Removal of legacy X.Org (aka non-WITH_NEW_XORG) [NVIDIA vs. powerpc64 for vt console switching; Radeon X1950 not working for powerpc64 Xorg generally]

[Jean-Sébastien Pédron]

On 04.10.2014 02:38, Mark Millard wrote:
> NVIDIA 7800 GT in that type of PowerMac G5: Nearly black text on
> black background problems for vt console switching from Xorg/xfce4
> but normal text display for sc...

It looks like the backlight of your screen isn't turned on when
switching to a console window.

Could you please connect from a remote computer to your Power Mac G5 and
run the following command as root?
    truss -fd -o truss-$(sysctl -n kern.vty).txt /usr/local/bin/Xorg

Wait a couple seconds and hit Control-C to stop the X server.

Please do this for both vt(4) and syscons. Then post both truss-vt.txt
and truss-sc.txt files to this list. This will help us to determine if
vt(4) lacks an ioctl, compared to syscons.

> For 10.1-BETA3 the boot-time vt console display works for 1920x1200 
> but not (usefully/readably) for 2560x1440. So the following notes
> are for a 1920x1200 context. (10.1-BETA2 had different behavior and
> was usable for 2560x1440 despite a temporary display oddity during
> booting. But I'm not going down this path here. I'm pointing out a
> different XOrg issue.)

Could you please post pictures of this screen with both -BETA2 and
-BETA3? I'd like to understand this regression on your side.

> My attempt to test a Radeon X1950 in such a PowerMac G5 shows that 
> XOrg does not get very far:

If you have some time, could you please test my "kms-drm-update-38",
available on GitHut?
https://github.com/dumbbell/freebsd/tree/kms-drm-update-38

Just build a kernel from that checkout (no need to build world). This
branch enables the Radeon kernel module on PowerPC. Then, you can play
with xf86-video-ati (the KMS-only driver). Hopefully, the kernel driver
provides better support for the card.

> My attempt to side step this with use of xf86-video-scfb and a 
> matching xorg.conf did not work either (note also the 'depth (32)'
> below vs. the 'depth (24)' above, not just the 'Weight given (000)'
> below)
> 
> [   321.133] (II) LoadModule: "scfb"
> [   321.134] (II) Loading /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/scfb_drv.so
> [   321.134] (II) Module scfb: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
> [   321.134]    compiled for 1.12.4, module version = 0.0.4
> [   321.134]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 12.1
> [   321.134] (II) scfb: driver for wsdisplay framebuffer: scfb
> [   321.154] (--) Using syscons driver with X support (version 8595229351.252)
> [   321.154] (--) using VT number 9
> 
> [   321.154] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for scfb
> [   321.154] scfb trace: probe start
> [   321.154] (II) scfb(0): using default device
> [   321.154] scfb trace: probe done
> [   321.154] (WW) VGA arbiter: cannot open kernel arbiter, no multi-card support
> [   321.154] scfb: PreInit 0
> [   321.154] (II) scfb(0): Using: depth (32),   width (1920),    height (1200)
> [   321.154] (**) scfb(0): Depth 32, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
> [   321.154] (EE) scfb(0): Weight given (000) is inconsistent with the depth (32)
> [   321.154] (II) UnloadModule: "scfb"
> [   321.154] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
> [   321.154] 
> Fatal server error:
> [   321.154] no screens found

Nathan (CC'd), do you have an idea about what's going on here?

-- 
Jean-Sébastien Pédron

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