Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 47459
XFree86-FBDev update hangs on ATI Rage Mobility 128
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:34:28 EDT
Description of Problem: I've installed Red Hat 7.1 on a Dell Inspiron 8000, using a standard laptop installation with KDE as the desktop, and all the relevant update RPMs from the errata. After installing XFree86-FBDev-3.3.6-38.i386.rpm, I found that the system freezes at the KDE login window after logging out from a KDE session. This is on an ATI Rage Mobility 128 AGP with a display mode of 1400x1050 and a depth of 16. When it freezes, it doesn't respond to Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, Ctrl-Alt-F*, or anything like that, and the touch pad and tracking button don't make the cursor budge. All I can do is power-down and reboot at this point. Going back to XFree86-FBDev-3.3.6-35.i386.rpm from the CD solved the problem. How Reproducible: Consistent Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install 7.1 on an Inspiron 8000 as above. 2. Install all relevant update RPMs (rpm -Fvh *.rpm) 3. Login to KDE and logout again. Actual Results: It hangs as described above. Expected Results: Shouldn't hang. Additional Information: I didn't keep any X Server logs, but my config files are available on request. It's a pretty vanilla installation, though.
Why aren't you using the 4.x server? "Xconfigurator --preferxf4" Either way, I need logs and configs to proceed, please attach both using the link below (uncompressed).
Use the fbdev support in 4.x.
I'm not using 4.x because, as I said, I just did a pretty vanilla installation, and the installer didn't give me an option to use 4.x, at least not that I noticed. I wasn't even aware of the --preferxf4 option to Xconfigurator until you mentioned it. Given that the installer uses 3.3.6 by default, I'd guess that only a small minority of your users actually switch over to 4.x. The notebook is now at the home of the professor who owns it, so getting the log files isn't an option at this point. I have a copy of the config files, but given that you closed the bug report with a resolution of "WONTFIX", it's probably not worth posting them. It's working fine now with 3.3.6-35, so I'll just avoid 3.3.6-38 if/when the notebook is in for further updates.
Regardless of which hardware you have, XFree86 4.x gets installed if you install X at all as it is the base XFree86. 4.x has a single server with multiple drivers. When configuring your video in the installer, by default, unless you override it, the XFree86 4.x server is used with all video hardware *except* hardware that is known to not work well or at all with 4.x but which works with a 3.3.6 server instead. In the latter case, in addition to the 4.x release being installed, a 3.3.6 server binary for your hardware is also installed. Most users are now using XFree86 4.x. The installer *uses* 3.3.6 for display of the install program *only* during install. ie: the menus and whatnot displayed during install are running in 3.3.6 FBDev. That is not what is _installed_ on the system though. When you configure X, a _second_ X server is started up if you opt to test the configuration, and that server is 4.x if you chose 4.x, or if it defaults to 4.x for your hardware, or it is a 3.3.6 server otherwise. Either way if X is installed on your system, 4.x is installed. You can verify this with: "rpm -q XFree86". You're right about the latter, I need log files. Pretty much 90-95% of all X bugs, log files and configs are required, so if you report a bug, you should supply them by default as attachments. My reason for requesting you to try 4.x is that 3.3.6 is deprecated and will be disappearing. I do not however want users to lose out because they rely on 3.3.6 and use it rather than reporting any bugs in 4.x. If people just use 3.3.6, then when it goes away, they then MUST use 4.x and hope it works, or install older 3.3.6 servers on their own. 3.3.6 bugs get very low priority right now. There very likely may not be another 3.3.6 major update. My suggestions are only to help ease transitions. I don't want to see people stuck when 4.x is the only show in town.