Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop All Black at 1280x1024

[tormod]

Tormod - thanks for your responses. Any chance you could give a bit more detailed instruction on how to try those four different options you mentioned?

Thanks very much!

Now, first read the "man exa" text, I am not going to repeat it here. You just stuff one of this options into the Device section, like for example:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "my-radeon"
 Driver "ati"
 Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
 Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection

For the other options, "boolean" means on or off, and default is off, so try "on".

[KingStill]

Actually, I have found solution that doesn't involve switching KMS on (radeon.modeset = 1) which introduces tearing/corruption, or switching to XAA which reduces performance. I added Option "AGPSize" "128" to xorg.conf under device section and now I'm running full effects at 1680 x 1050.

[tormod]

Actually, I have found solution that doesn't involve switching KMS on (radeon.modeset = 1) which introduces tearing/corruption, or switching to XAA which reduces performance. I added Option "AGPSize" "128" to xorg.conf under device section and now I'm running full effects at 1680 x 1050.

Interesting. What were your symptoms, and what is exactly your card:

lspci -nn | grep VGA

How much memory does it have?

[KingStill]

My symptoms were that if I had my display resolution past x:y (don't remember exactly which one, but lets assume 1280x1024 for argument's sake), the desktop area would be black and all icons were gone. If I blindly clicked where I knew the icons should be, I could open the app so everything was there, just not visible. The taskbars at the top and bottom of the screen were visible. Also, any window that was resized past certain size, would have all contents replaced with just a blank screen - just like the desktop. My card is ati mobility radeon 9200 with 128MB of ram. Here's the output of the command:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] [1002:4c66] (rev 01)

[dwasifar]

Actually, I have found solution that doesn't involve switching KMS on (radeon.modeset = 1) which introduces tearing/corruption, or switching to XAA which reduces performance. I added Option "AGPSize" "128" to xorg.conf under device section and now I'm running full effects at 1680 x 1050.

Confirmed. I added this option to xorg.conf device section (and commented out the XAA line), and my system is now also using EXA with full effects and increased performance. Thank you.

I have the same hardware as you, BTW.

[Tholley]

YAAAAYYYYY!

It worked for me!
I showed to be using EXA and copied and pasted the new code for XAA, rebooted and I now see the cherries I had selected earlier!

All is good with 9.10 now

Got sound, and now my desktop!

Woo Hoo!!

[tormod]

Everybody who has 128MB or more of video memory should try Option "AGPSize" "128" instead of downgrading to XAA.

Upping the AGPSize reserves more system memory so it should not be abused though. On the other hand, those with 128MB video ram often have plenty of system RAM as well.

For reference there is a similar bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/197651 but please file new bugs instead of commenting on that one.

[bagl0312]

I have an old radeon 9200 pro card:

> lspci -nn | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] [1002:5960] (rev 01)

attached to a monitor with resolution 1680x1050.
Desktop effects worded well in Jaunty, in Karmic they are back using the following /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
        Driver "ati"
        Identifier "Radeon 9200"
        Option "BusType" "PCI"
        Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
        Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
        Option "AGPSize" "64"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
    Device "Radeon 9200"
EndSection

The system was unstable (kernel panic few minutes after logon) until I added the options:

Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"

also the option "BusType" "PCI" is needed to enable desktop effects

[jacopoL]

reverting libgl1-mesa-dri to version 7.5.1-1 seems to be a good workaround.

[bagl0312]

Hi JacopoL,
I tried also downgrading libgl1-mesa-dri but it did not work wih my graphic card.
Instead modifying xorg.conf as described in my previous post works very well and no downgrading of libraries is needed (at least with my card)