Debian 6.04 trouble with X

[john gennard]

I'm 81 and had a stroke just over two years ago which has left me with
memory difficulties. A couple of days ago, I installed Squeeze on a new
computer (Lenny which I've been using on another box is getting too long
in the tooth)

I had problems with the installation, but I struggled through although
the installer ran away from me. So I will have to do some pruning (when I
can call to mind the command line instructions) and will have to
reconfigure the kernel although I do not think this will present a problem.

There is one immediate problem which I cannot get a feel for. In
graphic mode, I have an unstable picture, but I can't think where to start
trying to correct it. The graphics card has a ATI Radeon HD 5450 chip -
where is the Xorg configuration file stored? I don't think I've ever
configured Xorg but I can;t be certain.

Could someone assist.

John.
--
Gllug mailing list - ***@gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug

[Tethys .]

Post by john gennard
There is one immediate problem which I cannot get a feel for. In
graphic mode, I have an unstable picture, but I can't think where to start
trying to correct it. The graphics card has a ATI Radeon HD 5450 chip -
where is the Xorg configuration file stored? I don't think I've ever
configured Xorg but I can;t be certain.

I don't know if it's the same problem or not, but I had exactly the
same issue with my Radeon when using kernel modesetting. Disabling KMS
gave me a back a stable image[1].

Tet

[1] This is why I get very annoyed about the proposals to drop support
for anything except KMS. I agree that architecturally it's the right
design and it's great when it works, but it's simply not ready yet.

[Nix]

Post by Tethys .
I don't know if it's the same problem or not, but I had exactly the
same issue with my Radeon when using kernel modesetting. Disabling KMS
gave me a back a stable image[1].

There have been several bugs with these symptoms, generally fixed in KMS
itself, almost all caused by hardware bugs (of which some mobile Radeons
in particular have a wonderful array).

Post by Tethys .
[1] This is why I get very annoyed about the proposals to drop support
for anything except KMS. I agree that architecturally it's the right
design and it's great when it works, but it's simply not ready yet.

I've not found a machine on which KMS doesn't work for nearly a year
now. The proposals to drop all the remoting parts of X on the grounds
that 'nobody' uses them, now *those* I find annoying.

[John Hearns]

Post by Nix
I've not found a machine on which KMS doesn't work for nearly a year
now. The proposals to drop all the remoting parts of X on the grounds
that 'nobody' uses them, now *those* I find annoying.

Would be grateful to a pointer for those proposals please!
Remote graphics is pretty important to me.
--
Gllug mailing list - ***@gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Post by John Hearns

Post by Nix
I've not found a machine on which KMS doesn't work for nearly a year
now. The proposals to drop all the remoting parts of X on the grounds
that 'nobody' uses them, now *those* I find annoying.

Would be grateful to a pointer for those proposals please!
Remote graphics is pretty important to me.

Look up 'Wayland'.

There was a rather silly talk at FOSDEM where discussion centred
around how to make the 'close' button work in the brave new world of
Wayland, when apps are hung or otherwise not responding. Apparently
cut and paste is now working. They made a huge technological
breakthrough with cut and paste too -- it uses MIME types instead of X
atoms.

/me despairs at the cascade of attention deficit teenagers ...

Rich.