Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
Am Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:36:59 +0100 schrieb Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com: On Wednesday 26 Aug 2015 04:47:24 waben...@gmail.com wrote: walt w41...@gmail.com wrote: Then I generated an xorg.conf in the old way using 'Xorg -configure'. That file didn't work right either. Then I finally realized that the generated xorg.conf had, in the Section Device section, this line: Driverradeon This is the correct driver. But that's not what we want. To use the open-source ati driver I changed that line to read: Driverati This is what I recall it used to be, but now it is radeon. From ati(4): ati is an Xorg wrapper driver for ATI video cards. It autodetects whether your hardware has a Radeon, Rage 128, or Mach64 or earlier class of chipset, and loads the radeon(4), r128(4), or mach64 driver as appropriate. So I would say that it's not so much incorrect, as it is unnecessary. Either way, I let X decide which driver to load, and it always loads ati first (I only have two xorg.conf.d files for keyboard and mouse devices). Regarding the firmware settings, I'll just add for completeness: I have *never* had anything set in my kernel config regarding firmware, and my kernels have always loaded the firmware all by themselves (both with and without an initramfs): % zgrep FIRMWARE /proc/config.gz CONFIG_PREVENT_FIRMWARE_BUILD=y # CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL is not set CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE= # CONFIG_DRM_LOAD_EDID_FIRMWARE is not set # CONFIG_FIRMWARE_EDID is not set CONFIG_FIRMWARE_MEMMAP=y # CONFIG_GOOGLE_FIRMWARE is not set # CONFIG_TEST_FIRMWARE is not set % dmesg |grep -i micro [3.685241] [drm] Loading RV730 Microcode HTH -- Marc Joliet -- People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we don't - Bjarne Stroustrup pgpul8q6rE4fF.pgp Description: Digitale Signatur von OpenPGP
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: I do not use a xorg.conf file with the Kaveri APU. It just works with the following: I deleted my xorg.conf and X is still working without any problems. In /etc/portage/make.conf: VIDEO_CARDS=radeon radeonsi ditto. FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR=/lib/firmware I don't have such an entry. But nevertheless my firmware is installed there. In kernel (Linux 4.0.5-gentoo AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G) I have built: Linux 4.1.6-hardened SMP PREEMPT AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor AuthenticAMD CONFIG_PREVENT_FIRMWARE_BUILD=y # CONFIG_PREVENT_FIRMWARE_BUILD is not set CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y ditto. CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE=radeon/kaveri_ce.bin radeon/kaveri_me.bin radeon/kaveri_mec2.bin radeon/kaveri_mec.bin radeon/kaveri_pfp.bin radeon/kaveri_rlc.bin radeon/kaveri_sdma.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin As I have a different GPU: CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE=radeon/verde_ce.bin radeon/verde_mc.bin radeon/verde_me.bin radeon/verde_pfp.bin radeon/verde_rlc.bin radeon/verde_smc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin amd-ucode/microcode_amd.bin CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR=/lib/firmware/ CONFIG_FIRMWARE_MEMMAP=y ditto. CONFIG_DRM_RADEON=y ditto. I have also configured: CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_USERPTR=y IIRC this option is only available in newer kernels. Packages: x11-base/xorg-server Installed versions: 1.16.4(23:51:45 19/02/15)(glamor ipv6 nptl suid udev xorg -dmx -doc -kdrive -minimal -selinux -static-libs -systemd -tslib -unwind -wayland -xnest -xvfb) ditto. media-libs/mesa Installed versions: 10.3.7-r1(18:24:07 20/02/15)(bindist classic dri3 egl gallium gbm gles2 llvm nptl opencl r600-llvm-compiler udev vdpau -debug - gles1 -openmax -openvg -osmesa -pax_kernel -pic -selinux -wayland -xa -xvmc ABI_MIPS=-n32 -n64 -o32 ABI_PPC=-32 -64 ABI_S390=-32 -64 ABI_X86=64 -32 -x32 KERNEL=linux -FreeBSD VIDEO_CARDS=radeon radeonsi -freedreno -i915 - i965 -ilo -intel -nouveau -r100 -r200 -r300 -r600 -vmware) ditto, but these USE flags are different on my system: openmax openvg osmesa pax_kernel pic xa xvmc -bindist -gles2 The r600-llvm-compiler USE-flag isn't available on my system. x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati Installed versions: 7.5.0(23:52:11 19/02/15)(glamor udev) ditto. sys-kernel/linux-firmware Installed versions: 20150206(08:18:46 28/03/15)(-savedconfig) I haven't installed sys-kernel/linux-firmware but x11-drivers/radeon-ucode instead. I've downloaded the microcode for my AMD CPU direct from AMD homepage. When you install your kernel do not forget to run make firmware_install. As I haven't configured CONFIG_PREVENT_FIRMWARE_BUILD, I never done this. I am not sure if I have omitted anything of importance. Please ask if you need additional information. THX a lot for your information. There are some differences between our configurations. I'm very busy atm but when I have more time I will check it out. -- Regards wabe
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Wednesday 26 Aug 2015 04:47:24 waben...@gmail.com wrote: walt w41...@gmail.com wrote: Then I generated an xorg.conf in the old way using 'Xorg -configure'. That file didn't work right either. Then I finally realized that the generated xorg.conf had, in the Section Device section, this line: Driver radeon This is the correct driver. But that's not what we want. To use the open-source ati driver I changed that line to read: Driver ati This is what I recall it used to be, but now it is radeon. And that's when everything finally started to work perfectly. That's strange. What kind of GPU do you have? With my R7 250E I must use radeon as driver in xorg.conf. IIRC I also used the same config for my old GPU (Radeon HD4550). I do not use a xorg.conf file with the Kaveri APU. It just works with the following: In /etc/portage/make.conf: VIDEO_CARDS=radeon radeonsi FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR=/lib/firmware In kernel (Linux 4.0.5-gentoo AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G) I have built: CONFIG_PREVENT_FIRMWARE_BUILD=y CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE=radeon/kaveri_ce.bin radeon/kaveri_me.bin radeon/kaveri_mec2.bin radeon/kaveri_mec.bin radeon/kaveri_pfp.bin radeon/kaveri_rlc.bin radeon/kaveri_sdma.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR=/lib/firmware/ CONFIG_FIRMWARE_MEMMAP=y CONFIG_DRM_RADEON=y Packages: x11-base/xorg-server Installed versions: 1.16.4(23:51:45 19/02/15)(glamor ipv6 nptl suid udev xorg -dmx -doc -kdrive -minimal -selinux -static-libs -systemd -tslib -unwind -wayland -xnest -xvfb) media-libs/mesa Installed versions: 10.3.7-r1(18:24:07 20/02/15)(bindist classic dri3 egl gallium gbm gles2 llvm nptl opencl r600-llvm-compiler udev vdpau -debug - gles1 -openmax -openvg -osmesa -pax_kernel -pic -selinux -wayland -xa -xvmc ABI_MIPS=-n32 -n64 -o32 ABI_PPC=-32 -64 ABI_S390=-32 -64 ABI_X86=64 -32 -x32 KERNEL=linux -FreeBSD VIDEO_CARDS=radeon radeonsi -freedreno -i915 - i965 -ilo -intel -nouveau -r100 -r200 -r300 -r600 -vmware) x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati Installed versions: 7.5.0(23:52:11 19/02/15)(glamor udev) sys-kernel/linux-firmware Installed versions: 20150206(08:18:46 28/03/15)(-savedconfig) When you install your kernel do not forget to run make firmware_install. I am not sure if I have omitted anything of importance. Please ask if you need additional information. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:36:59 +0100 Mick michaelkintz...@gmail.com wrote: On Wednesday 26 Aug 2015 04:47:24 waben...@gmail.com wrote: walt w41...@gmail.com wrote: Then I generated an xorg.conf in the old way using 'Xorg -configure'. That file didn't work right either. Then I finally realized that the generated xorg.conf had, in the Section Device section, this line: Driverradeon This is the correct driver. But that's not what we want. To use the open-source ati driver I changed that line to read: Driverati This is what I recall it used to be, but now it is radeon. I just tried an experiment. I started my xfce4 session twice, once with Driver radeon: (II) LoadModule: radeon [ 4055.387] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so [ 4055.387] (II) Module radeon: vendor=X.Org Foundation [ 4055.387]compiled for 1.17.2, module version = 7.5.0 [ 4055.387]Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ 4055.387]ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 19.0 and again with Driver ati: (II) LoadModule: ati [ .981] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so [ .981] (II) Module ati: vendor=X.Org Foundation [ .981]compiled for 1.17.2, module version = 7.5.0 [ .981]Module class: X.Org Video Driver [ .981]ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 19.0 I grant you that tonight I don't see any difference in behavior between the two Drivers, but I did yesterday. But that was 24 hours ago when the moon was in a different phase and my evil computer spirits were in a bad mood, apparently. As I said, I find this whole subject so confusing that I can't explain anything about it, even to myself. To answer wabe's question, lspci -k shows 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] BeaverCreek [Radeon HD 6530D] Subsystem: Lenovo BeaverCreek [Radeon HD 6530D] Kernel driver in use: radeon Kernel modules: radeon
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
walt w41...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 21:10:28 +0200 waben...@gmail.com wrote: Kernel driver in use: radeon gigabytes snipped for readability Hi wabe. This whole radeon thing is so confusing I thought I'd mention one more very confusing detail that I had to fix before I got the open- source ati/radeon driver to work correctly: First I tried starting my X session with no xorg.conf file at all. That didn't work but of course I can't remember now what went wrong. (That was already more than 24 hours ago :) It's good to know that I'm not the only one with a week memory. Every day I thank God for these little yellow post-it stickers. :-) Then I generated an xorg.conf in the old way using 'Xorg -configure'. That file didn't work right either. Then I finally realized that the generated xorg.conf had, in the Section Device section, this line: Driverradeon But that's not what we want. To use the open-source ati driver I changed that line to read: Driverati And that's when everything finally started to work perfectly. That's strange. What kind of GPU do you have? With my R7 250E I must use radeon as driver in xorg.conf. IIRC I also used the same config for my old GPU (Radeon HD4550). One more thing that confused me: the xf86-video-ati package doesn't install any kernel modules. It installs only these two files: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so That's ok. It's the same on my system. BTW: I don't use any kernel modules at all. but to use those files you need that Driver ati line in xorg.conf. sigh Below you find my complete xorg.conf. Actually I don't know if my X would also work without the device section. What I remember is that I had trouble to get my keyboard working without the InputDevice section. But this is some years ago. Meanwhile I have a new keyboard and maybe I don't need a xorg.conf anymore. I will test this soon, if I don't forget it. :-) Section InputDevice Driverkbd IdentifierKeyboard[0] OptionAutoRepeat500 2 OptionProtocol Standard OptionXkbModel pc105 OptionXkbLayout de OptionXkbVariantnodeadkeys EndSection Section Device IdentifierATI-Card Driverradeon EndSection -- Regards wabe
[gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 21:10:28 +0200 waben...@gmail.com wrote: Kernel driver in use: radeon gigabytes snipped for readability Hi wabe. This whole radeon thing is so confusing I thought I'd mention one more very confusing detail that I had to fix before I got the open- source ati/radeon driver to work correctly: First I tried starting my X session with no xorg.conf file at all. That didn't work but of course I can't remember now what went wrong. (That was already more than 24 hours ago :) Then I generated an xorg.conf in the old way using 'Xorg -configure'. That file didn't work right either. Then I finally realized that the generated xorg.conf had, in the Section Device section, this line: Driver radeon But that's not what we want. To use the open-source ati driver I changed that line to read: Driver ati And that's when everything finally started to work perfectly. One more thing that confused me: the xf86-video-ati package doesn't install any kernel modules. It installs only these two files: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so but to use those files you need that Driver ati line in xorg.conf. sigh
[gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off? [FIXED]
On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 20:08:55 -0400 Fernando Rodriguez frodriguez.develo...@outlook.com wrote: On Sunday, August 23, 2015 2:25:47 PM walt wrote: On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 05:53:37 +0200 bitlord bitlord0...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2015-08-22 at 19:08 -0700, walt wrote: I forgot about xf86-video-ati until you mentioned it, so I just emerged it and (I think) made all the changes needed to reconfigure Xorg to use it instead of fglrx. Maybe I'm just too tired right now to think straight, but the error messages I see in Xorg.log tell me that my video chip is not supported. For radeon (free driver) you need to configure more than Xorg, check wiki article about radeon driver [1], It needs in kernel support, also most cards especially newer (=r600) need proprietary firmware. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Radeon An excellent wiki page, thanks. It tells me that my video chip should be supported so I'll go back and follow all the steps this time. I'd like to avoid the proprietary ati driver if I can. I had nothing but trouble with the free driver with a kabini APU. Hibernate would give a black screen on resume. The Dim screen after an inactive period (whatever it's called) would dim it further until the backlight turns off everytime the period elapses. And a lot of programs like the adobe flash plugin and other players, and games would show video that I may have watched even days before but it's still on video memory when started. Ironically, the free driver works better than the proprietary driver on this (desktop) machine. The high CPU usage with xfwm4 is fixed and all other video-related functions (like playing video files) work as well as they did before. Power-saving features like the ones used by your kabini introduce a huge amount of complexity -- I'm amazed that anyone ever got the free driver to work with those chips. The only way I got it to work on this machine was to ignore all those dozens of optional steps in the wiki and use the simplest possible configuration -- still so complex that I gave up last night in frustration. This morning brought me better luck. The only problem I've had with the proprietary driver (which may be realted to your problem) is that if you use a premptive kernel it causes a LOT of errors to be written to the syslog which makes the desktop very unresponsive. That's because it calls functions that should not be called with preemption enabled. If that's your problem you'll see errors on the syslog and I posted a patch that disables preemption before calling those functions. It's on a VLC bug (cause at first I tought it was a VLC related) and I recently noticed that I still get the errors if I switch between X sessions with CTRL-ALT-Fx so it's incomplete but it makes things much better. I will update it and post it on the right bug when I get around it. The reason I use mpv instead of VLC is that the video performance is better on this machine. Now that I'm using a different driver I'll give VLC another try. BTW thanks for submitting the bug fixes.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Sunday, August 23, 2015 2:25:47 PM walt wrote: On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 05:53:37 +0200 bitlord bitlord0...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2015-08-22 at 19:08 -0700, walt wrote: I forgot about xf86-video-ati until you mentioned it, so I just emerged it and (I think) made all the changes needed to reconfigure Xorg to use it instead of fglrx. Maybe I'm just too tired right now to think straight, but the error messages I see in Xorg.log tell me that my video chip is not supported. For radeon (free driver) you need to configure more than Xorg, check wiki article about radeon driver [1], It needs in kernel support, also most cards especially newer (=r600) need proprietary firmware. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Radeon An excellent wiki page, thanks. It tells me that my video chip should be supported so I'll go back and follow all the steps this time. I'd like to avoid the proprietary ati driver if I can. I had nothing but trouble with the free driver with a kabini APU. Hibernate would give a black screen on resume. The Dim screen after an inactive period (whatever it's called) would dim it further until the backlight turns off everytime the period elapses. And a lot of programs like the adobe flash plugin and other players, and games would show video that I may have watched even days before but it's still on video memory when started. The only problem I've had with the proprietary driver (which may be realted to your problem) is that if you use a premptive kernel it causes a LOT of errors to be written to the syslog which makes the desktop very unresponsive. That's because it calls functions that should not be called with preemption enabled. If that's your problem you'll see errors on the syslog and I posted a patch that disables preemption before calling those functions. It's on a VLC bug (cause at first I tought it was a VLC related) and I recently noticed that I still get the errors if I switch between X sessions with CTRL-ALT-Fx so it's incomplete but it makes things much better. I will update it and post it on the right bug when I get around it. -- Fernando Rodriguez
[gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 05:53:37 +0200 bitlord bitlord0...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2015-08-22 at 19:08 -0700, walt wrote: I forgot about xf86-video-ati until you mentioned it, so I just emerged it and (I think) made all the changes needed to reconfigure Xorg to use it instead of fglrx. Maybe I'm just too tired right now to think straight, but the error messages I see in Xorg.log tell me that my video chip is not supported. For radeon (free driver) you need to configure more than Xorg, check wiki article about radeon driver [1], It needs in kernel support, also most cards especially newer (=r600) need proprietary firmware. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Radeon An excellent wiki page, thanks. It tells me that my video chip should be supported so I'll go back and follow all the steps this time. I'd like to avoid the proprietary ati driver if I can.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Sat, 2015-08-22 at 19:08 -0700, walt wrote: On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 04:08:41 +0200 waben...@gmail.com wrote: I'm using XFCE as DE and xfwm4 as WM. Since I bought a new GPU (Radeon R7 250), I don't use compositing any more because it causes tearing when I watch videos in fullscreen with 3840x2160. With this GPU I also had some random freezes when compositing was enabled. Beside this, performance is very good, regardless compositing is enabled or disabled. Scrolling text or moving windows around is a bit faster and smoother with compositing enabled, especially when other windows are in the foreground. With my old GPU (Radeon HD4550) I always had compositing enabled. Everything was smoother and I saw absolutely no glitches, but performance was also good with compositing disabled, just not quite as smooth as with I forgot about xf86-video-ati until you mentioned it, so I just emerged it and (I think) made all the changes needed to reconfigure Xorg to use it instead of fglrx. Maybe I'm just too tired right now to think straight, but the error messages I see in Xorg.log tell me that my video chip is not supported. But, in the process of switching to xf86-video-ati and then back again to fglrx I noticed this error message from xfwm4: Error opening /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory Correct, I have no /dev/dri directory. Do you have one? For radeon (free driver) you need to configure more than Xorg, check wiki article about radeon driver [1], It needs in kernel support, also most cards especially newer (=r600) need proprietary firmware. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Radeon
[gentoo-user] Re: Anyone using xfce4 with compositing turned off?
On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 04:08:41 +0200 waben...@gmail.com wrote: I'm using XFCE as DE and xfwm4 as WM. Since I bought a new GPU (Radeon R7 250), I don't use compositing any more because it causes tearing when I watch videos in fullscreen with 3840x2160. With this GPU I also had some random freezes when compositing was enabled. Beside this, performance is very good, regardless compositing is enabled or disabled. Scrolling text or moving windows around is a bit faster and smoother with compositing enabled, especially when other windows are in the foreground. With my old GPU (Radeon HD4550) I always had compositing enabled. Everything was smoother and I saw absolutely no glitches, but performance was also good with compositing disabled, just not quite as smooth as with I forgot about xf86-video-ati until you mentioned it, so I just emerged it and (I think) made all the changes needed to reconfigure Xorg to use it instead of fglrx. Maybe I'm just too tired right now to think straight, but the error messages I see in Xorg.log tell me that my video chip is not supported. But, in the process of switching to xf86-video-ati and then back again to fglrx I noticed this error message from xfwm4: Error opening /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory Correct, I have no /dev/dri directory. Do you have one?
