Re: funny framebuffer fonts on PowerBook with radeonfb

Herbert Poetzl
2006-03-27T03:37:45Z

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On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 12:17:21PM +1100, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 02:47 +0200, Herbert Poetzl wrote:
> > Hey Ben!
> >
> > 2.6.16 and 2.6.15-something show a funny behaviour
> > when using the radeonfb driver (for text mode), they
> > kind of twist and break the fonts in various places
> > some characters or parts seem to be mirrored like
> > '[' becoming ']' but not on character boundary but
> > more on N pixels, colors seem to be correct for the
> > characters, and sometimes the font is perfectly fine
> > for larger runs, e.g. I can read the logon prompt
> > fine, but everything I type is garbled ...
> >
> > just for an example, when I type 'echo "Test"' then
> > all characters are mirrored and cut off on the right
> > side but the locations are as shown above, on enter
> > the T is only a few pixels wide, but the est part is
> > written perfectly fine ... this is a new behaviour
> > and going back to 2.6.13.3 doesn't show this ...
> >
> > if there is some testing I can do for you, or when
> > you need more info, please let me know. here a few
> > details for the machine:
>
> I have a similar machine and haven't seen such a problem with
> it so far ... does this happen after you load X or already at
> boot before X ever kicks in?

long before X is started (which doesn't happen by
default on my setup), btw X works fine

> Does it happen if you don't load any font (that is for example
> boot with init=/bin/sh to prevent any init script to try to load
> a font)

yes, just tried that, the boot looks like this:

first, I end up in the bootloader yaboot, which
asks me (in a very small font) which kernel to
boot, then, for example, I enter

linux2616 init=/bin/bash

after that, the screen goes white for half a second
and becomes black with a large terminal font on it
(the one I get without framebuffer, I think), the
text there is printed undistorted ... shortly after
that, I get a flash, and the mode switches to a much
smaller font (the final framebuffer font) and the
kernel messages written there are already distorted.
half a second later (or less) the penguin appears at
the top area (undistorted), when the bootup is done
I get the following prompt (which again is okay)

bash-2.05b#

typing anything there is distorted again ...

pressing enter several times leaves 'copies' of
the caracters on the screen, forming vertical bars
the prompt (bash) is now always fine, the copy one
line above (as all the others) is distorted ...

note, the bootup is not much different with older
kernels, except for the strange distortions ...

attached my kernel configuration, just in case
it is related ...

TIA,
Herbert

> Ben.
>

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