Re: [g-i] Issues with directfb input devices handling

[Attilio Fiandrotti <attilio.fiandrotti@gmail.com>]

Sven Luther wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 09:21:27PM +0200, Attilio Fiandrotti wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > I just completed a preliminary survey [1] about graphical 
> > debian-installer usability on PPC machines and it turned out that there 
> > are two distinct kinds of issues that currently block PPC users from 
> > using the g-i.
>
>
> hi Attilio, ...
>
> You didn't mention the pegasos on that survey. There with a radeon 9250, it
> worked fien with only the no-hardware option, while it crashed with a radeon
> 9800 PRO with no-hardware. (didn't test yet while removing the options).
Sven, i didn't mention Pegasos just because i had not a clear view of 
what worked and what didn't, and i belive you should add your board to 
the survey (BTW, this would be the first report about a non-Macintosh 
PPC box)
Could you please add two more entries to the PPC survey table, one for 
each graphic board you tested, including all the infos to identify your 
Pegasos board?
For Raeon9250 magic directfbrc sould be "no-hardware" only.
For radeon 9800Pro, could you please try adding "disable-module=radeon" 
? because the mainboard is the same, i doubt this is an input issue.
Could you please also try adding "disable-module=linux_input" when 
testing with the radeon9250, to see if that line is a crasher on Pegasos?

> > *Graphical issues: PPC testers always report crashes when hw 
> > acceleration iss enabled, but luckily such crashes can be easily avoided 
> > by disabling hardware acceleration and chip-specific modules, or better 
> > by removing gfxdrivers them from the filesystem.
> > So, even if not optimal, disabling hw acceleration does the trick and we 
> > can live well.
> >
> > *Input devices issues: In many cases it turned out that the key to get 
> > DFB running on PPCs is disabling the linux_input module.
> > Whenever a success was reported (except for PowerBook6,7 IBook's), it 
> > was because the linux_input module was disabled.
>
>
> It worked fine though on pegasos, with an usb mouse.But then the pegasos also
> has ps2 keyboard and mouse support.
>
>
> > We also noticed that many i386 laptop touchpads do not to work properly 
> > when the linux_input module is enabled, and hence the user has to plug 
> > in an USB mouse to use the installer.
> > Also, i noticed that, after reloading the keymap with
> >
> > dfb_input_device_reload_keymap( dfb_input_device_at( DIDID_KEYBOARD ) );
> >
> > with a MiniMac, the keymap ended totally messed up, and this is an even 
> > severe issue that mouse one.
> >
> > A reasonable configuration for directfbrc seems to be
> >
> > no-hardware
> > disable-module=linux_input
> >
> > and this could be a temporary workaround to all our issues.
> > A fix for those issues is needed, as Etch release date is getting closer 
> > every day.
>
>
> What for the PowerBook6,7 ? maybe this scond one couldbe made conditional on
> pegasos and on PowerBook6,7 ?

in the case we should decide to disable linux_input by default for PPCs, 
i guess we should take care not to disable it on that specific 
PowerBook6,7 model.
If pegasos works with linux_input disabled, there is no reason to add it 
to the exclusion list..

cheers

Attili