Subject: Re: Yellow Dog Linux 2.1 and Power Mac G4 w/Radeon - Absolutenewbie
From: Juan M. Palacios (jmpalacios@mac.com)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2002 - 09:45:38 MST
Helo Aram, sorry for taking so long to write back but I've also been very
full of work lately. University subjects brought many christmas presents along,
and only is now when I starting to feel the heat!
I don't know if by now you already solved the problem, so just in case here
go my thoughts. I'm going to have to dissapoint you a bit but the error you are
experiencing, as stated by dmesg, has me a bit lost as well. From the
"dmesg"output it seems that radeon driver was compiled into the kernel rather
than as a module in the stock release (anyone please correct me if I'm wrong!!)
but, as you very wisely realized, it's having problem doing what it supposed to
do. Coincidentially I'm having a similar problem and haven't been able to fix
it yet. The video card inside your mac works over an agp port, just as the one
in my PowerBook, so my thoughts are that the kernel is having trouble handling
that port. And that would be why the radeaon driver cannot reserve the "fb"
(which stands for "frame buffer") region on the card. With this scenario you'll
never be able to get a fully working and accelerated X environment over the
radeon driver until you compile a new kernel with proper agp support (either as
module or into the kernel).
Just the same, with my PowerBook I haven't been able to get the r128 driver
for my video card working because every time I try to load it I get unresolved
symbols that point me towards a module that isn't either properly loaded or
compiled. And this would be the one that provides the agp support. Bare in mind
that I'm guessing in the dark here and this are my conclusions because I've
already ruled out other options. I must note that, just the same, I'm using the
stock kernel in the 2.1 release, so if any one has more knowledge than me about
these similar issues then please iluminate us. Is the culprit of these problems
the agp support? From what I've tried it seems to me that "agpgart" was
compiled into the kernel, so why can't the radeon and the r128 driver access
the cards properly?
So as for a temporary fix I suggest you to use the "fbdev" option in your
XFree86Config-4 file. This will get you 32 (which is no more than 24) color bit
depth in X at practically any resolution you want, but it will not give you
accelerated video. Ask your Linux friend to set this up for you. If you can't
nail it down I'll tell you later because now I have to go. Please write back to
tell me you r experiences and your findings.
Sincerely,...
Juan.
P.S.: I recently heard that 2.1 didn't have perfect support for some radeon
cards yet, so this may also be what's bugging you. Again, if there is anyone
more informedabout this than me then please speak up. Thank you all!
Aram Kudurshian wrote:
> 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.
>
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