Re: framebuffer console on old ATI

[Riccardo Mottola <riccardo.mottola%libero.it@localhost>]

Hi John & Michael,


since I borrowed the monitor of my workstation to do tests for 
radeonfb.... I also thougt to take the time and test what the radeondrm 
would do with an external monitor!

set

bool radeon_pci_ignore_r100_r200 = false;


and recompile (commenting out radeonfb* just not to mix things up!

At boot... I get a framebuffer high resolution console with a nice font! 
It is "correct" in size for the external 24" display and just displays a 
part clipped on the internal 13" display.

Progress! Clearly, there is some display misdetection... it did not 
"switch" completely.. kind of bad mirroring, but with the resolution of 
the external one. It should have used internal resolution for mirror or 
drive only the external monitor. Monitor setup in BIOS is set to use VGA 
as default and that works for the BIOS and bootmanager.

Try more? X11! Doesn't work. I get "ordered" garbage on the screen.
Since the system is not stalled, I can telnet in and check dmesg. These 
appear at regular intevals

[   216.997284] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: error: ring 0 stalled 
for more than 82140msec
[   216.997284] radeon0: warn: GPU lockup (current fence id 
0x0000000000000007 last fence id 0x000000000000002d on ring 0)
[   217.497291] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: error: ring 0 stalled 
for more than 82640msec
[   217.497291] radeon0: warn: GPU lockup (current fence id 
0x0000000000000007 last fence id 0x000000000000002d on ring 0)
[   217.997299] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: error: ring 0 stalled 
for more than 83140msec
[   217.997299] radeon0: warn: GPU lockup (current fence id 
0x0000000000000007 last fence id 0x000000000000002d on ring 0)

out of test, I tried then rebooting again this radeon test kernl without 
external display, I get a perfect working internal console.
It spits out this information

[     5.304228] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RV200 
0x1002:0x4C57 0x1014:0x0517 0x00).
[     5.304228] [drm] register mmio base: 0xd0100000
[     5.304228] [drm] register mmio size: 65536
[     5.314229] radeon0: GTT: 64M 0xE0000000 - 0xE3FFFFFF
[     5.314229] radeon0: VRAM: 128M 0x00000000E8000000 - 
0x00000000EFFFFFFF (16M used)
[     5.314229] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=80M, BAR=128M
[     5.314229] [drm] RAM width 64bits DDR
[     5.314229] Zone  kernel: Available graphics memory: 535062 KiB
[     5.314229] [drm] radeon: 16M of VRAM memory ready
[     5.314229] [drm] radeon: 64M of GTT memory ready.
[     5.314229] radeon0: WB disabled
[     5.324301] radeon0: fence driver on ring 0 use gpu addr 
0x00000000e0000000 and cpu addr 0x0xdb9a1000
[     5.324301] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[     5.324301] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[     5.324301] radeon0: interrupting at irq 11 (radeon0)
[     5.324301] [drm] radeon: irq initialized.
[     5.324301] [drm] Loading R100 Microcode
[     5.394230] [drm] radeon: ring at 0x00000000E0001000
[     5.394230] [drm] ring test succeeded in 1 usecs
[     5.404243] [drm] ib test succeeded in 0 usecs
[     5.404243] [drm] Panel ID String: 1024x768
[     5.404243] [drm] Panel Size 1024x768
[     5.404243] [drm] No TV DAC info found in BIOS
[     5.404243] [drm] Radeon Display Connectors
[     5.404243] [drm] Connector 0:
[     5.404243] [drm]   VGA-1
[     5.404243] [drm]   DDC: 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60 0x60
[     5.404243] [drm]   Encoders:
[     5.404243] [drm]     CRT1: INTERNAL_DAC1
[     5.404243] [drm] Connector 1:
[     5.404243] [drm]   DVI-D-1
[     5.404243] [drm]   HPD1
[     5.404243] [drm]   DDC: 0x64 0x64 0x64 0x64 0x64 0x64 0x64 0x64
[     5.404243] [drm]   Encoders:
[     5.404243] [drm]     DFP1: INTERNAL_TMDS1
[     5.404243] [drm] Connector 2:
[     5.404243] [drm]   LVDS-1
[     5.404243] [drm]   Encoders:
[     5.404243] [drm]     LCD1: INTERNAL_LVDS
[     5.404243] [drm] Connector 3:
[     5.404243] [drm]   SVIDEO-1
[     5.404243] [drm]   Encoders:
[     5.404243] [drm]     TV1: INTERNAL_DAC2
[     5.444234] radeondrmkmsfb0 at radeon0
[     5.444234] [drm] Initialized radeon 2.50.0 20080528 for radeon0 on 
minor 0
[     5.444234] radeondrmkmsfb0: framebuffer at 0xe8040000, size 
1024x768, depth 16, stride 2048
[     5.544232] wsdisplay0 at radeondrmkmsfb0 kbdmux 1: console 
(default, vt100 emulation), using wskbd0


what changed ot my first test? I don't know.. except I took the care to 
disable nouveau... but that shouldn't matter

Interestingly here we see 4 connectors... but I only have VGA and SVIDEO 
as ports, so I guess DVI is internal? no HDMI/DVI port available and we 
don't know what is being used.

X11 with internal video? it comes up fairly quickly (compared to the 
standard kernel, where I report that it does work, but takes a long time 
with a black screen, some garbage...) and I get a working mousr cursor 
on a black backround, nothing else

telnet in and dmesg shows:

[   253.288036] radeon0: warn: GPU lockup (current fence id 
0x0000000000000002 last fence id 0x0000000000000028 on ring 0)
[   253.788043] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: error: ring 0 stalled 
for more than 57000msec
[   253.788043] radeon0: warn: GPU lockup (current fence id 
0x0000000000000002 last fence id 0x0000000000000028 on ring 0)
[   254.288051] radeon0: autoconfiguration error: error: ring 0 stalled 
for more than 57500msec
[   254.288051] radeon0: warn: GPU lockup (current fence id 
0x0000000000000002 last fence id 0x0000000000000028 on ring 0)

If I kill X I get a completely black screen, even backlight turns off.

So that is a common denominator of internal & external screens.

radeon seems the more promising route to get a working system?

Riccardo

PS: I checked in the BIOS boot display setup. I see:

ThinkPad LCD
Analog(VGA) <--- set
VGA+LCD
Digital(DVI)
DVI+LCD
VGA+DVI
VGA+DVI+LCD

this would suggest two outputs and which could be even driven to a 
triple-monitor setup, but the system does not have a DVI or other 
compatible digital port. Perhaps it is for use only with a Dock which i 
don't have.