parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

[Julien Oster]

Hello,

I know the Matrox Parhelia kernel driver ist partly a binary only
driver, but I am not explicitly asking for support on that driver.

My question is: what has changed in AGP code or similar between 2.4.24
and 2.6.1 that can make my Parhelia unusable?

With 2.6.1, I can't use X anymore. Both of my screens seem to be cloned
upon each other (looks really freaky). Additionally, if I exit X, the
system locks up hard. It seems that something is wrong with the memory
mapping and that somehow the memory for the second screen gets mapped to
the same area as the memory for the first screen.

So, what could be the kernel change that affects the memory mapping of
an AGP graphics card - and what would one do to fix that? I'll do it
myself, hoping that it's in the open source portion of the driver (it
most certainly is)

Any ideas?

Regards,
Julien

Re: parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

[Dave Jones]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 04:21:37PM +0100, Julien Oster wrote:

 > I know the Matrox Parhelia kernel driver ist partly a binary only
 > driver, but I am not explicitly asking for support on that driver.

actually, you are. agpgart works fine with free drivers.

 > My question is: what has changed in AGP code or similar between 2.4.24
 > and 2.6.1 that can make my Parhelia unusable?

'lots'. seriously, they're worlds apart. they're not the same driver any more.
in fact in 2.6, agpgart is multiple drivers.

Trying to use a 2.4 module on 2.6 is going to cause you pain. lots of pain.

		Dave

Re: parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

[Julien Oster]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 03:50:16PM +0000, Dave Jones wrote:

Hello Dave,

>  > I know the Matrox Parhelia kernel driver ist partly a binary only
>  > driver, but I am not explicitly asking for support on that driver.

> actually, you are. agpgart works fine with free drivers.

Yeah, but actually, I'm pretty desperate :)

>  > My question is: what has changed in AGP code or similar between 2.4.24
>  > and 2.6.1 that can make my Parhelia unusable?

> 'lots'. seriously, they're worlds apart. they're not the same driver any more.
> in fact in 2.6, agpgart is multiple drivers.

That last bit I know. And with agpgart and nvidia-agp loaded, it's
actually using AGP... but the screen is a real mess.

> Trying to use a 2.4 module on 2.6 is going to cause you pain. lots of pain.

And you can not by chance point me to some locations where I can figure
out myself, so that I could try to patch the opensource portion myself?
It really looks like all relevant code would be in the opensource
portion.

Judging from my point of view I think it must have something to do with
different memory mapping or the like, as it looks like my X server
(independent mode, so I should actually have two framebuffers) is
writing into the same (physical?) memory area for both screens.

Just give me some hints where I should start browsing the code, I can
figure out thinks myself then. Pretty, pretty please :-)

Regards,
Julien

Re: parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

[Frédéric L. W. Meunier]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Julien Oster wrote:

> And you can not by chance point me to some locations where I can figure
> out myself, so that I could try to patch the opensource portion myself?
> It really looks like all relevant code would be in the opensource
> portion.
>
> Judging from my point of view I think it must have something to do with
> different memory mapping or the like, as it looks like my X server
> (independent mode, so I should actually have two framebuffers) is
> writing into the same (physical?) memory area for both screens.
>
> Just give me some hints where I should start browsing the code, I can
> figure out thinks myself then. Pretty, pretty please :-)

What about (also) asking for support at
http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewforum.php?f=2 ?

-- 
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html

Re: parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

[Frédéric L. W. Meunier]

> What about (also) asking for support at
> http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewforum.php?f=2 ?

Nevermind. Sorry. I noticed you've been one of the most helpul
users - http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=8053

Yes, too bad Matrox doesn't care much anymore about Linux. I'll
think twice before buying a Parhelia to replace my G400 since
it isn't that cheap and the support just suck.

-- 
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html

Re: parhelia doesn't work anymore with 2.6.1

[Julien Oster]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 05:56:48PM -0200, Frédéric L. W. Meunier wrote:

Hello Frédéric,

> > What about (also) asking for support at
> > http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewforum.php?f=2 ?

> Nevermind. Sorry. I noticed you've been one of the most helpul
> users - http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=8053

No problem. Thank you :-)

> Yes, too bad Matrox doesn't care much anymore about Linux. I'll
> think twice before buying a Parhelia to replace my G400 since
> it isn't that cheap and the support just suck.

Yes, better think twice. I was using a Matrox G550 before purchasing the
Parhelia. The support was always great, no problems with my G550
whatsoever. So I thought it might be equally as good with the Parhelia,
and the graphics device looked really impressing.

Well, it is impressing, but almost of no use with Linux for me :-(
It works well with 2.4, I'm using it right now with two DVI monitors.
But all the nifty features (I'd really like to have hardware glyph
antialiasing, that's one feature why I bought the card) aren't working
there, either. Not even OpenGL works correctly, and the OpenGL driver is
officially unsupported.

Now, with 2.6, using the card is currently impossible for me. The other
guy on the forum, Prez, who wrote the initial patches for 2.6 says it
works for him. No luck with my NForce2 chipset, though.

I tried making my own patches and first cleaned some things out, but it
didn't help. And with a binary driver you have no chance to get any help
here, not even with the open source parts.

I now at least hope that it won't take too long for Matrox to give out a
driver which works with 2.6 and I think I can give up the hope that
glyph antialiasing will work anytime under Linux.

Better not purchase this card until Matrox has sorted some major things
out. I hope they will.

Regards,
Julien