KDE4+i945+kernel+external display = ?
 

Hi everybody,

I've got an interesting issue today which I half-resolved, but am still
wondering whether I missed something important or did something that'll
bite me in the end.

So here's short story: I've been running older kernel (2.6.22-gentoo-r9)
and KDE3 on my laptop(x86,i945) for quite some time. Now with recent
unmasking of KDE4 I went with the flow and "upgraded" my KDE3 to KDE4
(yep, I know it's still there, slotted etc., but that's not the point).
So, after "upgrade" I've noticed how painfully slow my KDE4 was. Now,
I've been running KDE4 on my home machine (amd64,nVidia) for quite some
time now (ever since 4.2.0) and never noticed such things (mind you -
it's running another rather dated kernel: 2.6.25-gentoo-r6), so I
started digging. Xorg gave me no real reason for worries other than some
complaints about DRI and the fact that "compatible" DRI would be part of
kernel-2.6.28+, but I have not enabled any of the "effects" yet! Well,
so I upgraded kernel, and... my X wouldn't start at all. Actually it did
start but my externally plugged LCD monitor won't show anything. Lid on
my Dell x420 laptop stays closed since I had trouble getting my
1920x1200 resolution on external LCD to cooperate with 1280x800 on
internal one. SysRq saved me trouble of hitting reset too many times. A
bit of digging on google brought me to this xorg.conf (probably
suboptimal as I was adding options and never retracting them looking for
the "right" combination):

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics
Controller"
Driver "intel"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
Option "AccelMethod" "xaa"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "LVDS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics
Controller 2"
Driver "intel"
BusID "PCI:0:2:1"
Option "AccelMethod" "xaa"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "LVDS"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "LVDS"
Option "Ignore" "True"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0660
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default"
Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1920x1200"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1920x1200"
EndSubsection
EndSection

Some of it are hints from KDE folk, some came from other resources.

Not only that but I had recompiled my kernel quite a few times with
pretty much every possible options related to intel graphics on i945
chipsets until I hit the "right" one. So it's kind of working. BUT - now
every time I end KDE session instead of going back to KDM I'm being
dropped to VT7, closer examination shows that KDM is running, but I
can't get to it on any of the VTs. So I kill it and start again. And
KDE4 itself leaves quite a few artifacts on screen (not entirely sure if
it's related to a few effects I have enabled for usability's sake). KDE4
on my home machine haven't had any of those issues for quite some time
now (it's got different issues though ;) ).

Another annoyance is that with older kernel vesa framebuffer worked
perfectly fine (... video=vesafb:ywrap,mttr,1280x800-24@72 ...) and I
was able to have full-screen framebuffered text console with 1280x800
resolution on external LCD. Now I get some "viewport"-like console where
content is stuck in the upper-left corner (I assume it's resolution is
1280x800) but it didn't scale to full screen.

So my real question is: are there any specific guides I should've
followed instead of playing "hit-n-miss"? Did I miss something along the
way that produces KDM issues? Do I really have to have an xorg.conf only
to disable certain things? How do I deal with my framebuffer so that my
console looks bit more sane and utilizes all given real estate of 26"
monitor and not a mere 50% or so.

Sorry for bundling all those into one mail, but it kind of popped up
altogether so I felt bad about separating it :-D

KDE4+i945+kernel+external display = ?
 

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Intel_GMA

Welcome to our world of pain :(

I made some headway using "-hal" for xorg-server in USE, and IgnoreEDID
and setting DDC to false in xorg.conf but the latest updates ignore
those and the UXA settings in the link above (check the xorg log for
other dirty secrets)

I am using 2.6.31-r3 (with kernel mode setting by default for the i915 -
doesnt work well without it) and xorg-server 1.6.5.

Its a laptop and there is no easy solution as the external screens
(various) that I use with it often have only 1024x768 in common with its
own LCD and stupid xorg wont let me overide it without consequences
elsewhere :(

xorg sucks badly at the moment and there is no viable alternative to
switch to - and the saddest thing is the chipset has worked fine in the
past (sadly becoming distant past for me) ...

BillK

On Wed, 2009-10-28 at 23:31 -0600, Dmitry Makovey wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I've got an interesting issue today which I half-resolved, but am still
> wondering whether I missed something important or did something that'll
> bite me in the end.
>
> So here's short story: I've been running older kernel (2.6.22-gentoo-r9)
> and KDE3 on my laptop(x86,i945) for quite some time. Now with recent
> unmasking of KDE4 I went with the flow and "upgraded" my KDE3 to KDE4
> (yep, I know it's still there, slotted etc., but that's not the point).
> So, after "upgrade" I've noticed how painfully slow my KDE4 was. Now,
> I've been running KDE4 on my home machine (amd64,nVidia) for quite some
> time now (ever since 4.2.0) and never noticed such things (mind you -
> it's running another rather dated kernel: 2.6.25-gentoo-r6), so I
> started digging. Xorg gave me no real reason for worries other than some
> complaints about DRI and the fact that "compatible" DRI would be part of
> kernel-2.6.28+, but I have not enabled any of the "effects" yet! Well,
> so I upgraded kernel, and... my X wouldn't start at all. Actually it did
> start but my externally plugged LCD monitor won't show anything. Lid on
> my Dell x420 laptop stays closed since I had trouble getting my
> 1920x1200 resolution on external LCD to cooperate with 1280x800 on
> internal one. SysRq saved me trouble of hitting reset too many times. A
> bit of digging on google brought me to this xorg.conf (probably
> suboptimal as I was adding options and never retracting them looking for
> the "right" combination):
>
> Section "Device"
> Identifier "Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics
> Controller"
> Driver "intel"
> BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
> Option "AccelMethod" "xaa"
> Option "monitor-LVDS" "LVDS"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Device"
> Identifier "Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics
> Controller 2"
> Driver "intel"
> BusID "PCI:0:2:1"
> Option "AccelMethod" "xaa"
> Option "monitor-LVDS" "LVDS"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Extensions"
> Option "Composite" "Enable"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Monitor"
> Identifier "LVDS"
> Option "Ignore" "True"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Module"
> Load "dri"
> EndSection
>
> Section "ServerFlags"
> Option "AIGLX"
> EndSection
>
> Section "DRI"
> Group "video"
> Mode 0660
> EndSection
>
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Default"
> Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
> DefaultDepth 24
> Subsection "Display"
> Depth 16
> Modes "1920x1200"
> EndSubsection
> Subsection "Display"
> Depth 24
> Modes "1920x1200"
> EndSubsection
> Subsection "Display"
> Depth 32
> Modes "1920x1200"
> EndSubsection
> EndSection
>
> Some of it are hints from KDE folk, some came from other resources.
>
> Not only that but I had recompiled my kernel quite a few times with
> pretty much every possible options related to intel graphics on i945
> chipsets until I hit the "right" one. So it's kind of working. BUT - now
> every time I end KDE session instead of going back to KDM I'm being
> dropped to VT7, closer examination shows that KDM is running, but I
> can't get to it on any of the VTs. So I kill it and start again. And
> KDE4 itself leaves quite a few artifacts on screen (not entirely sure if
> it's related to a few effects I have enabled for usability's sake). KDE4
> on my home machine haven't had any of those issues for quite some time
> now (it's got different issues though ;) ).
>
> Another annoyance is that with older kernel vesa framebuffer worked
> perfectly fine (... video=vesafb:ywrap,mttr,1280x800-24@72 ...) and I
> was able to have full-screen framebuffered text console with 1280x800
> resolution on external LCD. Now I get some "viewport"-like console where
> content is stuck in the upper-left corner (I assume it's resolution is
> 1280x800) but it didn't scale to full screen.
>
> So my real question is: are there any specific guides I should've
> followed instead of playing "hit-n-miss"? Did I miss something along the
> way that produces KDM issues? Do I really have to have an xorg.conf only
> to disable certain things? How do I deal with my framebuffer so that my
> console looks bit more sane and utilizes all given real estate of 26"
> monitor and not a mere 50% or so.
>
> Sorry for bundling all those into one mail, but it kind of popped up
> altogether so I felt bad about separating it :-D
>
>
>
--
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>
Home in Perth!

KDE4+i945+kernel+external display = ?
 

William Kenworthy wrote:
> http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Intel_GMA
>
ah, the magic word: GMA :) Thanks for the reference I have started
applying advises from there so we'll see what will I end up with.
> Welcome to our world of pain :(
>
it is quite surprising considering that Intel has opensource drivers
etc. So no "weirdness" should arise as developers have the specs etc.
(at least that was my understanding so far).
> I made some headway using "-hal" for xorg-server in USE, and IgnoreEDID
> and setting DDC to false in xorg.conf but the latest updates ignore
> those and the UXA settings in the link above (check the xorg log for
> other dirty secrets)
>
Xorg.0.log looks much cleaner now that I got drm issues out of the way...
> I am using 2.6.31-r3 (with kernel mode setting by default for the i915 -
> doesnt work well without it) and xorg-server 1.6.5.
>
which intel driver do you use? Mine's 2.8.1 and I wonder if bumping to
2.9.1 that is in testing wouldn't yield better results.
> Its a laptop and there is no easy solution as the external screens
> (various) that I use with it often have only 1024x768 in common with its
> own LCD and stupid xorg wont let me overide it without consequences
> elsewhere :(
>
> xorg sucks badly at the moment and there is no viable alternative to
> switch to - and the saddest thing is the chipset has worked fine in the
> past (sadly becoming distant past for me) ...
>
I too found "degradation" quite surprising since things were working
pretty well up until now. I somewhat regret KDE4 switch because of all
of this, however I definitely needed some of the features KDE4 apps had
to offer. Traded off some of the features dear to my heart: multi-key
combinations popping prompt menu, titlebar set correctly in Konsole
without affecting tab name, and some others. Filed with bugs.kde.org...
let's see what happens next. According to some KDE4 jsut highlighted
problems in underlying Xorg, so hopefully now with all of that out in
the open things will get fixed.

KDE4+i945+kernel+external display = ?
 

On Thu, 2009-10-29 at 19:50 -0600, Dmitry Makovey wrote:
> William Kenworthy wrote:
> > http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Intel_GMA
> >
> ah, the magic word: GMA :) Thanks for the reference I have started
...
> which intel driver do you use? Mine's 2.8.1 and I wonder if bumping to
> 2.9.1 that is in testing wouldn't yield better results.
bunyip ~ # esearch xf86-video-intel
[ Results for search key : xf86-video-intel ]
[ Applications found : 1 ]

* x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel
Latest version available: 2.9.0-r1
Latest version installed: 2.9.0-r1
Size of downloaded files: 773 kB
Homepage: http://xorg.freedesktop.org/
Description: X.Org driver for Intel cards
License: MIT


bunyip ~ #

...

> I too found "degradation" quite surprising since things were working
> pretty well up until now. I somewhat regret KDE4 switch because of all
> of this, however I definitely needed some of the features KDE4 apps had
> to offer. Traded off some of the features dear to my heart: multi-key
> combinations popping prompt menu, titlebar set correctly in Konsole
> without affecting tab name, and some others. Filed with bugs.kde.org...
> let's see what happens next. According to some KDE4 jsut highlighted
> problems in underlying Xorg, so hopefully now with all of that out in
> the open things will get fixed.
>
...

I am now 3 days into an emerge -e world (almost 2000 packages) as after
the gnome 2.6 upgrade I had a lot of weird gnomey issues (actually had
to use a lot of kde apps for awhile!) This morning I rebooted and most
issues have gone away. At home, I have no ext monitor and the laptop is
set to its native 1366x768. When I got to work I resumed (ToI) and
plugged in the ext monitor (1280x768) and ran my script (desktop icon
that calls a script that uses xrandr to set both VGA1 and LVDS1 to
1280x1024) - and it worked perfectly. Maybe there are other packages
involved that are not obvious? To make it a bit more fuzzy, somewhere
in the middle of this I made sure that the kernel framebuffer drivers
were not being built (vga etc) and removed the grub argument to set the
mode - maybe this interferred with it previously? - though those
settings were there "forever". Note that the GMA guide reccomends doing
this.

I find that every couple of years or so, an emerge -e world cleans up a
lot of issues that just don't make sense otherwise - ~680 pkgs to go :)

BillK