Subject: Re: Yellow Dog Linux 2.1 and Power Mac G4 w/Radeon - Absolute newbie
From: Aram Kudurshian (aramk@mac.com)
Date: Fri Jan 11 2002 - 12:27:37 MST
Hello Juan,
Thanks again for your e-mail; I'm here with my Linux friend and we've gone
to go through what you've suggested. However, it seems there is something
'funky' with the driver as my techno geek friend will explain:
I've examined the dmesg output and I found a line that explains the whole
situation, or at least most of it:
"radeonfb: cannot reserve FB region"
So it seems like the driver loads but cannot take control of the card. This
is all using the kernel included with YDL 2.1 (2.4.10-r1) as I didn't have
time to try the 2.4.18-pre3 version.
Well, any help would be greatly appreciate and thanks again,
Aram K.
> Hello Aram. So I'm going to make the assumption that your friend
> knew what he/she was doing and got you a newly home brewed, compiled and
> working kernel. Were the radeon drivers compiled INTO the kernel or as
> MODULES? I they were compiled as modules you have to make sure they are
> being loaded as needed (most probably upon boot up). So probably a line
> for this would have to included in a magical file called modules.conf
> located at the directory /etc. So the full path to the file would be
> /etc/modules.conf. It would have to be edited to include the line that
> would load it upon boot up under an aliased name. But unfortunately I
> don't know the alias for that module since I don't use it, maybe someone
> else on this list can help us with that by telling us if it DOES need an
> alias in modules.conf in the first place, and if so which one.
>
> If the radeon support was compiled into the kernel then it does not
> need anything special to load, it comes with the kernel. So, I move onto
> the next step.
>
> Lets suppose that either the support was built into the kernel or
> that someone provides us with the correct method of loading the module,
> now we have to review your booting arguments. First you could double
> check if you are running the kernel you built by issuing the command
> "uname -r" which returns the active kernel version, and it should match
> the one you built. If not then go to /boot and make the proper symlinks
> so that yaboot can find the correct kernel image (we'll go over this if
> "uname -r" does not match the kernel release you think you're running).
> On to your boot arguments. They have to be changed a bit to either one
> of the following:
>
> append="video=radeonfb:vmode:x@y,cmode:32"
> video=radeonfb:vmode:x@y,cmode:32
> append="video=radeonfb:vmode:x@y,32"
> video=radeonfb:vmode:x@y,32
>
> Either one should work, but that is the correct syntax and not the
> one you were using. The "x" stands for the number of the proper video
> mode for your screen, and that is found by looking at the output of the
> command "man vmode". You'll find a number of modes that stand for
> specific resolutions at specific refresh rates, so replacing the "x"
> with the mode number that most suits your case should give you quality
> video. The "y" WOULD stand for the refresh rate but I seriously doubt
> it'll be needed at all, since each vmode includes a specific rate. So
> the proper number will force the adequate rate. Specifying the "y" with
> the same rate that a specific mode provides would only be redundant, and
> giving a different value will most probably freak your kernel (but I'm
> only guessing with this last assertion, maybe it just overrides). I
> think we'll be much better off by finding the correct vmode and ditching
> the "@y" altogether.
>
> So, give that a try and let me know how it goes. I take for granted
> that you know that those arguments have to be entered into
> /etc/yaboot.conf, and that the file has to be edited by root. If it
> doesn't work then tell me exactly what you did and the error output.
>
> Have fun and enjoy your Linux learning. Regards,...
>
>
> Juan.
>
> On Thursday, January 10, 2002, at 04:48 PM, Aram Kudurshian wrote:
>
>> Hello Juan,
>>
>> Now that I've reread what I wrote, I can actually see how little info it
>> gave. I've experimented a bit more but it hasn't fixed anything (nor
>> changed anything it seems). Here is what I did since I installed YDL.
>>
>> 1) Used the 'make menuconfig' command to enable the support for Radeon
>> drivers + turned on SMP.
>> 2) Rebuilt the kernel (?) and enabled it (this was done with the aid
>> of a
>> friend so it worked out fine)
>> 3) Made a new yaboot set (is this how you call it) that used my new
>> kernel.
>> The code in this set is the same as the normal one (I just copied it
>> out)
>> except with the addition of this line:
>>
>> (tab)append="video=radeonfb:1600x1200-32@75"
>>
>> 4) Saved the yaboot.config file and enabled it with the ybin command
>> (again
>> I was under direction).
>>
>> This is as far as I've gotten. I am not sure what you mean by the
>> XFree86config-4 file? Is this similar to the menuconfig system?
>>
>> Here is the information from the 'lsmod' command:
>>
>> Module Size
>> printer 7056
>>
>> OK, I hope this helps you narrow down the problem and sorry for the
>> delay,
>> I've been busy w/ school work all day long!
>>
>> Aram
____________________________________________________________________________
Aram Kudurshian aramk@mac.com
Student/Programmer http://homepage.mac.com/aramk/
AIM: aramk622 http://www.htmlcreator.net
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