[Bug 36424] X crashes in KDE4 with compositing enabled

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36424

--- Comment #3 from Alex Schuster <wonko at wonkology.org> 2011-04-20 12:23:25 PDT ---
Whoops, I got it wrong. I thought the 'nomodeset' parameter was for turning off
the gallium stuff, but it looks like it is for toggling KMS. So it made no
sense at all to build a new kernel with KMS deactivated... 

Anyway, as I wrote, without 'nomodeset', my system does not even boot. In the
early boot process, when udev starts, at the point when the font changes, my
system hangs. I see my grub splash image, distorted and in wrong colors. I
don't use a framebuffer console or any vga= parameter, just plain text mode.

I think.

Now I re-compiled the kernel, disabling ALL frame buffer stuff (VGA 16-color
support was compiled in, others were modules, but not loaded), and tried again.
Whoa! This time, I get a nice small font i did not ask for, and I see the boot
messages. Until... X starts. When I switch back to the text console then, I see
the boot screen just as it was before the font changed. It flickers a little,
like if my hires console was overlayed by an old screenshot.

I set up some commands to stop KDM, modprobe -r fglrx, activate xorg direct
rendering and restart X, with the radeon driver this time. Works. And it does
not seem to crash!

Cool. CPU usage is lower than with fglrx, too. But the wobbly windows desktop
effect is gone.

Oh, and quake3 is unplayable now because of very very low frame rates. This is
bad, but I could somehow live with this, as long as my KDE desktop is usable
again.

Thanks for setting me on the right track.

Um, is the missing wobbly windows desktop effect normal? And should I file a
bug for quake3 being way too slow to play?

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