Lockup on X server start with Radeon on X.org 6.9

[Erwin Rol]

On Thu, 2006-01-12 at 09:57 +1030, Kevin Shanahan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was just wondering if someone might be able to guide me as to what
> to do to track down and hopfully fix a few regressions that I've come
> across when upgrading my Debian system from xorg 6.8.2 to 6.9. I've
> filed a bug report in Debian's BTS with all the details:
> 
>   http://bugs.debian.org/345729
> 
> I could file a bug in the fdo bugzilla also if you think that would be
> useful.
> 
> Quick summary:
>   - Hardware is a Radeon Mobility M6 LY, x86
>   - Had no problems with xorg 6.8.2, only since upgrade to 6.9 (Debian)
>   - Starting X with Load "dri" in the module section almost always hard
>     locks the system (say 95% of the time).
>   - If I manage to get in that 5% that works, the server is perfectly
>     stable to use, including GL apps (GLQuake is what I'm mostly using).
>   - Without the dri module loaded, the server starts most of the time
>     (say 95%), but it does seem to occasionally lock up as well. It's
>     possible that these cases might have been due to incomplete reset of
>     the video card after a previous lockup with dri, but I did always
>     power off the laptop between boots, since alt-sysrq-b doesn't work
>     with these lockups.
>   - VT switching away from the x-server seems okay, but switching back
>     again usually locks up the machine.
> 
> Since then I've also tried testing with combinations of the following
> options on or off in my device section, with no apparent change:
> 
>        Option      "DynamicClocks" "off"
>        Option      "RenderAccel" "off"
>        Option      "AccelMethod" "exa"
> 
> Thanks for any advice.

I still have lockups too, they seem to be less with 16bit colors
(compared to 24bit colors). I have a patch from Benjamin which atleast
makes it possible to kind of use X, without it it hangs within a minute
after login, now i see hangs about 5 times a day. 

The 6.8.x version never had this problem and had uptimes of weeks :-/

The only way i could make the hangs go away was to disable acceleration
completely, but that makes X so slow it is unusable :-(

- Erwin