natty: vgaswitcheroo, blacklist and modprobing!

[mexicanseaf00d]

Gentlemen, I require your help to do some automation!

I recently upgraded my notebook to 11.04 (fresh install), but cannot boot 2.6.38 kernel normally (blank screens, stuck in dmesg (?) output, no gui loads).

In 10.10 I used vgaswitcheroo to turn the dedicated ATI card off (it didnt work anyway, loud fans and terrible heat - useless!) and ran compiz+effects nicely with the Intel Core i5 gfxchip.

Now with the update, I cant boot without adding radeon.modeset=0 to grub, which then disables vgaswitcheroo. After some googling I found a post, where the user blacklisted the radeon driver and loaded it back in when everything booted fine.

Now my actual question:
How can i automate this process with a script that runs on login?

Before Natty, I configured it like this in rc.local:

chown USER /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

Now, with blacklisted radeon this does not exist of course. After successful booting I have to run

modprobe radeon

and then (as ROOT, not with sudo) above lines to turn the ATI card off.

My first thought was something like this:

#!/bin/bash
sudo su &&
modprobe radeon &&
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

..but that does not work. I know, I should read more about scripting and bash..

Any input would be much appreciated!

[mexicanseaf00d]

I'm such a fool..

just added

modprobe radeon

to the rc.local... doh

[aeronutt]

I'm such a fool..

just added

modprobe radeon

to the rc.local... doh

I'm a rookie when it comes to switcheroo, etc. But have been trying to get my i3 graphics and radeon discrete to work. So far, all I've done is add 'radeon.modeset=0' to grub list, which just turns it off completely.

If you could, what does putting modprobe radeon into the rc.local do? And how do you then turn on/off the graphics cards using switcheroo after booting? Thanks in advance!

[mexicanseaf00d]

If its in rc.local, i dont have to do it 'by hand' after login everytime I turn on the pc!

Now rc.local does the work for me -> re-loads the radoen driver, then powers the ati card down.

[willsomebody]

I am confused about what exactly you put in your rc.local. Would you mind posting the exact code that you put in to control the graphics?

Thanks in advance,
will

[mexicanseaf00d]

of course,

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
modprobe radeon
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
# chown mart /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch #does not work since 11.04, dont know why
exit 0

[willsomebody]

Thanks for posting that. When I put that code in my rc.local and put radeon.modeset=0 in my grub configuration, my ati card stays on and I get an error when I run cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch that says there is no such file. I get the same error when I try to do echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch in a terminal. Running modprobe radeon from the terminal does nothing for me, either. Any ideas?

[willsomebody]

Here is my Grub setup:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux radeon.modeset=0"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

[mexicanseaf00d]

yes, nomodeset or modeset=0 disables Kernel Mode Setting, as do the proprietary drivers btw. Vgaswitcheroo (and the "switch" file) exist only with KMS on.

that was my problem too, so i left grub alone and edited

 /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

put blacklist radeon at the end of that file --> KMS will be enabled, but the problematic radeon driver will not load initially. After that, rc.local will reload radeon, but disable the card. Voila!

The downside of this is "drm atom bios error" message which slows down logout/shutdown process a bit. As far as I can tell it does no harm to the system, but can be annoying. To fix that, one would have to turn the dedicated card on again before shutting down. There was a script somewhere on the net for that. I dont use it personally tho.

[sauthess]

Hi,

Same problem here.

Solution that you want to put in place, I think you should put this in your rc.local file :
sleep 15
rmmod radeon
modprobe radeon modeset=1
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
# chown mart /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch #does not work since 11.04, dont know why
exit 0

I've added sleep as if this script is done before X start you can have troubles (I had so ...).

Last thing : with this solution I had kernel panic as well sometimes on sleep/hibernate....(you are warned). Even when I add script in /etc/pm/sleep.d that manage to remove radeon module before suspend and reenable it after...(sometimes, with echo ON > ... there are kernel panic on my laptop...)

Only good solution I've found is to use acpi_call (http://linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspo...tch-onoff.html)

Other solution : use fglrx (as radeon is blacklisted during install) and do not use sleep/hibernate (or give a solution I didn't find...)

Hope this help,

Regards,