12.04 update breaks video

[Petter Adsen]

On Sat, 2 May 2015 10:14:41 -0700
rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 2 May 2015 09:55:02 +0200
> Petter Adsen <petter at synth.no> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 1 May 2015 12:44:15 -0700
> > rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, 1 May 2015 14:02:40 +0200
> > > Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > What graphics card? What driver for it? 
> > > 
> > > AMD A4-5300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics × 2
> > > 
> > > driver: ESA: DVST
> > > 
> > > FGLRX 3D-accelerated proprietary graphics driver for ATI cards.
> > > --- activated but not currently in use
> > 
> > What does this last line mean? 
> The last 2 lines were from looking at "additional drivers" for the
> system. It seems to say FGLRX is not being used.

It was certainly not a clear way of describing the situation. That
should be changed in some way.

> > What does your /var/log/Xorg.0.log say
> > about your driver? There will be two lines like this:
> > 
> > [104101.617] (II) LoadModule: "radeon"
> > [104101.617] (II)
> > Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
> > 
> > Except that yours might say "fglrx" instead of "radeon".
> 
> I've got:
> [    19.315] (II) LoadModule: "radeon"
> [    19.315] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
> + many other radeon lines
> 
> also have:
> [    19.290] (II) LoadModule: "fglrx"
> [    19.290] (II)
> Loading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so
> 
> and:
> [    19.315] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
> [    19.316] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
> which, from "driver" seems to be what is being used
> 
> How do I tell which is REALLY being used?

Yes, those are normal. It is X probing for present drivers. After the
probin, I get this:

[104101.618] (II) RADEON: Driver for ATI Radeon chipsets:
        ATI Radeon Mobility X600 (M24) 3150 (PCIE), ATI FireMV 2400
        (PCI), ATI Radeon Mobility X300 (M24) 3152 (PCIE),

...and so on. Then a little more stuff, and:

[104101.622] (II) RADEON(0): Creating default Display subsection in
              Screen sect$ "Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp
              24/32
[104101.622] (==) RADEON(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[104101.622] (II) RADEON(0): Pixel depth = 24 bits stored in 4 bytes (32 bpp pi$
[104101.622] (==) RADEON(0): Default visual is TrueColor
[104101.622] (==) RADEON(0): RGB weight 888 [104101.622]
             (II) RADEON(0): Using 8 bits per RGB (8 bit DAC)

The "RADEON" in capitals designates the driver. In your case this
should be "FGLRX", I believe.

> > You can also check your "lsmod" output to see which module is
> > loaded.
> 
> Gives me:
> vesafb                 13846  1 
> and:
> fglrx                8080630  1564 
> amd_iommu_v2           19228  1 fglrx

You are using fglrx. Good to know :)

> Thanks for the info re how to look deeper into the system - that's
> what I was hoping to find out. But, I don't yet know how to interpret
> it correctly - still don't know which driver is  REALLY  being used.

You do now :)

> And, more importantly, why the black screen with any video?

I could hazard a guess, but it's not anything more than that - just a
guess. If I were you, I would switch from fglrx to radeon. 99.999% of
the problems I have had with my system in recent years were due to the
fglrx driver, switching to radeon did wonders for my system stability.

If you do not _need_ the fglrx driver for something, like if you have a
really new card that isn't supported by radeon, I would at least give
it a try.

> Looks like somebody is trying to force me to upgrade to 14.04. :-)))
> [which I plan to do, but a bit later...]

Shouldn't be necessary. If you are happy with 12.04 I see no reason to
upgrade as long as you are getting security updates. :)

Best of luck!

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
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