[arch-general] Last Updates w/kernel 2.6.33.4-1 -> 2.6.34-2 broke radeon driver for RS690M cards

[David C. Rankin]

Guys,

	Just updated my laptop's spare drive and something in the last set up updates, 
which included the kernel, really affected the radeon driver badly. It's almost 
like I am back running in framebuffer mode. I'm not quite sure where to start 
troubleshooting as I am not familiar at all with the changes kms introduced into 
the radeon driver soup, but I suspect that may be where the problem lies. I have 
no xorg.conf, so if there are config issues, it's with the default config.

	When I updated to the 2.6.33 kernel (2.6.33.4-1), I was ecstatic. The radeon 
driver was working the best I had ever seen it. Heat control was much better and 
frame rate had almost quadrupedaled and compiz worked great.  IIRC, I even 
posted here giving kudos to the devs on how good it was working. With the update 
to 2.6.34-2, it is worse than ever before. Specifically, compiz will no longer 
run -- it just whitescreens. (usually a problem with the driver NOT being 
loaded). However, in this casee, all of the radeon modules are loaded:

[01:10 alchemy:/home/david] # lsmod | grep rad
radeon                790145  2
ttm                    45713  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper         23740  1 radeon
drm                   162265  4 radeon,ttm,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit            5071  1 radeon
i2c_core               18364  5 radeon,i2c_piix4,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit

	The biggest problem with the new packages is HEAT. We are now back to the point 
where the heat generated by the gpu and driver makes it uncomfortable to rest 
your palms on the palm-rest to type.

	I don't know where to start looking. The Xorg.0.log isn't that remarkable at 
all. The only things that stand out are:

[    36.790] (II) UnloadModule: "fbdev"
[    36.790] (EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)

	** from earlier discussions, this is no big deal IIRC

[    37.526] is imortant (WW) RADEON(0): Direct rendering disabled
[    37.526] (II) RADEON(0): Acceleration disabled

	** this doesn't look good. I guess it means no DRI -- why is the question?  I 
know DRI is important to compiz and I'm fairly sure dri was working with the 
last kernel/radeon driver combination. The difference between the setup with 
2.6.33 and 2.6.34 is day and night.

	Also, the color in thunderbird has gone green -- literally. My normal dark gray 
message background is now green. I guess this is somehow related to the driver 
issue. The full Xorg.0.log and a screenshot of green tbird are here:

http://www.3111skyline.com/dl/bugs/Archlinux/Xorg.0.log

http://www.3111skyline.com/dl/bugs/Archlinux/green-tbird.jpg

	I'm not sure where to start with this problem, with the xf86-video-ati package 
or with the kernel? What say the gurus?




-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com