Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 216560
kernel 2.6.18 update makes X unusably slow
Last modified: 2008-05-06 12:53:30 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.8) Gecko/20061107 Fedora/1.5.0.8-1.fc6 Firefox/1.5.0.8 Description of problem: FC5 x86_64 system with Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU and ATI 9550 card (RV350) was working fine with X and Gnome, using the originally installed 2.6.16 kernel. After an upgrade to any of the 2.6.18 kernels, X sessions are unbearably slow. The gdm login screen takes about 15 seconds longer to come up than it did before, and after logging in, all new windows take 15 seconds to several minutes to appear. Even pressing "caps lock" on the keyboard takes that long before the LED on the keyboard toggles. And switching back to a text VT takes that long as well. Booting into the original 2.6.16 kernel results in things working fine. I think the 2.6.17 kernel updates may have had this problem too, but I can't verify it because the older updates have been deleted from the download server. :-( I thought perhaps an upgrade to FC6 might solve the problem, because the X server works fine during the FC6 installation, but during the "firstboot" and thereafter the slowness occurs just as in FC5. I forced an installation of an FC5 2.6.16 kernel, and if I boot FC6 with the FC5 2.6.16 kernel, X works fine. (Other things break, so it isn't a viable solution.) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): any 2.6.18 update How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install FC5 64-bit on Athlon 64 X2 4800+ system w/ ATI 9550 card. works fine. 2. Upgrade kernel using yum Actual Results: X is unbearably slow Expected Results: X should be unchanged as compared to use with original 2.6.16 kernel Additional info:
can you attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log ?
Created attachment 142589 [details] Xorg log w/ 2.6.15 kernel (works OK)
Created attachment 142591 [details] Xorg log w/ 2.6.18 kernel (very sssslllloooowwww)
Looks like the problem may be DRI. I tried adding a line Option "NoDRI" "true" to the device section of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but it didn't do anything, as others have reported in bug 207614.
Created attachment 142592 [details] X.org configuration
Problem still exists with the DRI module in kernel 2.6.22.9-91.fc7. If I remove the DRI modules, X behaves fine, but if I leave them installed, the X server tends to hang partway through drawing the GDM login screen, or the Gnome desktop if I don't use GDM. When I first reported this bug, it seemed that the X server would occassionally (after long intervals) start working again, then freeze again. Nowdays I don't have enough patience to see whether it eventually resumes.
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This bug is open for a Fedora version that is no longer maintained and will not be fixed by Fedora. Therefore we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen thus bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.