Xorg 7.2 + ATI AIW 8500 DV == horrendous -- how to debug further?

John Reynolds johnjen at reynoldsnet.org
Mon Jun 4 22:06:25 UTC 2007


Hello x11, I'm not subscribed generally to this list, but figured I would post
my experience with the Xorg 7.2 upgrade here to see if there's something
further I can do to help isolate what appears to be some sort of bug we have in
our kernel.

First off, the software upgrade to Xorg 7.2 went relatively flawlessly just
like many others experienced. Absolute kudos to all involved! Once it got done
and I'd made sure all t's were crossed and i's dotted (with "xorg" meta package
installed and everything else done that previous people had stumbled over) I
figured it would be a relatively easy set of tweaks to my xorg.conf file and
boom--I'd be set. Wrong!!!

I tweaked paths, etc. to my previously happy xorg.conf file and once I launched
Xorg my LCD monitor yelled at me saying it was being driven beyond safe
parameters. Xorg itself was chewing 100% of the cpu and unkillable. My only
recourse was to reboot the machine from a remote ssh.

I then tried Xorg -configure and had it dump out an xorg.conf file. Going into
X with this config file resulted in the same behavior! Condensing a 4-day
horrific experience down, the only way I was able to even get X to load was by
creating a text-only config with xorgconfig--and even that was "random"--one
time it would go into X and another time it wouldn't with no correlation to
anything going on.

I then borrowed a friend's spare Radeon 9250 card and swapped out this
All-in-wonder 8500 DV for that. A quick cycle of Xorg -configure + fontPath
tweak and X instantly worked just as I'd expected it to! I was fighting some
esoteric bug either we have in our kernel or just something in Xorg itself that
is tickled under FreeBSD--googling with all permutations of keywords brought up
_no_ issues with this older all-in-wonder card and the 7.2 Xorg driver under
Linux.

So, the all-encompassing question is how can I provide information to our more
adept hackers so that if indeed it is an obscure FreeBSD bug that this radeon
driver tickles we can plug it? ktrace? Something else?

I still have the (now "defective" to me) 8500 AIW card and I'd be most happy to
swap it out and obtain whatever information, system call traces, etc. that
would be required to nail down what's going on, but I'm at a loss for where to
begin.

-Jr

-- 
John & Jennifer Reynolds  johnjen at reynoldsnet.org        www.reynoldsnet.org
Structural/Physical Design - some group - Intel   jreynold at sedona.ch.intel.com
Running FreeBSD since 2.1.5-RELEASE.   KT7JCR        FreeBSD: The Power to Serve!
"Unix is user friendly, it's just particular about the friends it chooses."


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