Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 64601
XFree86 4.2 doesn't work well on Dell I8000 with ATI
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:42:28 EDT
Description of Problem: Dell Inspiron 8000, ATI 32MB, A16 level of system and video firmware. There seems to be a problem with the 4.2 ati driver, switching back and forth from X to text consoles, and the external monitor interaction. I started with the laptop booting fine, got X working (Xconfigurator did not get the horozontal and vertical numbers correct for me to run - its the 1600x1200 UGA? screen. There was great deal of "static"? Wavy lines? On the background, but strangely none in the redhat logo on the gdm login screen. Plugging in an external monitor and switching to it and back clears the problem. Switching to a text console from X causes the text console to he "wrapped", like the left hand side of the screen starts about an inch to the right, and wraps down to the next line. I've seen this (the text console problem at least) in an earlier version of Xfree on this laptop, but have forgotten which exact version it was. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): XFree86 4.2 as shipped in 7.3 How Reproducible: Run X. Additional Information: Replacing the core XFree86 4.2 packages with the 4.1 packages fixes the problem.
System config: I8000, 512MBram, 60GBdrive, ATIw/32MB, RH7.3 The machine boots w/ X on bootup. The machine will eventually totally lockup if I switch to a console from X. If I exit KDE, and get the login screen, that screen will have odd pixelation all over it, as the initial bug poster posted. Trying to login (type,move mouse) on that login box sometimes will lock the machine at this point.
Please attach X server log and config file using link below.
Created attachment 57144 [details] XFconfiguration file generated from RH7.3 install
Created attachment 57145 [details] XFree86 logfile
This is NOT a config generated by anaconda. That ones starts from an empty line always :).
Created attachment 57208 [details] XFree86 logfile -sorry about that
Does this problem occur in Red Hat Linux 8.0?
I won't be installing 8.0 on this laptop for a while. When I do, I'll update the ticket.
Unfortunately, there's not really a lot that I can do about this problem as the information provided, neither the config file, nor log files attached show any clues as to what the problems may be. ;o/ Without having physical access to the hardware itself it is pretty much impossible to do anything about this problem. You might want to try posting a question for help on xpert@xfree86.org or by searching with google perhaps also. I've just done a bit of searching myself and have found a bit of information via google on getting this working. Of course I can't test or verify any of it so I don't know how useful it will be, but here are a few for you to try: http://www.whacked.net/oss/ldl http://www.whacked.net/oss/ldl/faq/ http://www.whacked.net/oss/ldl/XF86Config-4-steve If this problem still occurs in Red Hat Linux 8.0 or later, please reopen to bring this back from my defered list to my attention. Thanks
Since this bugzilla report was filed, there have been several major updates to the X Window System, which may resolve this issue. Users who have experienced this problem are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of Fedora Core, which can be obtained from: http://fedora.redhat.com/download If this issue turns out to still be reproduceable in the latest version of Fedora Core, please file a bug report in the X.Org bugzilla located at http://bugs.freedesktop.org in the "xorg" component. Once you've filed your bug report to X.Org, if you paste the new bug URL here, Red Hat will continue to track the issue in the centralized X.Org bug tracker, and will review any bug fixes that become available for consideration in future updates. Setting status to "CURRENTRELEASE".