David Wright composed on 2017-03-13 23:43 (UTC-0500):
Another oddity is that dmesg always says (both then and now): [drm] Loading R300 Microcode radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/R300_cp.bin (-2) radeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load failed with error -2 radeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper [drm:r100_cp_init] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware! radeon 0000:01:00.0: failed initializing CP (-12). radeon 0000:01:00.0: Disabling GPU acceleration
However, if I feed it radeon/R300_cp.bin (by installing firmware-linux-nonfree), the display goes blank soon afterwards.
Which kernel(s)?
lspci -vv gives:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV350/M10 [Mobility Radeon 9600 PRO Turbo] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 005d
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B+ DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 66 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Region 1: I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
Region 2: Memory at d0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at d0120000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
Status: RQ=80 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64bit- FW+ AGP3- Rate=x1,x2,x4
Command: RQ=32 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ AGP+ GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=x4
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Kernel driver in use: radeon
Your comment bolsters my suspicion that Linux kernel support may have regressed lately for Radeon "AGP" gfxchips marketed in parallel to PCIe versions:
https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2017-03/msg00163.html Similar wasted a bunch of my time very recently: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1004453#c30One must wonder how much time and effort kernel devs devote to testing on ancient, mostly 32-bit, hardware.
-- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/