Can't seem to get Mobility Radeon 7500 to work with xf86-video-ati.tcz

[Danjek3]

Hey all,
Recently I've been experimenting with TinyCore Linux on an old Thinkpad R51 (Pentium M @ 1.80ghz, 1gb of ram). It seems to be working fine besides some strange graphics issues I've been experiencing and am not sure how to solve:

After first installing firmware-radeon.tcz, and then installing xf86-video-ati.tcz on my TinyCore install, I immediately encounter strange graphical artifacts; a weird rainbow tint permeates the screen and I can only view a small, corrupted portion of the desktop, and after rebooting, TinyCore ends up hanging midway through boot each time.

Using the radeon.setmode/nomodeset argument in grub, I am able to get TinyCore to boot up again, although I still encounter issues:
"radeon.setmode=0"/"nomodeset" - Complains about "No UMS support in radeon module" while booting. Boots into X, no artifacts yet desktop is very sluggish. Running glxgears yields me 5-10 fps.
"radeon.setmode=1" - Boots into X with a black wallpaper, encounter strange black line artifacts on most windows + wbar. Graphics acceleration does seem to be functional however, as running glxgears yields me 60fps.

Other Linux distributions I've tested on the Thinkpad such as Debian and Puppy Linux give me no issue with graphics (same with Windows), so I'm not sure why TinyCore is the odd one out here. Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Rich]

Hi Danjek3
Welcome to the forum.

Please download the  TCscan.sh  script found here:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,23936.0.html

Then make it executable and run it:

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chmod 775 TCscan.sh
./TCscan.sh
Attach the  TCscan_TIMESTAMP_.txt  file to your next post.  _TIMESTAMP_.  will be in the form of  YYMMDDHHMMS.

[Danjek3]

Hi Rich, here's my TCScan log. Thanks for the help.

[Rich]

Hi Danjek3
You should probably remove this boot code:

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showbootcodes=
forcepaePAE is not enabled in our kernels. In addition:

... Warning: use of this parameter will taint the kernel and may cause unknown problems.

Found here:
https://mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt#1331

Do you actually use the floppy drive?

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lsmod=
Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: G S
floppy                 45056  0Even if you do, add this boot code for the time being:

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blacklist=floppy

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/mnt/sda1/tce/onboot.lst=
Xvesa.tcz
aterm.tcz
flwm_topside.tcz
wbar.tcz
flwm_topside.tcz
----- Snip -----
firmware.tczChange the  Xvesa.tcz  entry to  Xorg-7.7-3d.tcz.
Remove one of the  flwm_topside.tcz  entries.
Unless you know you need it and it won't conflict with other firmware, remove the  firmware.tcz  entry. There is no
such extension in TC11.

If extensions are installed using one of our package management tools, this shouldn't happen:

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Failed md5 checks= 10
----- Snip -----The MD5s from those extension don't match the local  .md5.txt  files.

This suggests some extensions are not up to date:

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Local/Repo md5 file differences= 26
----- Snip -----
These dependency (.tcz.dep) files do not have matching extensions installed:

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Orphaned dep files= 58
Xorg-7.7-3d-dev.tcz.dep
Xorg-7.7-dev.tcz.dep
expat2-dev.tcz.dep
fontconfig-dev.tcz.dep
freetype-dev.tcz.dep
libEGL-dev.tcz.dep
libFS-dev.tcz.dep
libGL-dev.tcz.dep
libGLESv2-dev.tcz.dep
libICE-dev.tcz.dep
libSM-dev.tcz.dep
libX11-dev.tcz.dep
libXau-dev.tcz.dep
libXaw-dev.tcz.dep
libXcomposite-dev.tcz.dep
libXcursor-dev.tcz.dep
libXdamage-dev.tcz.dep
libXdmcp-dev.tcz.dep
libXext-dev.tcz.dep
libXfixes-dev.tcz.dep
libXfont2-dev.tcz.dep
libXft-dev.tcz.dep
libXi-dev.tcz.dep
libXinerama-dev.tcz.dep
libXmu-dev.tcz.dep
libXpm-dev.tcz.dep
libXrandr-dev.tcz.dep
libXrender-dev.tcz.dep
libXres-dev.tcz.dep
libXss-dev.tcz.dep
libXt-dev.tcz.dep
libXtst-dev.tcz.dep
libXv-dev.tcz.dep
libXvmc-dev.tcz.dep
libXxf86dga-dev.tcz.dep
libXxf86vm-dev.tcz.dep
libdrm-dev.tcz.dep
libepoxy-dev.tcz.dep
libfontenc-dev.tcz.dep
libpciaccess-dev.tcz.dep
libpng-bin.tcz.dep
libpng-dev.tcz.dep
libvdpau-dev.tcz.dep
libxcb-dev.tcz.dep
libxkbfile-dev.tcz.dep
libxml2-bin.tcz.dep
libxml2-dev.tcz.dep
libxml2-python.tcz.dep
llvm-bin.tcz.dep
llvm-dev.tcz.dep
ncursesw-dev.tcz.dep
openssl-1.1.1-dev.tcz.dep
pixman-dev.tcz.dep
readline-dev.tcz.dep
udev-dev.tcz.dep
xcb-proto.tcz.dep
xorg-proto.tcz.dep
xorg-server-dev.tcz.depThese files can be deleted. Do not delete all  .tcz.dep  files, only the ones listed above.

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Some dmesg lines=
dmesg search terms are   DMI: machine fail error firmware eth[0-9] wlan[0-9] snd scsi ata[0-9] sd[a-z][0-9] mmc[0-9] random mounted 80211 wifi

[    0.000000] DMI: IBM 1829W1Y/1829W1Y, BIOS 1RETDRWW (3.23 ) 06/18/2007
----- Snip -----
[   20.721783] thinkpad_acpi: WARNING: Outdated ThinkPad BIOS/EC firmware
[   20.721819] thinkpad_acpi: WARNING: This firmware may be missing critical bug fixes and/or important featuresYou might want to see if there's a BIOS update and what issues it addresses.

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[   46.350140] hsetroot[8499]: segfault at 88 ip 08049cb4 sp bfd2fd40 error 4 in hsetroot[8048000+4000]The segfault was the reason for this:

... "radeon.setmode=1" - Boots into X with a black wallpaper ...

This is why I suggest blacklisting the floppy driver for the time being:

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[  171.921145] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[  171.921157] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
----- Snip -----
[ 2738.604336] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[ 2738.604348] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
Maybe this was caused by using  forcepae :

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[ 4265.194369] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
[ 4265.194464] Modules linked in: ccm cpufreq_userspace cpufreq_conservative cpufreq_powersave radeon b43 drm_kms_helper ath5k fb_sys_fops syscopyarea sysfillrect mac80211 sysimgblt ttm drm ath bcma cfg80211 cordic i2c_algo_bit snd_intel8x0m thinkpad_acpi snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus snd_pcm snd_timer snd joydev soundcore i2c_i801 intel_agp intel_gtt agpgart ssb mmc_core ppdev battery parport_pc floppy video ac parport backlight e1000 squashfs zstd_decompress pcspkr lpc_ich acpi_cpufreq loopThe following boot code may also be of use:

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radeon.agpmode=-1Found here:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206697#c14

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
SUMMARY

Update your boot loaders config file:
Remove  forcepae
Add  blacklist=floppy
Optional, see if the  radeon.agpmode=-1  boot code solves any problems.

Fix your  /mnt/sda1/tce/onboot.lst  file.

Remove the excess dependency (.tcz.dep) files from  /mnt/sda1/tce/optional/.

Follow these instructions to update your extensions:

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tce-audit builddb
tce-audit updatedeps
tce-audit fetchmissing
tce-updateThen click the  Exit  icon and select reboot.

When the machine comes back up, run TCscan again.

[Danjek3]

Oh wow, had no idea my install was that screwed up lol, thanks for letting me know. Done all those changes; the "radeon.agpmode=-1" boot parameter seemed to be the one missing piece, after enabling that graphics seems to work fine.

When the machine comes back up, run TCscan again.

Do you want me to upload the second log as well? Thanks again for the help, really appreciate it.

[Rich]

Hi Danjek3
Glad to hear things are working.

... Do you want me to upload the second log as well? Thanks again for the help, really appreciate it.

I've updated TCscan.sh. If you wouldn't mind, download the new version attached here:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,23936.0.html
and run another scan for me. Thanks.

[Danjek3]

Ok, here's my latest TCscan log (using the updated version). Thanks again.

[Rich]

Hi Danjek3
Thanks, that looks a lot better.