Display config issue on 11.4 (radeon)

Updated P-IV 3GHz machine with DVD from Suse 11.1.
At start-up resolution is 1600x1200; expected 1920x1080 like before.
Launcher::Configure Desktop::Monitor does not present the proper resolution,
neither does it the modes present in legacy file at
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
left by old Sax; new files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d are all with default lines (near empty)
Graphic card: RV280, driver: radeon.

Found info on how to get proper resolution:

// check hardware
linux-88yv:/home/pol # lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200] (rev 01)
// check driver
linux-88yv:/home/pol # lsmod | grep radeon
xrandr
// all this with sane results. ACTION:
gtf 1920 1080 60
// yields Modeline, copied and pasted to
xrandr --newmode “1920x1080_60.00” 172.80 1920 2040 2248 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -HSync +Vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA-0 1920x1080_60.00
xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080_60.00
// everything work, great!

NOW, HOWTO have this as a STARTUP SETTING?

without having to open a console and type or recall the last two lines (the mode continues to exist)

tried to tweak the files in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
following instructions in man xorg.conf
to no avail (several times hung X11, ended in level 3 console, edited back to backups). Also a black screen with some normal windows, others very dark of black.

Anybody with a recipe to have X11 start with proper params?

You mean you jumped directly from 11.1 to 11.4 using another method then a clean install (while keeping your* /home of ourse)? I doubt if that is supported when you do not all the steps from 11.1 to 11.2 to 11.3 to 11.4. And there being many changes in the configuring of the screen (e.g. dropping xorg.conf by default) I can imagin problems when you have an old xorg.conf* and the new setup.

I have a new 11.4 install on a PowerEdge server with ATI video having similar issues.
Posted Xorg log to SUSE Paste

Please @boreese,
When you are not absolutely 100% sure that you have the same issue, then please start your own thread. Else we will end up here with a real mess of answers and questions where nobody knows anymore wiich answer is on which question.

polbrian, I’ve never had to do this myself. … But take a look here at post #41 openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - Page 2 or take a look here at this Ubuntu wiki: X/Config/Resolution - Ubuntu Wiki

–Did you jump from … to 11.4

That’s right, I flew direct from 11.1.
May be the DVD menu should mention it if it’s not safe? Like writing option “Update from 11.3” instead of plain “Update”.

Anyways I had no great problems, except the display. Yes, I considered a clean install. Last time I did, it resulted in a certain amount of work and moods, because /home resides on another disk than /, and the set up wouldn’t take it. So I updated. Now, I may try a clean install to get things right and secure, but I would prefer to learn more about the system. I did grep -R xorg.conf /etc and did not find a file that refers to it; yet, I was able to put X down when I changed something in that file. I’m puzzled.

There are significant changes in graphics between 11.1 and 11.4, so this sort of difficulty is not a major surprise.

Starting in 11.2 and maturing more in 11.3 and then in 11.4, the newer versions of the kernel and of X use a more automatic graphic detection and configuration method, including ‘udev’ and ‘kernel mode setting’ As you have discovered that does not always work well.

The openSUSE-11.3 and 11.4 release notes, do have some cautions and some instructions as to what one can apply. How much of those release note instructions did you apply?

Note that if you have any settings in /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, it will over ride anything you may put in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf file. Also any settings you may have in /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf file will over ride any automatic X configuration attempts. To prevent kernel mode setting, one can tune a setting in YaST. For graphic problems one can also disable modesetting as a boot code. This is described in the 11.3 and 11.4 release notes.

Not sure as far as I remember now. Not enough, I confess, and maybe I did not understand well enough.

Learning by doing. I’ll try to delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf, restore the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ files (which I edited with settings from xorg.conf, resulting in no effect or X crashes) from backup, and see what that leads to. So far, the system has been rather foolproof (me-proof).

Disabling modesetting resulted in runlevel3, if I can trust my penciled notes.

Crashed in a way I had not seen before. After login, the splash screen got composited into my desktop. cp’ed today’s backup into /etc/X11. Will try some more cleanup and experiments afterwards, but for now I have business to attend; I still will be grateful for help and hints. I am quite willing to read technical stuff if I knew what & where to find.

Performed a clean install, with same result.
50-devices.conf : Identifier “Default Device” - no other uncommented line
50-monitor.conf : Identifier “Default Monitor” - no other uncommented line
50-screen.conf : Device “Default Device” ; Monitor “Default Monitor”
Seems that xorg was unable to probe display.

From /var/log/Xorg.0.log
1112.198] (II) [KMS] Kernel modesetting enabled.
1112.198] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
1112.198] (II) Loading sub module “fbdevhw”
1112.198] (II) LoadModule: “fbdevhw”
1112.204] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
1112.204] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor=“X.Org Foundation”
1112.204] compiled for 1.9.3, module version = 0.0.2
1112.204] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 8.0
1112.204] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa
1112.205] (II) RADEON(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section
“Default Screen” for depth/fbbpp 24/32
1112.205] (==) RADEON(0): Depth 24, (–) framebuffer bpp 32
1112.205] (II) RADEON(0): Pixel depth = 24 bits stored in 4 bytes (32 bpp pixmaps)
1112.205] (==) RADEON(0): Default visual is TrueColor
1112.205] (==) RADEON(0): RGB weight 888
1112.205] (II) RADEON(0): Using 8 bits per RGB (8 bit DAC)
1112.205] (–) RADEON(0): Chipset: “ATI Radeon 9200 5961 (AGP)” (ChipID = 0x5961)
1112.205] (II) RADEON(0): AGP card detected
1112.205] drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
1112.206] drmOpenDevice: open result is 10, (OK)
1112.206] drmOpenByBusid: Searching for BusID pci:0000:01:00.0
1112.206] drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
1112.206] drmOpenDevice: open result is 10, (OK)
1112.206] drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns 10
1112.206] drmOpenByBusid: drmGetBusid reports pci:0000:01:00.0
1112.206] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Color Tiling: disabled
1112.206] (II) RADEON(0): SwapBuffers wait for vsync: enabled
1112.213] (II) RADEON(0): Output VGA-0 using monitor section Default Monitor
1112.217] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 has no monitor section
1112.223] (II) RADEON(0): Output S-video has no monitor section
1112.230] (II) RADEON(0): EDID for output VGA-0
1112.230] (II) RADEON(0): Not using default mode “640x350” (vrefresh out of range)
… a whole series of “out of range” lines
… and in the end 1024x768

Use the same xrand sequence to set display right.

ISSUE RESOLVED
Edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ files
50-devices.conf
50-monitor.conf
50-screen.conf
by ------------------ man xorg.conf
then rebooted ; defaulted to console mode;
startx -v
pointed to typo in 50-screen-conf; corrected to no avail
so tried to reboot with
nomodeset
option, succesfully (took the 1920x1080 mode as defined).

Congratulations on resolving this. Are you now using the ‘radeon’ graphic driver? or the ‘radeonhd’ graphic driver?

I wrote a bug report on openSUSE-11.4 which impacts users with the basic install (but was purportedly fixed in updates): Access Denied which impacted my Radeon HD3450 graphic device. Only booting with ‘nomodeset’ worked around the problem. It was declared a duplicate of bug-675147 which was declared a duplicate of bug 675453 and it was resolved to be a problem associated with ‘initrd’ in the creation of LiveCD, and it has been fixed (thus far) in the milesetone versions of the next openSUSE release (12.1 milestones). I had thought this not present in DVD installs of 11.4.

I also believe the bug I noted not related to what you encountered as in the case of the initrd bug one could not reach a desktop.

Still if you have not done so already, perhaps in the 50-device.conf if you are still using the ‘nomodeset’ boot code, you can uncomment the ‘radeon’ driver and see if the radeon driver loads instead of the ‘radeonhd’.

Out of curiousity, what edits have you applied to 50-devices.conf, 50-monitor.conf and 50-screen.conf ?

You’ll be interested that the issue is now resolved on my machine. Your file looks very much like mine did.
My display is VGA, so it doesn’t send its settings to the computer. You have to write them down in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ files.
man xorg.conf gives hints, except that gtf will make a modeline for you nicely.
Starting in runlevel 3 and entering startx -v let me correct my typo for thes files.
When the config was right, I started with nomodeset as they say in the release notes and it worked gracefully.
Your suggestion of examining /var/log/xorg.log was an element to my understanding of the situation, for the which I thank you.

radeon.
My card (Radeon 9200, RV280) is not supported by radeonhd.

At the present time, I can’t see how the computer could get the display data. It’s VGA, and it’s not a common size and form factor for a computer. So I guess one has to write into the config files. I remember that SaX, however, asked me to insert the display DVD, and that’s where it had its info.

In the first phase I actually removed radeonhd as I knew for sure it wouldn’t support my card.
After a clean install I actually wrote new sections with all the details, leaving the old in place, since the man page says it’s OK to have several (of course they have to refer to something)

50-devices.conf
appended:


Section "Device"                                                             
                                                                             
  Identifier     "Device-0"                                                  
  BoardName      "RV280 5961"                                                
  Driver         "radeon"                                                    
  Screen         0                                                           
  VendorName     "ATI"                                                       
# BusID          PCI:01:00.0                                                 
                                                                             
EndSection         

50-monitor.conf
appended


Section "Monitor"

  Identifier      "Monitor-VGA"
  DisplaySize     305 230
  HorizSync       30-81
  ModelName       "SYNCMASTER BM1943/943TM SYNCMASTER MAGIC CX943B/CX943BM(DIGITAL)"
  Option          "Monitor-VGA" "VGA-display"
  Option          "PreferredMode" "1920x1080"
  VendorName      "SAMSUNG"
  VertRefresh     56-75
  ModeLine        "1920x1080"  172.80  1920 2040 2248 2576  1080 1081 1084 1118  -HSync +Vsync

EndSection

# The info for the monitor comes from the legacy xorg.conf

and 50-screen.conf
appended:


Section "Screen"

  Identifier    "VGA-display"
  Device        "Device-0"
  Monitor       "Monitor-VGA"

  SubSection "Display"

   Depth   24

  EndSubSection

EndSection

# originally I had a modeline in the sub-section; but it's intended to have a series of fallback modes; which I have no idea of. If this setting does not work, radeon will fall back on standard modeline, I think, of let vesa take on.
# I am sure that not all of this is useful.

If a writer of HOWTO’s reads this, remind the reader that they will read much info from the man pages - if only you know the name of the processes (apropos does not always yields results, and X is too **** short for any meaningful query (maybe RegExp \bX\b )

You could have written these sections in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. It would have worked too. X reads both:

...
   528.148] (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Tue Aug  2 04:02:32 2011
   528.169] (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
   528.169] (==) Using config directory: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
...

One thing I forgot to mention is there is a replacement for ‘sax2’ called ‘sax3’ in development, and testers are welcome: SaX3 – Monitor Module completed

Purportedly the ‘monitor module’ is complete although I don’t know if it would have helped in the problems in this thread as they are not monitor specific (but rather appear resolution specific).

Initially, after update from 11.1 to 11.4, there was a xorg.conf file with all the card and monitor info, written by Sax in 11.1 and the fact is that X was not able to use them.

The lines I have entered in the xorg.conf.d files are not different. It may be a question of identifiers, I did rename the device, monitor and screen sections, making sure of their coherence.

The identifiers are up to you - or to the script which writes xorg.conf. The identifiers used for the device and monitor section should match the names of device and monitor in the screen section - which is the case in your example - otherwise X would NOT start. But you can name device and monitor as you like.

polbrain, I tried to capture the method that you applied in this post here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - Page 2 (post#66) where ultimately once I fix my mistakes and mature what I have written, I hope to reference a more accurate version of what is in post#66 in that thread, here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users … and as noted, I may eventually be overtaken by events when sax3 matures/completes: SaX3 – Monitor Module completed

Still comments/corrections to post#66 from ALL on this thread are welcome (apologies for the post# being ‘66’ :frowning: ).