same except for one date/time stamp and all those [nnnnnn.nnn] times
> at the beginning of each line.
>
> I bit of googling found several old web pages, but they seemed somehow
> not very useful.  One said I have to disable the framebuffers, not
> because they are dangerous, but because they don't support KMS.  Since
> X unloads the framebuffer module, I won't worry about that.

KMS won't work with framebuffer modules like vesa/uvesa/radeonfb/etc. unless 
you also add nomodeset at the kernel line in GRUB.

Instead of me repeating it all, I suggest you have look at:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xm

(but ignore what it says about HAL and its .fdi configuration files, because 
it is out of date with xorg-server-1.9.2)

and also read:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/xorg-server-1.8-upgrade-guide.xml
-- 
Regards,
Mick