/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2010/04/08/#ubuntu-kernel.txt

ScarFreewillogasawara I'm just curious about the timezone, you're in Canada right? Anyhow it seems to be working fullscreen in both the default kernel and the one I got from launchpad.00:35
ogasawaraScarFreewill: so your issue is resolved with the latest 2.6.32-19.28 kernel (ie you don't need the patches I built into the test kernel)00:36
ogasawaraScarFreewill: which bug do you fall under in https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/533784/comments/14 ?00:38
ubot3Malone bug 533784 in debian "[Radeon kernel module] drmRadeonCmdBuffer: -12. Kernel failed to parse or rejected command stream" [Unknown,Confirmed] 00:38
ScarFreewillyeah both issues I had00:38
ogasawaraScarFreewill: as my patches only resolve issue #200:38
ScarFreewilldrmRadeonCmdBuffer: -1200:39
ogasawaraScarFreewill: well, I guess it doesn't hurt to post a comment to the bug that you no longer experience the issue with the stock 2.6.32-19.28 kernel.00:41
ScarFreewillyeah I will do that, just want to run one or two more tests to be really sure.00:42
ogasawaraScarFreewill: sounds good.  thanks for testing.00:43
ScarFreewillno problem, thanks for the help00:44
apwRAOF, hi08:35
RAOFapw: Good morning to you.08:35
apwsomething something quirk something08:35
RAOFYeah.  A quirk for nouveau to disable acceleration on a couple of cards.08:36
apwRAOF, did you send it yet?08:36
apwi don't see it on my patch list yet08:37
RAOFNot yet; I'll do so now.08:37
RAOFBy send it, you mean to kernel-team@, or attached to a bug lovingly tied with a ribbon with your name on it?08:37
apwkernel-team@ is where they get into our patch tracker08:38
RAOFOk.  I'll wrap it up in a git-format-patch and bundle it off.08:39
apwmake sure it has the buglink: in it :)08:40
RAOFIt'll have two.08:40
cjwatsonhi, I don't have mail access right now, but could somebody apply http://paste.ubuntu.com/410932/ for lucid, assuming that we're going to include the xen-{blk,net}front udeb patch that smb sent to kernel-team@?10:27
cjwatsonthat would let us build a netboot image more or less suitable for xen10:28
cjwatsonbuild-tested, seems to DTRT10:28
apwcjwatson, looking12:07
apwcjwatson, will sort that out ...12:08
cjwatsonthanks12:08
apwsorry been reviewing 100 odd patches and not looking at irc12:10
dmarkeyapw: re: [PATCH 1/1] UBUNTU: d-i -- enable udebs for generic-pae, when/where would i be able to get my hands on an image/install initrd, to test?13:16
apwdmarkey, heh ... you are quick ...13:16
apwdmarkey, if a new kernle image is all you need i can get you one of those pretty easy13:17
apwif you need real isos then they are hard to make and you'd have to wait for the kernel to go up13:17
dmarkeyall im looking for is a kernel and an _inatall_ initrd13:18
dmarkeyinstall*13:18
dmarkeyfor netboot13:18
apwdmarkey, not sure how one makes those special initrds13:19
apwcjwatson, do you know if its easy to make the installer initrds separatly from the iso's ?13:19
amitk13:58 < ogra> well, on systems that dont use initramfs you dont want the package to forcefully create one13:19
dmarkeyi know the netboot initrd is slightly different for the server/iso one13:20
amitk13:59 < persia> Indeed.  kernel-img.conf should always be respected, and every type of installer should create it. 13:20
amitkapw: ^^^ what ogra said about initramfs13:20
ograapw, was that changed in lucid ?13:20
ograusually "do_initrd = yes" in /etc/kernel-img.conf rules if update-initramfs is run or not13:21
apwthat file is used by the  postinst etc isn't it?  and none of that has changed13:21
ograand the live image doesnt have a kernel-img.conf so if i install a kernel .deb it shouldnt run update-initramfs 13:22
ograyeah, i think there is a piece in the postinst that checks kernel-img.conf13:22
ograsome ugly perl cod iirc13:23
apwi am not sure we do anything with do_initrd though13:23
apwi actually cannot see any support for that variable doing anything, ever13:25
apwit doesn't seem to be honored in hardy even13:25
ograweird13:25
amitkis this the first time we're try images w/o initramfs?13:25
amitk*trying13:26
* apw isn't sure we've been able to do normal boots really without one13:26
ograi'm sure i didnt have installing a kernel .deb ever running update initramfs if no kernel-img.conf existed13:26
apwso i can see it wouldn't work quite easily13:26
apwthe kernel understands the variable, parses it etc, and uses it for exactly nothing all the way back to hardy at least13:26
ograamitk, we dont do images without initrd but we start to support systems without it or at least move towards that13:27
ograthe OSG team has installs without initrd13:27
apwperhaps /usr/sbin/update-initramfs is meant to understand it13:27
ograthe images will always need one13:27
ograapw, well, but what calls update-initramfs at all now ?13:28
apwthe kernel post inst for one13:28
cjwatsonapw: I can do it13:28
ograa simple dpkg -i linux-image*.deb didnt exec update-initramfs in the past13:28
cjwatsonapw: only after I have the kernel bits though :)13:28
cjwatsonapw: honestly, it's easier for dmarkey to be patient for a day or two more ...13:28
apwcjwatson, yeah i was thinking the same13:28
cjwatsondmarkey: it isn't quite that simple, the installer initrd expects to be able to load further udebs from the archive, usually13:29
dmarkeyoh yes, which dont exist yet13:29
apwogra, i cannot see how that could be, we unconditioanlly call initramfs creation based on $initrd which is unconditionally YES13:31
ograweird13:32
apwsame in hardy13:32
cjwatsonhttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/Grub2Efifb - results of discussions between Keybuk and me, if anyone would like to look over it from a kernel POV13:44
cjwatsonthe "Notes from pre-BoF" section is the interesting bit13:44
dmarkeycjwatson: but in userspace, the udebs can be the same as non-pae i386 archive13:45
cjwatsondmarkey: doesn't matter13:46
cjwatsondmarkey: not all the kernel udebs are built into the netboot initrd13:46
dmarkeyi see, so supplemental modules etc13:47
=== bjf-afk is now known as bjf
apwcjwatson, there doesn't seem to be much there for kernel really ... just a 'new kernel'16:04
cjwatsonapw: and a config change, and the linked patch or similar16:05
apwwe are likely to have .35 maybe even .36 ...16:05
apwthe patch needs some love as it is being ripped to shreds in review16:05
mjg59I'm really not clear on why this is preferable to vesafb16:12
apwcjwatson, so this udeb change, do you want me to expedite an upload with that so it ends up in an image sooner?  though that might mean we do two not one upload before release ?16:12
apwi guess efi is the way of the future?16:14
mjg59apw: If you're using efi, you generally don't have vesa16:15
cjwatsonmjg59: it seems, frankly, a hell of a lot simpler16:15
cjwatsonmjg59: efifb drawing is not dependent on efi, it's just a badly-named simple linear framebuffer16:15
mjg59cjwatson: Yeah, but so's vesafb16:15
cjwatsonwhich grub already knows how to program16:15
cjwatsonexisting code > hypothetical code16:15
cjwatsonapw: no desperate rush, but I wouldn't want to be too squashed for time - is there an upload planned for shortly after beta-2?16:16
mjg59Handoff between vesafb and kms is supposed to work16:16
apwi was planning on just one more early next week i guess.  though i will be doing a pass to slurp up all the pending patches 'now' ... so i could push that too16:17
cjwatsonwhy should I bother changing grub to set up vesafb rather than efifb, is what I want to know16:17
cjwatsonwhat's the point16:17
mjg59cjwatson: I don't understand16:17
mjg59cjwatson: grub doesn't set anything up16:17
cjwatsonthat is false.16:17
mjg59It sets a mode16:17
mjg59There's a defined mechanism for passing video mode information to the kernel16:18
cjwatsonand it feeds it into the screen_info structure and sets the word in the boot parameters that causes the kernel to use efifb16:18
cjwatsonif you use gfxpayload=keep that is16:18
cjwatsonthis *all works right now*, aside from a tiny number of adjustments needed16:18
cjwatsonI see no benefit in redesigning it ...16:18
mjg59If screen_info is populated, then loading vesafb should just work16:18
cjwatsonand so does loading efifb16:19
cjwatsonwhich seems a lot more lightweight16:19
mjg59As long as it's set to VIDEO_TYPE_VLFB16:19
cjwatsoneither way, we'd need to get fbcon to stop clearing the screen16:19
cjwatsonso I don't see the difference16:19
mjg59Ok. As far as I can tell, the only distinction in functionality here is whether grub passes VIDEO_TYPE_EFI or VIDEO_TYPE_VLFB16:20
mjg59If grub is passing VIDEO_TYPE_EFI when it's not using EFI, then it's buggy16:20
cjwatsonwhat I'm asking is why I should bother changing anything at all16:20
cjwatsongiven that efifb appears to work perfectly well16:20
mjg59Things will then potentially break if we ever start supporting the EFI virtual machine and using EFI for modesetting under the kernel16:21
cjwatsonis that at all likely?16:21
mjg59Because the bootloader is lying to us about the hardwre capabilities16:21
mjg59I worked on it for a while16:21
mjg59But stopped when I found that no hardware I had supported the modesetting16:21
mjg59I think that's starting to change now, though16:21
mjg59I should actually check whether my current laptop does16:22
cjwatsondoes vesafb still completely screw suspend/resume?16:23
cjwatsonor is that just a matter of vbe save/restore now?16:23
mjg59Yes, but no more than efifb16:23
mjg59You'll never get reliable suspend/resume without KMS16:23
mjg59Oh, yeah16:23
mjg59It's also worth noting that programming KMS from a vesa mode is basically untested16:24
cjwatsonwell of course, I just don't want to completely fuck it beyond redemption16:24
cjwatsonwell, except that several thousand people seem to have started using gfxpayload=keep in lucid against my recommendations16:24
mjg59cjwatson: efifb and vesafb have identical properties from a suspend/resume point of view16:24
cjwatsonok16:24
mjg59And both are irrelevant if you've done kms handoff16:24
mjg59So, really, I'd recommend getting grub to pass the correct argument and just using vesafb16:25
mjg59It's really a bug that efifb doesn't check efi_enabled before binding16:26
cjwatsonI can probably manage to test that today16:26
cjwatsonScott already has most of the pieces set up16:26
mjg59But in either case, you're likely to hit some number of cases where novueau/radeon/intel fail to go from vesa mode->native16:26
mjg59I know that some people have trouble if they boot with vga=, which is equivalent16:26
mjg59It ought to work, but like I said, it's less well tested16:27
cjwatsonone possibility is to configure things this way only if KMS is there when you run update-grub16:27
cjwatsonoh, that *is* KMS sorry16:27
mjg59Right16:27
mjg59It's all something of a mess16:27
cjwatsonare those bugs typically moderately tractable?16:27
mjg59Yeah, just generally not high priority16:27
Keybukright, efifb vs. vesafb is just which one the kernel happens to pick16:28
cjwatsonare there any references I could gather on what the problems tend to be?16:28
mjg59Not that I can think of16:28
mjg59Text mode on a given card is generally pretty standard16:28
Keybukfwiw, we have a reasonable number of people using grub's gfxpayload=keep now without problems16:28
mjg59But vendors may fiddle with what a given vesa mode on a card actually is16:28
mjg59Keybuk: Right, like I said, it *should* work16:28
cjwatsonI thought half the point of KMS was to reprogram from scratch16:29
mjg59But there are some people for whom it doesn't16:29
Keybukmjg59: do you have bug reports for these?16:29
mjg59cjwatson: Yeah, but graphics hardware is hard16:29
mjg59Keybuk: I don't generally follow the graphcis bugtrackers - this is from people popping up on IRC16:29
mjg59I mean, it's worth you going for it16:29
Keybukthose people could be having issues with the buggy handover in .32 of course16:29
apwcjwatson, what do we gain in going graphics in grub, if we are in a non-native mode and have to mode switch and get a flicker from that?16:30
mjg59But it's "simpler" to not show a graphical bootloader at all, and just stay in VGA text until you load a native driver16:30
cjwatsonapw: smooth splash all the way from the bootloader, and slightly faster boot16:30
mjg59The kernel will now avoid turning on the blinking text cursor if grub turns it off16:30
Keybukmjg59: the trouble is that that means 45s of a black screen with a flashing text cursor16:30
Keybukor even 45s of a plain black screen16:30
Keybuksetting some kind of mode and a logo in grub covers that16:30
cjwatsonmjg59: is that recent?  I saw that broken fairly recently16:30
mjg59Well, for most modern hardware, grub can't set the native resolution16:30
cjwatsonthat may change16:31
cjwatsonphcoder has been vaguely seriously talking about importing KMS code into grub16:31
apwyeah unless it can do native we may just get a new flicker16:31
cjwatsonI think he's insane, but it's entirely possible he can do it16:31
* apw hides from that16:31
mjg59cjwatson: Right, but that avoids the problem differently - a lot of KMS modes are tiled rather than linear16:31
Keybukapw: this doesn't introduce any new flicker fwiw, just ensures that the time until the second one is colourful16:31
mjg59So you can't use a trivial framebuffer anyway16:32
apwKeybuk, and that i concur has to be better16:32
cjwatsonstill, IMO not-black-screen is better than flicker-free16:32
cjwatsonerr16:32
cjwatsonrearrange that until it makes sense16:32
mjg59Heh16:32
* apw gets totally pissed off with the gdm theme which will not update to the latest ...16:33
apwwho do i hastle to find out how to change it16:33
Keybukit also means16:33
Keybukfwiw16:33
Keybukthat we always have a relatively decent framebuffer16:33
Keybukeven if everything fucks up16:33
Keybukwhich makes the failsafe X cleaner, since we can just always fall back to fbdev16:33
cjwatsonmjg59: interesting, I wonder what to do about that16:33
Keybuk(which X does itself)16:33
mjg59cjwatson: Hm. Actually, maybe we do attempt to ensure that you have a linear framebuffer, and then X changes over to tiled (without a modeset)16:34
mjg59Not sure of that, though.16:34
apwKeybuk, i meant to ask, is the reason plymouth has a kms driver per kernel kms driver ... because the framebuffer is non-linear, ie. tiled16:34
cjwatsonwhat I meant to say above is that I don't think it's vital that the mode in grub is always 100% absolutely guaranteed to be the same as the one we end up in16:34
cjwatsonit would be *nice*, but the world won't end if it's not16:35
mjg59Keybuk: d9b263528e01bfbaf716b51f38606b3dfe5ac1e916:35
Keybukapw: no, it's because the kernel sucks16:35
Keybukmjg59: neat16:35
apwheh nice16:35
Keybukapw: Plymouth allocates its own buffers, and maps these to the individual heads of each card16:36
mjg59Keybuk: There's some followup patches that then pass that to the vt layer16:36
Keybukso each output is in the correct native mode, etc.16:36
cjwatsoncursor> ok, that's good16:36
Keybuk(rather than painting over fbcon)16:36
Keybukthe API for doing that is different depending on which driver you're using16:36
Keybukintel has its own API (GEMish)16:36
Keybuknouveau has its own API (GEM on TTMish)16:36
Keybukradeon has its own API (TTMish)16:36
apwheh yeah that debacle will run and run16:37
apwi thought that nouveau and radeon were meant to share ... obviously not16:37
Keybukwell16:39
Keybukthe code is basically the same16:39
Keybukjust s/nouveau/radeon/16:39
Keybuke.g. struct nouveau_bo becomes struct radeon_vo16:39
Keybukapw: I'm not sure whether Plymouth deals with tiled vs. linear16:40
mjg59Well16:40
Keybukit looks like it mostly just uses memcpy() :p16:40
mjg59We don't blank the screen when going to X16:41
mjg59Which lets us fade from bootsplash to gdm16:41
mjg59But I don't know what magic is involved there16:41
Keybukmjg59: actually, that one line of yours is FAR MORE COMPLICATED than you could ever possibly imagine16:41
mjg59Keybuk: In grub? I'm shocked16:41
Keybukno, I mean in plymouth16:41
mjg59Oh? Ha.16:41
Keybukkeeping the frame buffer contents locked while we start X turned out to be very non-trivial16:42
mjg59But clearly, if the framebuffer is linear and X is tiled, there's a lot of magic there16:42
cjwatsonso the problem with using vesafb is that we'd have to build it into the kernel16:42
KeybukI think the magic is at X's end ;)16:42
cjwatsonotherwise, no initramfs recovery16:42
mjg59cjwatson: Upstream has never supported it being modular16:42
cjwatsonIIRC, in the past, building vesafb into the kernel was a recipe for awfulness16:42
cjwatsondoes upstream support it being boot-time-configurable whether you use it?16:43
mjg59It's always been a module just because of Debian's "Everything should be a module" crusade16:43
cjwatsonbecause having it be kernel-build-time-configurable depending on hardware clearly ain't gonna work here16:43
mjg59cjwatson: Upstream will use it if screen_info has VIDEO_TYPE_VLFB16:43
mjg59And won't use it otherwise16:43
cjwatsonok16:43
mjg59Same as efifb16:43
cjwatsonso, in that case, I think grub will use it if it's built-in16:44
cjwatsonit checks the boot parameters structure in the kernel image for that16:44
mjg59...16:44
cjwatsonI *think*, I'm not following all of that16:44
mjg59grub needs to stop being fucking insane16:44
Keybukinsmod sanity16:44
cjwatsonit does need to know whether the thing it tries to pass is actually going to work, surely16:44
mjg59It's like KDE - the assumption seems to be that the rest of the ecosystem is hostile and must be worked around16:44
cjwatsonnot really, grub is mostly fairly sane these days tbh16:45
cjwatsoncertainly a fucklot easier to work with than it used to be16:45
mjg59Rather than working on having a sane interface16:45
cjwatsonthis is just a set of code paths few people use as yet, so it hasn't been polished much *shrug*16:46
cjwatsonbut that's what we're trying to fix here16:46
Keybukwell,16:48
KeybukI guess GRUB has to know what kind of things the kernel is going to expect16:49
Keybukthat's probably how we're falling back to efifb right now16:49
KeybukGRUB sees that the kernel supports that, but not vesafb, so passes it in screen info16:49
Keybukif we built vesafb in as well, it'd pass vesafbishness in screen info instead16:49
Keybuk(unless really using EFI)16:49
mjg59Keybuk: Yeah, which is bogus16:49
Keybukof course, you could argue that GRUB should pass vesaishness regardless and penalise us for building the kernel ... incorrectly16:49
mjg59Keybuk: If we ever fix efifb to only run on efi, grub suddenly tells the kernel not to reprogram text mode and everything breaks16:50
Keybukthat's the kind of thing i'd do <g>16:50
mjg59Of course, the fact that we have three places that program modes is insane16:50
mjg59(grub, kernel setup code, native framebuffer)16:50
cjwatsonit's like a two-line patch to make grub always set up vesafb, so I really don't care, just need to put it all together16:52
apwcking, which mini model you got?16:57
ckinghpmini1000 for the record16:58
cjwatsonhttp://paste.ubuntu.com/411117/ should be all that's needed to adjust grub16:58
cjwatsonbit more than two-line because I renamed _SIMPLE back while I was there16:59
=== sconklin is now known as sconklin-gone
=== yofel_ is now known as yofel
Keybukapw: you know http://people.canonical.com/~apw/lp539730-lucid/ ?17:43
dmarkeyapw: i see you've applied that patch, so, does that mean these udebs are being built in daily?17:43
apwKeybuk, hi 17:44
apwdmarkey, it means that its applied to our tree only17:44
Keybukapw:  you know how you don't publish linux-source packages along side those?17:44
apwthats not in the archive yet, and so not builting yet17:44
Keybukapw: I could sent you one of those Digital Economy Bill disconnection notices <g>17:44
apwKeybuk, heh i give you the patches and everything :)17:44
apwotherwise its a generic kernel and thats published already no?17:45
Keybukapw: strictly speaking, I gave you the patch :p17:45
apwheh there is that too :)17:45
apwi just can't face the extra 50mb of upload for something noone uses17:45
apwrookery is already full up17:45
apwluckily any disconnects will go to the DC :)17:46
apwKeybuk, more importantly does that combination work ?17:48
KeybukI'm trying to purge xorg-edgers from the system17:49
Keybukthis turns out to be HARD17:50
apwKeybuk, heh thought i might hear you complaining about that17:51
dmarkeyapw: so i assume it has to pass some build tests, then what is the process, or is it published somewhere?17:51
apwits in our git tree only at the moment, i am incrementally adding all of the outstanding bits we have at the moment on our list17:52
apwi add a few ... build ... iterate17:52
apwonce its done then i'll boot test it locally and maybe publish that17:52
dmarkeyexcellent, i assume its too late for beta217:53
apwprobabally tommorrow am i am likely to upload the result so we have a few days to such on the fall out17:53
Keybukok17:53
KeybukWFM17:53
apwdmarkey, too late was last tuesday a week back17:53
apwKeybuk, thanks17:53
dmarkeyi see17:53
apwwe freeze a week before a beta milestone17:53
dmarkeyah well, i'll have it well tested before beta3/rc117:53
akgranerapw, thank you!! my computer is on at 48C now woot woot!!!17:54
akgranerit's not frying me anymore!  this is a good thing17:54
apwyeah mine too ... glad the same fix worked for yours17:54
akgranerawesome!!17:55
akgraneryou all rock - when I grow up in open source I wanna be like the kernel team!! (well minus that pgraner  :-D  )17:55
JFo:-/17:59
apwakgraner, i am not sure i want to know what that menas :)18:05
JFobug 55761118:06
ubot3Malone bug 557611 in linux "[KMS] please cherry-pick fix for Radeon RS4xx cards" [Undecided,New] https://launchpad.net/bugs/55761118:06
JFoapw, have you seen that ^18:06
JFoit is fresh <24hrs old18:06
apwJFo, you can pretty much assume no to that question always18:07
JFo:)18:07
apwdo i need to care about it?18:08
JFodunno18:08
JFoit is in Linus' tree, but not in the branch for the next RC18:08
JFothey are wanting a cherry pick (as you can see)18:08
JFojust up to you18:08
JFobut the issue and the patch have been confirmed18:08
JFojust matters whether or not you want to cherry pick it18:09
* JFo is ambivalent ;-)18:09
JFobrb18:09
* apw shakes the tree to see if he can find some reviewers for the myriad of patches on kernel-team18:48
apwJFo, ok it seems to be a patch people claim to fix the issue.  i've got test kernels building18:49
JFoapw, cool18:52
cndRAOF: you familiar with git send-email?20:22
cndit will make sending patches easier20:22
RAOFcnd: I've found the git send-email documentation on the kernel wiki, but it doesn't seem to work properly for me.23:34
cndRAOF: what goes wrong?23:34
RAOFNo email gets to the list; I probably need to work out how to send it through an appropriate smtp server.23:36
lifelessRAOF: do you have local mail sending setup ?23:47
RAOFI've probably got postfix installed; ubuntu-dev-tools likes it.23:48
lifelessI didn't say installed :P23:48
RAOFThat'd surely be a postfix bug, then.  There's no reason it shouldn't just work, is there?23:49

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