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Re: Power Mac G5 & Radeon X1900 - driver problem

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commodorejohn <commodorejohn@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sep 3, 2:32 am, Stephen Harker <sjhar...@netspace.net.au> wrote:
>> The last thing I saw on getting this to work was the Kernel bug report:
>> <https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13971>

> (I'd rant about the
> infuriating apathy towards older hardware and architectures that
> aren't x86 or ARM in the Linux world, but that's a thread for another
> time.)

I would tune in.  Yes, there is a significant problem for ppc users
and some of the other architectures.  In addition there seems to be a
real problem with pcie cards: few have openfirmware rom options so you
are stuck with old cards.  I did see a suggestion that you should be
able to stick a x86 card into a G5 pcie machine and use it in linux,
you would not have a boot display.  This was untested and I don't know
if anyone has tried it.

>> 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.
> Yeah, only the "invalid ROM contents" message is gone now - I guess
> they must have changed things to recognize cards properly on PPC, so
> I'm left with some kind of apparent driver conflict between radeon and
> "OFfb ATY,Priona" (is "OFfb" OpenFirmware framebuffer, a generic
> driver, maybe?) which I'm not sure how to resolve.

As I understand it, yes "OFfb" is OpenFirmware framebuffer and was
often used as a (slow) driver for not fully supported firmware.  In a
non-ppc world the general advice appears to be that there is a
potential conflict between the framebuffer device and the radeon
device under KMS (Kernel mode setting) kernels and the radeon driver
now uses KMS.  A quick search on google shows <http://forums.gentoo.org/
viewtopic-t-871343.html?sid=aa6c5fa19b1f41e66c5eac960d3eafb8> which
says (in part)

==================================================================
As far as I know, PowerPC still requires a framebuffer device,
otherwise there is no boot console. As of the last time I tried KMS,
it was a pretty terrible experience on my PB G4 with an R300. Sleep
and screen brightness do not work and it will lock up unless the AGP
speed is fixed to 1x. To do this, add this to your yaboot
configuration: "append=radeon.agpmode=1"

It is still recommended to stick with UMS for now (See BenH's post
here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org/msg62503.html)
but that won't allow DRM either due to an OpenGL bug in the old driver
(see here: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26496).

Not much choice now, but it is slowly being worked on. Sorry!
==================================================================

That post is dated around April 2011.  You could try searching under
"radeon kms ppc" and see if there are any later solutions

-- 
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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