Re: compositing not working after upgrade

[Tim Folger <tf@timfolger.net>]

On Wednesday, February 16, 2011 5:28:36 pm Cassiano Leal wrote:
> On 15 February 2011 15:23, Tim Folger <tf@timfolger.net> wrote:
> >> On Tuesday 15 February 2011 03:23:51 Tim Folger wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> > 
> >> > I just ran one of my weekly upgrades last night (I'm using sid with
> >> > the 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem kernel). Now compositing no longer works with
> >> > kde (4.4.5). When I click "resume compositing," I get a message
> >> > saying "Compositing has been suspended by another application."
> >> >  glxinfo | grep render says direct rendering is working. But when I
> >> > run glxgears, I only get text output, without the animated gears.
> >> > 
> >> > My middle mouse button also stopped working after the upgrade, i.e., I
> >> > can't use it to copy and paste; can't open new tabs in any browser.
> >> > (The mouse works perfectly in my other two computers, both of which
> >> > still have kde 3.5.10 installed.) I'm using the radeon driver. None
> >> > of these problems existed before last night's full-upgrade, so the
> >> > upgrade definitely broke a few things, and I don't know how to fix
> >> > them.
> >> > 
> >> > Thanks for any suggestions...
> >> > 
> >> > Tim
> >> 
> >> Look at the output of 'glxinfo | grep -i opengl'. Does it say something
> >> like "OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4"? libgl1-mesa-dri switched
> >> over to Gallium drivers for many radeon Cards. Maybe that causes your
> >> problem with compositing.
> > 
> > You're right--it does say "Open renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD
> > RS880." is there anything I can do to get compositing working again? And
> > would this also explain why the middle click on my mouse no longer
> > works?
> 
> I'm seeing a similar problem here with a Radeon Mobility 4200. The
> renderer string is the same as yours.
> 
> Desktop Effects "work", but a bit slow. If I run glxinfo with effects
> on, X crashes and restarts. Same for pressing Ok in the Desktop
> Effects KCM.
> 
> My middle-click works, though, so I'd say that it's probably not
> related to OpenGL at all (and shouldn't, anyway).
> 
> So, does anyone in the list have any suggestion as to what can be done
> to fix these issues?
> 
> Thanks!
> Cassiano Leal

Okay, so I fixed my middle-mouse button problem (actually, an emulated middle 
button--right and left click together) after reading this ubuntu bug report, 
which apparently applies to debian as well:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-release-notes/+bug/710762. 

A workaround was suggested in the bug report: Create an xorg.conf file with the 
following:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "middle button emulation class"
MatchIsPointer "on"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
EndSection

Now the middle-button emulation works again. But compositing still doesn't 
work. I had high hopes today after doing an upgrade, because I noticed that an 
update for xserver-xorg-video-radeon was available. But no luck after the 
upgrade--still no compositing. Same message from system settings: "Compositing 
has been suspended by another application."

Thanks,

Tim