[arch-general] Debugging kernel panics (ATI Catalyst related?)

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2012-10-15 at 20:39 +1100, Robbie Smith wrote:
> > I myself am suited with Radeon opensource drivers for all my needs -
> > GoogleEarth and Blender, you should try it.

> I couldn't get the open-source drivers to work, all I got was a blank 
> screen, and that was from fresh install. I had a look at the road map 
> for the Xorg drivers and I got the impression that work on the driver 
> that supports my cards is far from complete.
> 
> The only reason I'm suspecting Catalyst is because those were the 
> updates done prior to the panics, and I can't replicate it now.

I didn't follow the thread. Do you use a xorg.conf?

Perhaps you can use my xorg.conf as a template.

[spinymouse at archlinux ~]$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Module"
        Load  "extmod"
        Load  "dri"
        Load  "dbe"
        Load  "dri2"
        Load  "glx"
        Load  "record"
        Load            "GLcore"
        #Load           "v4l"
EndSection
        Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "Plug 'n' Play"
        ModelName    "Plug 'n' Play"
        DisplaySize  305 230
        HorizSync    29-98
        VertRefresh  50-120
        modeline        "1152x864" 128.42 1152 1232 1360 1568 864 865 868 910
        Gamma   1.0
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "SWcursor"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "HWcursor"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoAccel"                   # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShadowFB"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "VideoKey"                  # <i>
        #Option     "MergedFB"  "off"           #old debian/ubuntu
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver      "radeon"
        #Driver     "nvidia"
        #Driver     "nv"
        #Driver     "nouveau"
        #Driver     "vesa"
        #VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"
        #BoardName   "G72 [GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS]"
        #BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Card0"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"

        Defaultdepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth   24
                Modes      "1152x864"
                #Virtual    3840 1200
        EndSubSection

#       SubSection "Display"
#               Viewport   0 0
#               Depth     1
#       EndSubSection
#       SubSection "Display"
#               Viewport   0 0
#               Depth     4
#       EndSubSection
#       SubSection "Display"
#               Viewport   0 0
#               Depth     8
#       EndSubSection
#       SubSection "Display"
#               Viewport   0 0
#               Depth     15
#       EndSubSection
#       SubSection "Display"
#               Viewport   0 0
#               Depth     16
#       EndSubSection
#       SubSection "Display"
#               Viewport   0 0
#               Depth     24
#       EndSubSection
EndSection


Regards,
Ralf

PS:
At the moment I AGAIN struggle with graphics myself. However, on Arch I
get the graphics working with the wanted frequencies and resolution, 3D
is working too (tested with GoogleEarth), unfortunately I run into audio
xruns hell, perhaps not related to the graphics, but it shares the IRQ
with the audio card. For Ubuntu I'm limited to a max of 1024x768 at 60Hz at
the moment, but until now I didn't notice audio issues. Once I switched
from the integrated ATI to a NVIDIA card and now I switched back to the
onboard ATI ;). Sometimes it's less time consuming to switch graphics. I
got my secondhand NVIDIA "for a song". Current Catalyst doesn't support
my graphics, an issue I never got for old NVIDIA cards. I made better
experiences with NVIDIA than with ATI, I anyway switch back to ATI at
the moment ;).