Re: help: hang on X start with PSW500au and s3 virge
For the sake of making a record of what I have discovered, I'll reply to
my own email here and hope it is useful to someone else. This is what I
have found:
- the s3virge card would only work in one of the 64 bit slots after
issuing a "set pci_device_override -1" command at the SRM prompt, but
this did not affect the hanging problem. Thanks to "gl" for suggesting this.
- the card worked fine with a default woody installation and kernel 2.2.20.
- upgrading the kernel to 2.4.18, 2.4.27 or 2.6.8 caused the hanging
problems. This was true regardless of whether I compiled a custom kernel
without modules etc.
- with kernel 2.2.20, no "BusID" parameter was required in the X config
file.
- the BusID param was required for all other kernel versions otherwise X
would fail to start with an error something like "no matching device
section for instance PCI:0:12:0". This was true if the card was in a 32
or 64 bit slot.
- trying to use sarge/X4.3 with a 2.2 kernel caused all sorts of
"interesting" problems and I wouldn't recommend it...
So, the problem appears to be related more to how PCI devices are
handled in newer kernels, rather than anything to do with X or the card
itself. Anyway, I'm giving up. Hope this is useful to someone.
Cheers,
Randall.
Randall Wayth wrote:
Hi Jay,
Thanks for the quick response. Alas, I have tried different PCI slots
with no luck. If I try using one of the 64-bit slots then the machine
does not boot, with a message from the SRM bios saying there is an
"illegal device" or something like that. So the machine will only boot
with the s3virge card in a 32-bit slot.
The requirement for the "BusID" parameter came after upgrading to
sarge from woody. Prior to that, the card that came with the machine
worked using the "tga" driver without the need for the BusID param.
After that, the BusID line was required for X4.3 to work with the
existing tga card (error message was: " TGA: No matching Device
section for instance (BusID PCI:0:12:0) found") and was required for
X4.3 to even begin starting up with the s3virge card. Incidentally,
the existing card was installed in a 64-bit slot, so this BusID thing
does not appear to depend on the slot which the card is installed in.
It seems more likely to be something which has changed between the
different versions of X in woody and sarge.
I should also say that I tested this card in a Windoze machine and in
a Pentium-based debian PC and it worked fine, so there is no problem
there.
Thanks for the recommendation re good cards. This comes a bit late for
me :-)
Cheers,
Randall.
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