imac core i5 + ATI radeon + oneiric = black screen

[pindar]

Hi all,

I'm trying to install oneiric on an external USB drive (with EFI boot). Installation works flawlessly, the system boots fine. But when it starts the graphical environment, the screen goes black. I assume it must be an issue with the ati drivers. The frustrating thing is: for whatever reasons, I could get a fully functional graphical desktop a couple of times, by booting with "nomodeset" and install xorg:fglrx with jockey-text. But then, after an update, I see some dkms messages, and the screen goes black again. I have tried the jockey method, and I have installed the fglrx package directly from the ARI website, So far, I haven't found a reliable way to boot into the graphical desktop, and I'm not really sure what's going wrong. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks pindar

[askvictor]

Am having the same problem much the same setup, but booting off the internal drive. Back to windows I suppose...

[pindar]

Nobody have any idea? Anybody out there with a newish iMac running ubuntu?

[willnight]

this may be related?

i have tri-boot on macbook pro (2007) with connected cinema display, and had a working natty.

i upgraded to oneiric. after reboot and logged in, it showed the ubuntu background. i waited a bit for the interface to come up. nothing. waited more. still nothing. so i had just a blank background image as my desktop and no interface whatsoever. rebooted several time. same.

i thought it was a problem with oneiric, being a new upgrade, so i took the pains to reinstall the last stable and working version, which was natty for me. after installation and updates (not upgrade), i get the blank desktop again, as described above when upgraded to oneiric?

cinema display/nvidia issue? gdm issue? what am i missing? any idea?

thx

[pindar]

this may be related?

after reboot and logged in, it showed the ubuntu background. i waited a bit for the interface to come up. nothing. waited more. still nothing. so i had just a blank background image as my desktop and no interface whatsoever.

Hmm no, since you see the background, but not the interface, that doesn't appear to be the same problem. This appears to be the same problem.

Though, come to think of it - I tried installing the latest fedora beta and had a similar problem: X seems to start, I see the background (though in a corrupted form, the video is split in two halves), but there is no menu, no nothing.

[The MC]

I have a 8,1 macbook with an i5 and radeon running oneiric without any problems now.

I was able to finally able to successfully install and boot into Ubuntu by installing from disk while disconnected from the internet. When installing I disabled updates and proprietary software. I was able to perform all updates after logging into oneiric.

[pindar]

I have a 8,1 macbook with an i5 and radeon running oneiric without any problems now.

I was able to finally able to successfully install and boot into Ubuntu by installing from disk while disconnected from the internet. When installing I disabled updates and proprietary software. I was able to perform all updates after logging into oneiric.

Nope, I just tried that, and I'm getting the same problem as before: black screen. From unverified rumors in obscure corners of the internet, I hear that the problem might be that linux directs the output to the external display port (thunderbolt); people are able to run ubuntu with an external monitor attached. So this sounds like it might be solvable with an appropriate xorg.conf file...

[pindar]

Bringing this thread back to life: I am posting this from my imac, running Ubuntu oneiric. If anyone's still interested in this, here's how to in a nutshell. (Two remarks: Jérémy Lal helped me with this, he was active on the bug that described this problem, so he deserves all credit; and this worked for me, I can't guarantee that it'll work for anyone else).

1. Boot from live cd. dump the video bios with this command:
   dd if=/dev/mem of=vbios.bin bs=65536 skip=12 count=1
   copy this file to a place where you will later be able to retrieve it (like a usb stick).
2. Install normally to your disk (I installed to an external USB disk, leaving my internal disk completely untouched).
3. Boot into your newly installed system with kernel parameters "nomodeset radeon.modeset=0". This will give you access to a CLI system. Copy the file vbios.bin that you have saved to your new system, to /lib/firmware/radeon/vbios.bin
4. You will have to compile a custom kernel and apply a patch to the kernel source. I followed this guide. Save the patch which I append below as load_vbios_radeon.patch and apply it with this command:
   patch -p0 < load_vbios_radeon.patch
5. After you have compiled the kernel and installed the resulting deb files, reboot without the nomodeset parameter. Ubuntu should come up normally.

Let's see if this success is stable, but right now, I'm very happy! Thanks, Jérémy, and good luck everybody!

load_vbios_radeon.patch:
================================================== ============
--- drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c.orig 2011-09-02 10:10:43.223802888 +0200
+++ drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c 2011-09-02 10:11:31.606652206 +0200
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@
#include "radeon.h"
#include "atom.h"

+#include <linux/firmware.h>
#include <linux/vga_switcheroo.h>
#include <linux/slab.h>
/*
@@ -98,6 +99,41 @@
return true;
}

+static bool radeon_read_bios_from_firmware(struct radeon_device *rdev)
+{
+ const uint8_t __iomem *bios;
+ resource_size_t size;
+ const struct firmware *fw = NULL;
+
+ request_firmware(&fw, "radeon/vbios.bin", rdev->dev);
+ if (!fw) {
+ DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
+ return false;
+ }
+ size = fw->size;
+ bios = fw->data;
+
+ if (!bios) {
+ DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
+ return false;
+ }
+
+ if (size == 0 || bios[0] != 0x55 || bios[1] != 0xaa) {
+ DRM_ERROR("wrong sig\n");
+ release_firmware(fw);
+ return false;
+ }
+ rdev->bios = kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (rdev->bios == NULL) {
+ DRM_ERROR("alloc fail\n");
+ release_firmware(fw);
+ return false;
+ }
+ memcpy(rdev->bios, bios, size);
+ release_firmware(fw);
+ return true;
+}
+
/* ATRM is used to get the BIOS on the discrete cards in
* dual-gpu systems.
*/
@@ -482,7 +518,9 @@
bool r;
uint16_t tmp;

- r = radeon_atrm_get_bios(rdev);
+ r = radeon_read_bios_from_firmware(rdev);
+ if (r == false)
+ r = radeon_atrm_get_bios(rdev);
if (r == false)
r = igp_read_bios_from_vram(rdev);
if (r == false)
@@ -490,6 +528,7 @@
if (r == false) {
r = radeon_read_disabled_bios(rdev);
}
+
if (r == false || rdev->bios == NULL) {
DRM_ERROR("Unable to locate a BIOS ROM\n");
rdev->bios = NULL;

[kapouer]

Update : linux 3.2 boots without the load_vbios patch on model iMac12,2.