Re: An old Dell 8200 *dims* the screen...

[Sverre Froyen <sverre%viewmark.com@localhost>]

> On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:42 -0500, "Eric d'Alibut"
> 
> <eric.halibut%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> > ...after returning to console from running X.
> > 
> > The driver is 'radeon:'
> 
> I've been seeing this for a while (on 5.0.2/amd64 dual-core).  I don't
> have access to the machine right at the moment, but I believe it's
> running the radeon driver with no acceleration (I'll check when I get
> home).  It looks a bit like a bad bit-shift somewhere in the code that
> restores the console after X runs, because the screen gets dimmer every
> time I run and exit X, becoming practically unusable (invisible) after
> two or three cycles, but I can switch back and forth between the virtual
> terminal running X and the others as many times as I like (using
> Ctrl-Alt-
> Fn) without any trouble so long as the X session itself doesn't exit.
> Haven't had time to look into it (and probably won't for the next few
> months), so I can only offer you those meagre hints and my best wishes.

The radeon restore problem has been fixed multiple times in the xorg ati 
driver source. It seems to reappear periodically. A search for 'restore' in 
the git log indicates that it was fixed last time on 2010-10-24.

The point about acceleration sounds right because I have not noticed it since 
the drm modules were added.

Sverre