Radeon KMS driver does not support aditional displays on my laptop

[Thetargos]

Today I think I've found a bug in the Radeon DRM driver as shipped with Fedora's 2.6.31.5 kernel (F12). This morning I needed to give a presentation which I had made on my main system (F11), however upon hooking up the projector to the laptop's VGA port I got intermittent screen flashing (projector) a blur of the secondary display very distorted (think similar to the "dream" Compiz Fusion effect) and the laptop couldn't produce an image on the projector. Upon reboot (with the projector still hooked up) I could see all other screens just fine: BIOS splash, GRUB, even the first line when loading the kernel BEFORE the DRM is loaded and KMS kicks in, because as soon as it does, the flashing/distorting cycle begins again.

I had to boot into Vista (which thankfully is loaded with OOo and I had my presentation on a backup USB key) to be able to conduct my lecture, but was left with a very nasty taste in my mouth after seeing that apparently the driver has some issues with external displays and this lapotop.

The hardware is:

Chipset AMD SB600 based, RS690M display adapter, AMD Turion TL-58 CPU, 2 Gigs of RAM.

Fedora 12 is running with all the most recent updates as of today, running the x86_64 version.

[droidhacker]

You really should have tested things before putting yourself on the spot. Everyone knows that the radeon drivers are in a continual state of flux and may or may not work at any given time. They also may or may not support particular features at any given time.

Also, you didn't say what (if anything) you did to enable the second display (projector).

Today I think I've found a bug in the Radeon DRM driver as shipped with Fedora's 2.6.31.5 kernel (F12). This morning I needed to give a presentation which I had made on my main system (F11), however upon hooking up the projector to the laptop's VGA port I got intermittent screen flashing (projector) a blur of the secondary display very distorted (think similar to the "dream" Compiz Fusion effect) and the laptop couldn't produce an image on the projector. Upon reboot (with the projector still hooked up) I could see all other screens just fine: BIOS splash, GRUB, even the first line when loading the kernel BEFORE the DRM is loaded and KMS kicks in, because as soon as it does, the flashing/distorting cycle begins again.

I had to boot into Vista (which thankfully is loaded with OOo and I had my presentation on a backup USB key) to be able to conduct my lecture, but was left with a very nasty taste in my mouth after seeing that apparently the driver has some issues with external displays and this lapotop.

The hardware is:

Chipset AMD SB600 based, RS690M display adapter, AMD Turion TL-58 CPU, 2 Gigs of RAM.

Fedora 12 is running with all the most recent updates as of today, running the x86_64 version.

[timmydog]

You really should have tested things before putting yourself on the spot.

As I always say to my wife "test it first"! However, it's easy to let it slide when you're in a rush - give the guy a break.

Also, you didn't say what (if anything) you did to enable the second display (projector).

Probably the same that he always does and it worked before, so it's a valid report of a regression; steps to reproduce are always invaluable though, as you point out.

@Thetargos It's good that there are people out there testing and reporting bugs (especially when it's on hardware that I own ) - keep up the good work!

Tim

[droidhacker]

He says that he's using F12, which has only been out for 2 weeks. Nothing has changed regarding the r300 drivers in that time, so I really can't see how there could be any regressions added in new, and it also means that more likely than not, there was *never* a "what he always does" since he hasn't done it before. A major change, like upgrading to a new unstable OS, demands retesting every procedure and updating to match the new changes.

One of the things with Fedora -- you must always assume that it is going to be broken, since there are *always* a bunch of broken things. I think its part of the mission statement -- if there's nothing broken, break some stuff. Thats whats fun about Fedora.

As I always say to my wife "test it first"! However, it's easy to let it slide when you're in a rush - give the guy a break.



Probably the same that he always does and it worked before, so it's a valid report of a regression; steps to reproduce are always invaluable though, as you point out.

@Thetargos It's good that there are people out there testing and reporting bugs (especially when it's on hardware that I own ) - keep up the good work!

Tim

[timmydog]

He says that he's using F12, which has only been out for 2 weeks. Nothing has changed regarding the r300 drivers in that time, so I really can't see how there could be any regressions added in new, and it also means that more likely than not, there was *never* a "what he always does" since he hasn't done it before. A major change, like upgrading to a new unstable OS, demands retesting every procedure and updating to match the new changes.

Fair enough, but never underestimate the power of a small change in one area to expose bugs in another entirely unrelated area.

I think what I was trying to say was "try not to scare off people who are doing some testing".

One of the things with Fedora -- you must always assume that it is going to be broken, since there are *always* a bunch of broken things. I think its part of the mission statement -- if there's nothing broken, break some stuff. Thats whats fun about Fedora.

Fun? I' think I'll stick to the Debian testing distro.

Tim

[Thetargos]

He says that he's using F12, which has only been out for 2 weeks. Nothing has changed regarding the r300 drivers in that time, so I really can't see how there could be any regressions added in new, and it also means that more likely than not, there was *never* a "what he always does" since he hasn't done it before. A major change, like upgrading to a new unstable OS, demands retesting every procedure and updating to match the new changes.

One of the things with Fedora -- you must always assume that it is going to be broken, since there are *always* a bunch of broken things. I think its part of the mission statement -- if there's nothing broken, break some stuff. Thats whats fun about Fedora.

Way to encourage a distro

Just for the record, I have been using Fedora (as my primary distribution) since Yarrow (Oh, that is FC1, by the way), and have used every single release (once out of Rawhide). I know what Fedora is and what it is not.

With that out of the way, there is a knwon regression in the DRM drivers regarding modesetting and speed. The problem I'm getting seems to be within the DRM driver (so it may be related to this regression), as it fails to set the correct mode (otherwise, how could I explain being able to see just fine the BIOS splash, GRUB and the kenrel loading when I remove quiet from the kernel command-line...) As soon as the DRM driver is loaded, it messes up... Oh, and by the way, all I've ever needed to do to enable an external display on this laptop is to boot it up with the secondary display attached to the VGA port, it automatically detects the secondary display... Back to the issue, it does seem the driver is having trouble (or blatantly ignoring) the EDID information from the display.

What I have not tested is to boot with the secondary display attached, and disabling modesetting, then allowing X to set the correct mode (though I seriously doubt it will set the correct mode). I could fool around with different xorg.conf configurations and what not, that is NOT the point, the point is to bring this issue to the devs. Whether the problem lies within the DRM driver itself, libdrm, X or another component, I cannot say, all I can say is Hey! I have this issue, has anyone else seen this?! and THEN see if the DEVS are aware of this, and patiently wait for a fix...

So in fact, this is part of what Fedora is and means by testing, reporting, testing again, and report again. In the mean time, I'm almost always able to get my work done, and as a fail safe, there's always Vista (as much as I despise the beast )

[agd5f]

file a bug:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org

and attach your xorg log, config, and dmesg.

[Quisemy09]

Radeon KMS driver does not support aditional displays on my laptop

Hi all,

Has anyone else had this problem, I have a samsung syncmaster monitor and in Ubuntu 9.10 my screen resolution is set to 800x600 from memory , when I used an older version of Ubuntu I edited the xorg.conf file so I could set the resolution to 1440x900, however this does not exist now.

Has anyone had this problem and resolved?

Regards

Dean

[jakubo]

in the System section theres some point called display or resolution.... i have the german version so i cant tell, there you can change resolution via GUI
sry for that stupid answer.... but either it can detect your display or it cannot :P
so youll find all supported resolutions listed in there i guess
but please dont sue me if im stelling rubbish XD


and concerning this bug report, or rather the impolite answer:
i wonder why people just cant say: im sorry but i think you should better report it to the distributors or whereever it would be appropriate

instead you are telling thetargos what he was doing wrong, and telling him how stupid he was not to test... its really none of your business if he wants to test or not....

same thing in this other article... how can ppl be telling others (i.e. vesa users) to buy hardware or to change
i really dont get it! whats the big idea?

[Erikina]

Way to encourage a distro

He's just trolling, it's probably best to ignore his nonsense.

As for your problem, the best place to would be to go to the red hat bugzilla, they tend to be pretty good with this sort of stuff (although, nothing is ever quick). Good luck with your problem