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Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem

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commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> writes:

> I was attempting to get Debian (Squeeze, latest net-install CD)
> working with a Radeon X1900 Mac edition video card (PCI-Express) on my
> Power Mac G5 Quad. The installer acted a bit weird right from the
> start, telling me that the step "Install the system" failed (with
> nothing in the way of useful error information,) but I got the base
> system installed at least. It booted fine to framebuffer console, so I
> set about installing GNOME on it. apt finished with nary a complaint,
> but when I rebooted, I found that when it was ready to launch into X,
> it choked up and just sat there with a blank screen and a cursor.
> (Weirdly, though, the screen itself flickered on and off at a high
> rate, faster than the actual cursor blink.)
>
> Framebuffer console still worked, at least, so I was able to boot into
> single-user mode and do some investigating in my own limited capacity
> for this stuff (by which I mean "Google error messages and see what
> specifics are requested.") lspci -k showed the video card properly
> with the manufacturer and product name, so it was recognizing it, at
> least. When I tried Xorg -configure, though (Xorg 1.7.7, it says,) it
> aborted with a "No DRICreatePCIBusID symbol" message. Checking dmesg
> gave me a "process Xorg mapped non-existing PCI legacy memory"
> message, followed by an "invalid ROM contents" message underneath.

The last thing I saw on getting this to work was the Kernel bug report:
<https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13971>
Unfortunately, nothing seems to have happened.  I sounds like you got
further than I did.  Later kernels and Xorgs must have made some
difference.  I gave up on my X1900 and put a 7800GTX 512MB in
instead.  It works, but does not have true accelerated 3D Xorg:
squeeze gives software acceleration using nouveau.

> This causes the system to hang completely, such that it can't even
> boot into single-user mode...any changes made to fix it will need to
> be done with the GeForce in its place.

I understand that a similar configuration was used by Ben
Herrenschmidt to test the X1900 while having a 6600 in the 16 lane
slot.  It enables some testing. 

> I'm not sure what all to make of this. I've found a thread about
> problems getting the same basic setup (G5 Quad, X1900, Debian) to
> work, but it's a couple years old and the symptoms are different.
> There's some discussion there about the radeon/radeonhd driver looking
> for Atom BIOS information on non-Atom BIOS cards, which would explain
> the "invalid ROM contents" message when running Squeeze, but on the
> other hand, that seems to be fixed in Sid. Obviously it's playing
> nicely enough to run framebuffer console output properly, but beyond
> that I'm not so sure. Does that "conflicting fb usage" message
> indicate some kind of driver conflict? If so, is there a way I can
> disable whatever's conflicting with it and leave only the radeon
> driver in place?

You get a similar complaint about "invalid ROM contents" on an iBook
G4 1.33MHz, but X11 and accelerated Xorg works.  It seems to be
something to do with the X1900 and X11, but apart from the discussion
I mention earlier I have seen nothing further.

-- 
Stephen Harker                           s.harker@adfa.edu.au
PEMS                http://sjharker.customer.netspace.net.au/
UNSW@ADFA

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Thread

Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2011-09-02 18:59 -0700
  Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem Stephen Harker <sjharker@netspace.net.au> - 2011-09-03 17:32 +1000
    Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2011-09-03 07:40 -0700
      Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem Stephen Harker <sjharker@netspace.net.au> - 2011-09-04 07:45 +1000
        Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2011-09-04 07:37 -0700
          Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2011-09-26 17:08 -0700
  Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem rado9292@gmail.com - 2019-06-16 22:46 -0700
    Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2019-06-17 12:49 -0700

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