[Bug 401514] Re: No console framebuffer support for modern ATI Radeon HD cards.

[Ancoron Luziferis]

I need to resurrect this one as it affects me at least with the latest
Lucid (Beta 1):

$ uname -a
Linux workstation 2.6.32-17-generic #26-Ubuntu SMP Sat Mar 20 02:23:45 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ cat /proc/version_signature 
Ubuntu 2.6.32-17.26-generic 2.6.32.10+drm33.1

$ lsb_release -rd
Description:    Ubuntu lucid (development branch)
Release:        10.04


The problem what I see here is that the framebuffer devices (/dev/fb[0-9]) get only set up when the system boots with Kernel Mode Setting.

I do think so because I have a machine with a Radeon Xxxxx card running
with KMS. There I automatically get the device nodes /dev/fb0 and
/dev/fb1. Also the kernel modules get loaded automatically which results
in a nice graphical plymouth and high resolution VTs.

Another machine I have does have a Radeon HD4770 (RV740) for which KMS
support is still broken. To use this card I have to boot with KMS
disabled (radeon.modeset=0 kernel option), which results in the rather
stone-age text boot "splash" and with no high resolution VT's.
Additionally after boot-up I don't have a /dev/fb* device which results
in at least DirectFB to fail:


   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| DirectFB 1.2.8 |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        (c) 2001-2008  The world wide DirectFB Open Source Community
        (c) 2000-2004  Convergence (integrated media) GmbH
      ----------------------------------------------------------------

(*) DirectFB/Core: Single Application Core. (2010-02-03 18:27) 
(*) Direct/Memcpy: Using Generic 64bit memcpy()
(!) Direct/Util: opening '/dev/fb0' and '/dev/fb/0' failed
    --> No such file or directory
(!) DirectFB/FBDev: Error opening framebuffer device!
(!) DirectFB/FBDev: Use 'fbdev' option or set FRAMEBUFFER environment variable.
(!) DirectFB/Core: Could not initialize 'system_core' core!
    --> Initialization error!


After struggling a lot with kernel modules and boot options I finally found by accident that adding the "fbdev" kernel option allows my system to provide framebuffer devices, graphical boot and high resolution VT's.

This is the complete boot line:

BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-17-generic root=UUID=aac3cf7c-104c-4af2
-930a-b848744a59c0 ro quiet splash radeon.modeset=0
video=uvesafb:2560x1600-60 fbdev

-- 
No console framebuffer support for modern ATI Radeon HD cards.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/401514
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