Bug 765869

Summary: radeon [HD 7690M] screen distortion
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 12.2 Reporter: Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp <forgotten_5bJMOh7zGp>
Component: X.OrgAssignee: E-mail List <xorg-maintainer-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: E-mail List <xorg-maintainer-bugs>
Severity: Major    
Priority: P3 - Medium CC: Eduard.Avetisyan
Version: Final   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: x86-64   
OS: openSUSE 12.2   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-06-07 02:27:17 UTC
User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0

Hey guys,

I tried the Milestone 3 of openSUSE 12.2 and it was looking great on my new laptop, but now that I wanted to test the Beta1, when I selected Installation, all I see is static (snow), so let me ask you, please include a driver for the AMD Radeon HD 7690M so I can install it on my laptop and finally start using openSUSE as only OS.

I did try Ubuntu, but even though their 12.04 version does have the drivers for my video card I prefer openSUSE over Ubuntu.

Thanks.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Try to install it on a HP dv6 with an AMD Radeon HD 7690M video card in it.
Actual Results:  
Snow, only static shows up.

Expected Results:  
The installation should appear so it's possible to install it.

Ubuntu 12.04 shows fine, but I rather openSUSE than Ubuntu.
Comment 1 Stefan Dirsch 2012-06-22 12:06:27 UTC
Use 'nomodeset' as boot option as workaround for now, which switches driver to fbdev.
Comment 2 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-06-22 21:22:53 UTC
That worked but it's not the kind of answer I was looking for, I was hoping for one of you to say that you were working on have it straighten out, or that you were  working on fixing this.
Comment 3 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-06-22 21:24:43 UTC
Also, this issue is still happening in Beta 2
Comment 4 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-03 21:18:55 UTC
By the way, if this helps you guys, it seems to work perfectly using the xorg-x11-drv-ati package so you might want to check if you can adapt it for 12.2
Comment 5 Stefan Dirsch 2012-07-04 07:30:33 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> By the way, if this helps you guys, it seems to work perfectly using the
> xorg-x11-drv-ati package so you might want to check if you can adapt it for
> 12.2

Where did you find this package?
Comment 6 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-04 14:40:27 UTC
You can find it here:

http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=xorg-x11-drv-ati
Comment 7 Stefan Dirsch 2012-07-04 14:47:19 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> You can find it here:
> 
> http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=xorg-x11-drv-ati

Which version? We're still using 6.14.4. 7.0.0 has not been released yet. Seems on this website they are building prerelease 6.99.99 and announce it as 7.0.0.
Comment 8 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-04 14:50:58 UTC
The one on Fedora 17, I didn't know about this package until I installed Fedora 17 to my laptop.
Comment 9 Stefan Dirsch 2012-07-04 14:57:52 UTC
Well, in that case it can well be KMS, i.e. Kernel support, not the X driver at all.
Comment 10 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-04 15:07:57 UTC
No, I'm pretty sure it is the X driver, the resolution with the KMS is only up to 1400x1050 while the X driver goes all the way up to 1960x1080
Comment 11 Stefan Dirsch 2012-07-04 15:13:18 UTC
If you see the distortion before X gets started KMS is the culprit here.
Comment 12 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-04 15:38:21 UTC
No, there is no distortion before X gets started, it comes up when X is called.
Comment 13 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-04 18:08:09 UTC
FYI:

The version of xorg-x11-drv-ati that comes with Fedora 17 is:

xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.14.4-5.20120417git0bda305f7.fc17.x86_64

So there must be something different between this version and the one openSUSE uses, you said it is 6.14.4, so if the version is the same, how come that with Fedora 17 it works just fine with full resolution, but with open SUSE I get lower resolution and have to use the nomodeset at installation so it gets switched to fbdev?

It just doesn't make any sense.
Comment 14 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-07-13 23:16:18 UTC
Hey guys,

We are getting there, I still need to use nomodeset to install but at least now I can get better resolution (1940x1080) with RC1
Comment 15 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-08-04 14:47:05 UTC
Hey guys, I'm now using RC2 but I still had to use nomodeset to upgrade, it still shows static when Installation is chosen without nomodeset.
Comment 16 Eduard Avetisyan 2012-08-08 18:43:27 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Use 'nomodeset' as boot option as workaround for now, which switches driver to
> fbdev.

This might sound offtopic here, but I find the grub2 manner of adding boot options a severe usability and design flow. 
Yes, I know that one "simply" has to press 'e' to add whatever option one needs, but then one gets the full config file in his disposal. With the current condition of accelerated linux graphics drivers in 99% of cases it is either nomodeset or 3 (for text-only boot). The way opensuse had it in previous versions was fairly cool and comfy. Now instead of typing '3' one really has to go down 10 lines and very carefully search for the line where the boot options end. Then press 'enter' (as usual) just to find out it added another empty line in the config. Thank you so much, designers, one has to read all the fineprint - press F10 to boot!
Comment 17 Stefan Dirsch 2012-08-09 08:46:31 UTC
Euduard, although I agree on what you're complaining it's unfortunately the wrong place to discuss. Either bring this topic up on your favorite openSUSE mailing list or open a separate bugreport. Thanks.
Comment 18 Eduard Avetisyan 2012-08-11 10:44:30 UTC
(In reply to comment #15)
> Hey guys, I'm now using RC2 but I still had to use nomodeset to upgrade, it
> still shows static when Installation is chosen without nomodeset.
Jorge, when you use nomodeset option, do you check the xorg.0.log to verify which driver it uses at the end? is it really the fbdev? In the past there were a number of drivers, accelerated and not, that used to work without kms, like radeonhd. I wonder if this is still the case and if it can still be used... (sorry, got no decent machine with ati card at hand anymore to test).
Comment 19 Forgotten User 5bJMOh7zGp 2012-09-07 14:52:50 UTC
Hey guys,

I don't know what you did for the 12.2 release, but it's working without nomodeset, I just upgraded RC2 to release without nomodeset.

Congrats guys.