Bug#699731: xserver-xorg-video-radeon: RandR extension disabled although nonfree-firmware is installed with RadeonX1200M

[Michel Dänzer]

On Mon, 2013-02-04 at 09:30 +0100, Andreas Glaeser wrote: 
> 
> The 'firmware-linux-nonfree' package was set up, which made DRI work and Gnome3 run
> in non-fallback mode, but RandR is still diabled (see below), so the resolution is 640x480
> and it cannot be changed using SystemSettings/Screen.

[...]

> 'aptitude show firmware-linux-nonfree' did not tell me clearly whether the package
> contains firmware for the hardware or not, maybe it is required for any RADEON-GPU.

It does, and it generally is for hardware acceleration.

> 'xserver-xorg-video-radeon' suggests 'firmware-linux', but probably this should at least
> be a recommendation or even a real dependency.

That is not allowed for packages in main.


> [   596.213] (II) RADEON(0): Printing probed modes for output LVDS
> [   596.213] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "640x480"x60.0   25.20  640 648 744 800  480 482 484 525 -hsync -vsync (31.5 kHz eP) [   596.213] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 connected
> [   596.213] (II) RADEON(0): Output LVDS connected

Is this a laptop? The drivers are detecting an LVDS panel with 640x480
resolution, which I suspect is the source of your problems.

Does it help if you disable the LVDS/Laptop display or deselect 'Mirror
displays' in the GNOME display settings? If not, and if you don't ever
need the LVDS display, video=LVDS-1:d on the kernel commandline might
help.


> [   596.217] (II) RADEON(0): RandR 1.2 enabled, ignore the following RandR disabled
> message.
> [   596.217] (--) RandR disabled

As you can see, RandR 1.2 is enabled, the second message is an artifact
of how RandR 1.2 support is initialized in the X server.


-- 
Earthling Michel Dänzer           |                   http://www.amd.com
Libre software enthusiast         |          Debian, X and DRI developer