Re: radeonfb almost there.. but not quite! :)

[Alessandro Suardi <alessandro.suardi@oracle.com>]

Paulo Andre' wrote:
> Hi James,
> 
> First of all, thanks a lot for the amount of work you've been putting
> into the fbdev layer of the linux kernel.
> 
> A few weeks ago I've emailed you about some issues with the radeonfb
> driver on late 2.5 kernels but didn't get any reply from either you or
> Geert. So I'm trying again, providing the (hopefully necessary) input
> for sorting this issue.
> 
> I have an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 card on a Fujitsu E-7110 laptop and
> the framebuffer console works fine on 2.4 kernels. Not surprising that
> it doesn't work that fine on 2.5 though, considering the new API and all
> the porting that's going on. I compile the radeonfb driver in, selecting
> all the appropriate options as I go along (particularly the Framebuffer
> Console) and upon boot it does detect my card and fb driver just fine,
> along with the appropriate resolution (1400x1050). Here's the snippet
> from 'dmesg':
> 
> radeonfb_pci_register BEGIN
> radeonfb: ref_clk=2700, ref_div=12, xclk=18300 from BIOS
> radeonfb: probed DDR SGRAM 32768k videoram
> radeon_get_moninfo: bios 4 scratch = 1000006
> radeonfb: panel ID string: Samsung LTN150P1-L02    
> radeonfb: detected DFP panel size from BIOS: 1400x1050
> radeonfb: ATI Radeon M7 LW DDR SGRAM 32 MB
> radeonfb: DVI port LCD monitor connected
> radeonfb: CRT port CRT monitor connected
> radeonfb_pci_register END
> 
> Right after detecting this, it tries to display the framebuffer console
> but all I can see is garbage, impossible to read anything, even though
> it keeps booting as usual and I can even (blindly) login and start X
> (though it's all hardware, not framebuffer).
> 

Radeonfb works better for me in 2.5.58, same card but on a
  Dell Latitude C640 - 1024x768 though, and xclk=16600.

I say "better" and not simply "works" because

  - the gpm cursor positioned on characters shows different ones
     (eg. hovering on a 'd' it shows a highlighted 'B')
  - the pre-penguin display is garbage. The console though gets
     to recover right after the penguin display

Definitely usable anyway :)

--alessandro

  "And though it don't seem fair, for every smile that plays
    a tear must fall somewhere"
        (Bruce Springsteen, "The Price You Pay", live 31/12/1980)