From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Marcin Slusarz Subject: Re: Macbook Pro 5, 1 - nouveau works if proprietary drivers are loaded first, then unloaded Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:54:50 +0200 Message-ID: <20100814175450.GA3171@joi.lan> References: <4C66CEA7.7080500@comcast.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4C66CEA7.7080500-Wuw85uim5zDR7s880joybQ@public.gmane.org> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: nouveau-bounces+gcfxn-nouveau=m.gmane.org-PD4FTy7X32lNgt0PjOBp9y5qC8QIuHrW@public.gmane.org Errors-To: nouveau-bounces+gcfxn-nouveau=m.gmane.org-PD4FTy7X32lNgt0PjOBp9y5qC8QIuHrW@public.gmane.org To: Jesse Johnson Cc: nouveau-PD4FTy7X32lNgt0PjOBp9y5qC8QIuHrW@public.gmane.org List-Id: nouveau.vger.kernel.org On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 11:13:11AM -0600, Jesse Johnson wrote: > Hello, > > I have a Macbook Pro 5,1 and decided that I wanted to play around with Hardened > Gentoo for fun. I have another Gentoo install on the same machine along side > Mac OS X (I keep an extra partition free for when I want to play around, and I > do like to play around.) I have seen that other people have had problems with > the MBPs and booting with the nouveau drivers, but Hardened Gentoo really should > be run without any binary blobs, so the nvidia drivers are out. The nvidia > drivers will work with x11's opengl, but there is no 3D acceleration. That > means no desktop bling :( What I have experienced with the nouveau drivers is a > little different than what I saw while searching bug lists and forums because I > did things a little different. > > On my non-hardened Gentoo install, I decided to get the nouveau drivers working > there. I followed the directions for using the git sources on the official > website, made sure my kernel was configured properly and installed. Once I had > the kernel and the drivers built and installed, I rebooted, but without changing > my xorg.conf to load the nouveau drivers. It booted up and loaded the nvidia > drivers when X started, then I went to removing and loading modules, changing > xorg.conf, etc... Basically, I wanted to get it working without having to > reboot every time I changed something. I never plan on getting something that I > haven't tried before right the first time. > > Once I killed X, removed all modules pertaining to the graphics drivers, changed > my xorg.conf, then restarted X, the nouveau drivers were loaded and they > worked. I played around a bit, seeing what kind of functionality there was (I > built mesa with the gallium flag enabled) and was pleasantly surprised that > despite the warnings about how the 3D accel is incomplete and not supported, > most of it worked with a little tweaking here and there. Including my desktop > bling :) > > Then the problems started. I had a working nouveau setup - or so I thought. > After some proper blacklisting and whatnot to prevent the nvidia proprietary > drivers from loading, I rebooted to test how the nouveau drivers would load at > boot time. It got to the part about populating dev and the screen just went > black. This is similar to the problems that others were having. I had push the > power button to restart. Nothing with the display would work. > > Then, I started up using a different kernel version that did not have anything > involving nouveau installed to fix things. I blacklisted the nouveau drivers in > the hopes that letting X load the drivers would be different. No dice. Same > black screen and holding down the power button to restart, only later. I hate > restarting like that because Linux hates restarting like that. > > After some more fiddling around with it, here is the conclusion that I have come to: > > If I start X with the nvidia proprietary drivers, then kill the X, unload all > video drivers, change my xorg.conf to load the nouveau drivers, then start X, > everything works as it should. On the other hand, if the first time I try to > start X, the nouveau drivers are loaded, I get the black screen. I'm guessing > that this has something to do with the second GPU in the machine that is not > enabled in Linux. I could try to enable it via EFI, but I am not comfortable > with that because I am not familiar with messing with that stuff and don't even > know the potential consequences of a mistake. Besides, that's only a guess. I > could also write a script that is executed at startup that automates starting X > with nvidia's drivers, killing X, unloading modules, switching xorg.conf files, > etc... > > Does anybody have another solution that has been tested and works? Maybe I just > suck at google, but I could not find anything that will help. > > FYI, the hardened install hangs at the same spot, but there is no black screen. > It just stops booting and does not log anything. I have not tried blacklisting > the drivers on that install yet and letting X load what it needs. That might > provide some useful info in the logs. Nothing useful is logged in the > non-hardened install, but the hardened install tracks a lot more of what goes on > with the system. You are probably hitting this bug: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29171 Marcin