[arch-general] Display issues with Linux 3.1

[hollunder at lavabit.com]

> hollunder at lavabit.com, Sun 2011-11-13 @ 11:18:05-0500:
>> Another workaround is to disable kms by booting with the nomodeset
>> option.
>>
>> Another new issue is that my mousepointer frequently
>> flickers/disappears and that xv video out in smplayer doesn't work
>> anymore, but both of those are with the nomodeset option, have yet to
>> test with kms enabled again.
>
> I was under the impression that KMS was required in order to run modern
> versions of X. If that's the case, it's likely that your new issues are
> a result of the nomodeset kernel parameter. I'd try reenabling KMS and
> adding i915 to the initcpio. That may solve the problem.
>
> For what it's worth, I'm not seeing the mouse cursor flickering. I don't
> use smplayer so I can't speak to that problem.

I did test it with i915 added, kernel re-installed and nomodeset removed
and stuff seems to be back to normal. xv works again, mouse cursor flicker
is gone, so I'm reasonably sure that X on intel chips just doesn't work
properly anymore without KMS. The switch to the KMS resolution happens
earlier now, but that doesn't hurt.

The wiki seems to already contain information about this and it says some
stuff about nomodeset being the option for non-intel chipsets only (which
is obviously not quite true) and that X doesn't work without kms (which is
also plain false).

Now we know loads of workarounds but it's still a bug. I'd file it but it
seems https://bugzilla.kernel.org/ is down. Down for you too?