/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2010/11/15/#ubuntu-x.txt

ScottKRAOF: Found a victim/volunteer.  Should be here in a few.00:39
ScottKafiestas: Welcome.00:45
ScottKafiestas: meet RAOF (one of the Ubuntu X maintainers).00:45
RAOFafiestas: Howdie.00:45
ScottKRAOF: Meet afiestas.  He's interesting in improving the multimonitor experience in KDE.00:46
ScottKI don't know how much he knows about the video layer, but he's one of the developers that got us a new (working) bluetooth stack in the last cycle for KDE.00:46
RAOFSweet!00:46
afiestashi00:47
ScottKThe idea is (loosely) the perhaps you two can work on something that we can experiment with in Kubuntu this cycle that would then be ready for upsteam KDE in KDE 4.7 (natty +1 for us).00:47
* ScottK goes to find out if his youngest child drowned in the shower yet or not.00:47
* RAOF wonders if they do that often?00:49
RAOFafiestas: So, what is your current level of understanding of the multimonitor stack?00:49
afiestasRAOF: well, my knowlege about video or X is limited to libxrandr, I played with it a kind of xrandr (cli) replacement 00:49
afiestasalso I read a big part of randr specification until the point where the actual specification starts00:50
afiestas(so I know the basics terms and so on)00:50
RAOFSuperb; you've therefore mastered almost the entirity of the tools available.00:50
afiestasRAOF: so, what you guys have in mind :o?00:52
RAOFBasically, to standardise the decisions that currently get made.00:53
RAOFThe blueprint is here: 00:53
RAOFhttps://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/multimedia-desktop-n-xorg-multihead-defaults00:54
RAOFBasically, what a DE needs to do is:00:54
RAOFHave some process which selects for hotplug events.  In GNOME this is gnome-settings-daemon; I presume KDE has an equivalent.00:55
RAOFWhen a hotplug event is detected, do something.  This something is dependent upon past configuration:00:55
RAOF1) If the user has previously plugged in this device, use the same settings for this device as before.00:56
ScottKOne of the unfortunate things at the moment is that KDE has two: krandrtray and kcm_randr (or something close).00:56
RAOFScottK: And, I notice, nothing running in KDM to detect hotplug - this makes plugging in a monitor after boot fail.00:56
afiestaswell, I don't  have clear what would be my first steps in kde+xrandr00:57
RAOF2) If the user has previously not plugged in this device, choose the largest possible shared mode, clone the screens, and pop up a quick selection dialog.00:57
ScottKOne of the fun bits is if you do it, as soon as you open kcm_randr, kranrtray suddenly notices the monitor and you go from no tools helping you to two.00:57
afiestasfrom what I've seen so far, I will rewrite everything from scratch, and it should not be difficult00:58
afiestasRAOF: would not be better to show the selection dialog first?00:58
RAOFIt sounds like the first thing to do would be to get rid of one of the two tools :)00:58
ScottKNo one will object I don't think.  The current KDE code could be described optimistically as "under maintained".00:58
afiestaschange the resolution sounds annoying :/00:58
RAOFafiestas: What monitor do you show the selection dialog on?00:59
afiestasprimary00:59
RAOFWhich one is the primary display?01:00
afiestasit is decided by the driver iirc from xrandr 1.3 and up01:00
RAOFAlso, how do you know the user can actually *see* the primary display - laptops in a docking station suffer from this problem.01:00
RAOFYou can also explicitly set a display as primary; that's one of the things the DE tools should expose.01:01
afiestaswell, then we should detect if a dock station is plugged01:01
afiestasanywya I'm not a usability expert... so I can't say 01:01
afiestasbut from my user point of view, I don't want unexpected resolution changes01:01
afiestas(osx extends the desktop iirc)01:02
RAOFThere are all sorts of similar corner cases.  Basically, the idea with cloning is that you can *guarantee* that the user can see how to select what they want.01:02
RAOFAs long as they can see one of their outputs, at least.  But if that constraint isn't satisfied, they've got other problems :)01:02
afiestasso, when you connect your laptop to a docking station, the lvds is turned off?01:03
afiestas(just curious)01:03
RAOFNot for *me*.  But many people shut the lid (which *doesn't* disable the display, just blank it) when they put their laptop in a docking station.01:04
RAOFIt would be perfectly reasonable for you to decide that KDE should have a default of “extended desktop”.  The participants in the UDS session decided that cloning was the best compromise, but if you work around the corner-cases, extending can make sense, too.01:05
RAOFAlso, this behaviour should only be for monitors which you haven't already configured; if you plug in a monitor and then set extended desktop, next time you plug it in the desktop should be extended, not cloned.01:06
afiestasRAOF: maybe atm since we don't hnave anything to work on, we may agree on where and how save that informatio01:08
afiestas*information01:08
afiestasI know that gnome is using some kind of not docummented xml, right?01:08
afiestaswouldbe nice if we can unify that01:08
RAOFRight.  ~/.config/monitors.xml01:08
RAOFHm.01:08
RAOFI wasn't thinking of a fd.o standard, but it does make sense.01:09
afiestasyes, would be awesome01:09
RAOFWell, ~/.config/monitors.xml has a version field, and an appropriate name :)01:11
RAOFWhere does KDE store such information?01:11
RAOF(Or does it?  I've never had anything but trouble with multi-head in KDE)01:11
afiestasand about the different behaviors, I'm ok with implementing yours always that they're the GNOME's too01:11
afiestasit doesn't afaik01:11
afiestasLubos implemented "Set this as default settings" but nothing to care of01:12
RAOFOk.  Well, reading from/writing to ~/.config/monitors.xml seems like a reasonable first step.01:14
afiestasyes01:15
afiestaswell, before we've to catch up :p01:15
RAOFThere should probably be a shared library extracted to do that, at the same time as I work out how to identify TVs, projectors, etc.01:16
afiestaswe can identify them with the EDID in theory01:17
RAOFHah!01:17
RAOFYeah, that's a nice theory :)01:18
RAOFYou don't get “I'm a TV” out of the EDID, though, at least as far as I'm aware; you get model & manufacuter names and modelists and such.01:19
RAOFThat's enough to identify “I'm a TV”, but with a bit of work / lookup tables.01:20
RAOFSo there should be a library which handles the lookup/herustics in a nice way for apps.01:21
RAOFKDE would in theory be happy to add a dependency on a pure-C library which implemented such an idea, plus handled read/write to monitors.xml, right?01:23
afiestasyes 01:27
afiestaseven if it is a glib based, a lot of kde features is depending on glib stuff 01:28
RAOFOh, really?  I presume gobject is out of the question, though :)01:28
RAOFI don't think it'd be particularly useful, either.01:29
RAOFThere'd be quite a simple interface; something like pass in an xrandr handle and get “I'm sure this is a TV, and last time it was connected the configuration was $foo” out.01:31
RAOF*Note: API almost entirely pulled from the top of my head.01:31
afiestasthat would be fine 01:35
RAOFSend your email address to raof at ubuntu dot com and I'll try to keep you in the loop.  Also, subscribing to the blueprint wouldn't hurt.01:39
afiestasRAOF: oks01:46
afiestasemailt sent01:51
RAOFAnd received.01:52
jman123hey guys. having problems under a fresh install of 10.10 detecting correct resolutions (best it does is 640x480 on my 1680x1050 lcd) with an nvidia 9500. i tried installing the nvidia drivers, that doesnt do any better. tried editing xorg.conf: http://paste.ubuntu.com/532148/ to no avail. the new modelines dont get recognised by nvidia-settings. 06:19
RAOF /var/log/Xorg.0.log is the price of entry to the debugging train :)06:20
RAOFCould you pastebin it, please?06:20
jman123sure06:29
jman123http://paste.ubuntu.com/53216606:31
jman123i used nvidia-xconfig a couple of times to make a default xorg.conf06:32
jman123and mucked around with xrandr trying to get a modeline working06:32
RAOFSo, yeah; as expected, the problem is that your display isn't sending a valid EDID, so the driver has no idea what the valid modes for it are.06:33
RAOFIt _looks_ like your xorg.conf contains a valid modeline, but I'm not sure what arcane supplications the nvidia binary driver requires before it'll accept modelines.06:34
jman123btw here where my attempts at using xrandr paste.ubuntu.com/53216806:34
JanCthe nvidia driver doesn't support xrandr, I think?06:35
RAOFCorrect.06:35
RAOFWell, it supports xrandr 1.1, which doesn't do anything very interesting.06:35
jman123should i ditch the nvidia driver?06:35
RAOF(In particular you can't add modelines via xrandr 1.1)06:35
jman123lol06:35
RAOFYou could ditch the nvidia driver.  You'd end up with the nouveau driver, which does support xrandr 1.2, so you'd be able to xrandr-up some appropriate modes.06:36
jman123the monitor is a VX2235wm connected via DVI06:36
jman123i also have a VA1912wb connected via VGA06:36
jman123both viewsonic06:37
RAOFAnd the nvidia driver is unable to read an EDID from either; it doesn't get an EDID at all from the VGA monitor, and it gets a corrupted EDID from the DVI.06:37
jman123why would that be?06:37
RAOFSo, either there's something wrong in the cabling or Viewsonic has failed to correctly write 128 bytes of EDID data.06:37
RAOFOr, I guess, someone wired up your GPU badly :)06:37
jman123lol. asus06:38
jman123so.. what to do?06:38
JanCyou could try with another graphics card if that gets a correct EDID...06:38
RAOFMy bet would be on a corrupted EDID.06:38
jman123not an ubuntu bug then?06:39
RAOFProbably not an Ubuntu bug, except in so much as we could possibly handle it better.06:39
jman123works fine under windows btw, so i sorta doubt its the hardware06:39
RAOFWindows is special :)06:39
jman123probably should have mentioned that before06:39
JanCsome monitors come with "windows drivers"06:39
RAOFOr, rather, Windows contains more / better work-arounds (up to and including special GPU drivers which embed corrected EDIDs for some displays)06:40
jman123and it did work under ubuntu. i was using 10.04. then after a couple of reboots it refused to see the dvi monitor at all and only had the wrong resolutions on the vga one06:40
JanChm06:40
jman123fubar06:40
RAOFThat's without changing anything in the Ubuntu install?06:41
jman123it was with stock drivers yes06:41
RAOFSo - it was working fine, and then it stopped working?06:41
jman123indeed06:41
JanCyou did check the cables/connectors too?  ☺06:41
jman123yes06:42
jman123actually.. i did put in a KVM but that was only for the vga monitor06:42
RAOFWhat changed between it working and it not-working?06:42
jman123a reboot06:42
RAOFWell, the KVM is probably why the driver can't get an EDID from the VGA monitor.06:42
jman123yeah i forgot about the kvm06:43
RAOFFar too many KVMs don't wire up the DDC pins.06:43
jman123ok kvm disconnected06:44
jman123will a reboot re probe the EDID?06:44
RAOFJust restarting X should work.06:44
jman123logging out does that right?06:45
RAOFLogging out & logging back in again will restart X if you're using a default Ubuntu install, yes.06:45
jman123ok06:45
RAOF(Kubuntu does it differently, and exposes fun new sources of bugs because of it!)06:45
jman123so those modelines i put in the xorg.conf.. why doesnt that work?06:46
jman123shouldnt it force the screen into it?06:46
RAOFI'm not sure.  Those options are driver-dependent, and the nvidia driver clearly isn't reading the modelines.06:46
jman123the log does mention removing each of the modes06:47
RAOFYeah.  It's either not finding those modelines you've specified or it's found them and decided they're invalid.06:47
jman123ok new log after removing the kvm is 53217206:48
JanCRAOF: is the GDM vs. KDM differences why Robert Ansell made a DM that could work for multiple DE with the functionality separated from the greeter?06:49
RAOFPartially.06:51
RAOFPartially it was becase he discovered he could replace GDM with 1/10th the code, while implementing a couple of missing features :)06:51
JanCwell, from what I read, large parts of the gdm source were dead code anyway  ;)06:52
jman123well is there anything i can do to analyze whats happening here? dont mind reinstalling or whatever as this is a fresh install anyway06:52
RAOFDoes it work any better without the KVM?06:53
RAOFOh, I see you've posted the ID for a pastebin.  Right.\06:53
jman123yes, nvidia-settings now has the correct res for that monitor, still not the dvi one06:54
jman123oh yeah, sorry about that06:55
jman123its http://paste.ubuntu.com/53217206:55
JanChm, IIRC you can tell the driver to ignore the EDID06:56
jman123im not chatting from the pc im having trouble with06:56
jman123heh the question is how i suppose06:57
jman123i wonder why nvidia didnt chose to make their driver open source06:57
RAOFI think “Option "IgnoreEDID"” is what you're afther to ignore the... oh.06:58
JanCwell, nvidia released the obfuscated nv driver IIRC  ;)06:59
jman123empathy is giving me the shits07:03
RAOFI think “Option "IgnoreEDID"” is what you're afther to ignore the EDID errors on the DVI monitor; I'm not entirely sure what modes nvidia will pick in that case.07:03
jman123nothing seems to work today :P07:03
jman123will using that option interfere with the vga monitor though?07:09
jman1234alright. pidgin.. empathy kept crashing07:10
jman1234and to answer my own question, yes it will interfere. x now finds no screens07:12
RAOFHm, ok.07:12
jman1234i guess if i use that option i will need to set up modelines for both screens07:13
RAOFHave you determined whether Windows has been working since Ubuntu startied doing this?07:13
RAOFYeah, you will.07:13
jman1234lemme check07:13
RAOFIt's curious that the driver is now reading a corrupted EDID from the DVI monitor, given it clearly worked in the past.07:13
jman1234windows works as well as it always did07:14
jman1234i dont suppose there is any way of viewing a log similar to the xorg log containing EDID's in windows?07:15
RAOFI'm pretty sure there's _some_ way to extract an EDID from Windows.07:15
jman1234it'l be a hack07:15
RAOFGoogle suggests many options, including http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dump_edid.html07:16
jman1234well the nvidia control panel in windows detects the right resolutions first time07:17
JanCyou said that the driver in Ubuntu did that too at first?07:20
jman1234here is a dump using that program in windows paste.ubuntu.com/53218107:21
RAOFYeah, that seems all fine.07:22
jman1234so both displays are outputting correct EDID's07:22
RAOFI'm not sure why the linux driver isn't reading the EDID right; it's possible that the Windows driver does it in a more cautious way.07:23
jman12341680x1050 is native for the VX2235wm (DVI) and 1440x900 is native for the other07:23
RAOF(Sometimes if you try to read each bit of the EDID 5 times and pick best-of-three it'll be more reliable.  True story!)07:24
jman1234shall i see how the open source lin driver does it?07:24
RAOFNot a bad plan.07:24
jman1234im not fussed about 3d and will go with whatever driver works!07:26
RAOFThen nouveau may well be a better bet for you; it's got better integrated dual-head support.07:26
jman1234alright i removed nvidia the same way i installed it (using the driver gui thing)07:28
RAOFYou'll need to reboot before the nouveau drivers will kick in.07:29
jman1234what is default in ubuntu desktop?07:29
RAOF*Not technically true, but it's generally easier to reboot than to faff around trying to do it without rebooting.07:29
RAOFNouveau.07:29
jman1234ok just finished rebooting07:29
RAOFAh, the merry boot speed of someone who isn't testing btrfs :)07:30
RAOFAny joy?07:31
jman1234vga monitor is fine07:31
jman1234system>preferences>monitors doesnt have any mention of the 2nd monitor07:31
jman1234this is the same behaviour i was getting back in 10.04 and in 10.10 before i installed nvidia drivers07:32
RAOFI bet dmesg will have something about a missing EDID.07:32
jman1234paste.ubuntu.com/532186 <-xorg.0.log07:33
RAOFdmesg is going to be more interesting; Running “dmesg | pastebinit -” should send that to a pastebin.07:34
jman1234lol pastebininit07:34
jman1234if i grep EDID i get a lot of *ERROR*'s07:36
jman1234for DVI-I-107:36
RAOFYeah.  It's going to be looking at the EDID, finding it's corrupt, and going “OMG! A WALRUS!”07:36
jman1234EDID checksum invalid etc07:37
RAOFI'm not quite sure why it decides that means it should mark DVI-I-1 as *disconnected*, though; that seems a bug.07:37
jman1234there should be an option to force modes onto displays07:38
jman1234like via GUI07:38
RAOFYeah; that's something I'll be working on.07:38
RAOFIt's possible with xrandr at the moment, but it should be exposed in a GUI.  With suitable admonishments about blowing up ancient monitors.\07:38
jman1234it seems nouveau just decides the monitor isnt even worth an attempt to display something on07:39
jman1234ah yes xrandr07:40
RAOFYeah.  That should be regarded as a bug.07:40
jman1234i should try that again07:40
jman1234xrandr fails07:41
JanCRAOF: maybe some newer screens can blow up too (maybe not consumer stuff, but I'm not sure all embeded stuff has proper protection against misconfiguration?)07:41
jman1234they definately do now07:42
RAOFJanC: Oh, it's possible to physically damage LCD displays, but the drivers don't expose those knobs.07:42
jman1234i know some old CRT's could do crazy stuff if set at too high refresh rates07:42
jman1234now lcds will usually show out of range or something07:43
jman1234here is my attempt at xrandr http://paste.ubuntu.com/53219007:43
JanCjman1234: you could actually make the electronics in many ancient CRT monitors to *explode* too ;)07:44
* RAOF would love to see that. From a safe distance :)\07:44
jman1234lol. probably a pop would be heard as the components release their magic smoke07:45
JanChehe, until now I only had a power supply say *pop* and give a burning smell and a bit of smoke  ;)07:45
RAOFDinner time here; sorry this hasn't been more helpful.07:46
jman1234I've had IC's split in half, capacitors ping off boards ricocheting off walls :P07:46
jman1234alright thanks RAOF07:47
jman1234yeah xrandr gave some error when i tried to set the dvi screen to a modeline07:47
jman1234"Configure crtc 1 failed"07:48
jman1234RAOF are you in australia by any chance?07:49
jman1234internode. indeed he is07:51
jman1234is nouveau configurable with xorg.conf? any examples to force modelines?08:02
RAOFhttp://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR1208:04
jman1234my current xorg.conf is empty08:05
jman1234what should go in driver under the device section?08:06
jman1234also any idea why xrandr was unable to get the dvi display going? http://paste.ubuntu.com/53219008:07
JanCjman1234: I guess the driver thinks no monitor is connected...11:02
JanCmaybe because it didn't manage to get a proper EDID11:02
JanCI would check the DVI cable (maybe try another one?)11:03
JanCalso, with the open source drivers, xorg.conf should ideally be empty or not exist even, in your case maybe it should contain a monitor section...11:05
jman1234JanC: windows drivers are able to collect correct EDID's so i dont think the cable or monitor is the problem. is there some command to generate a xorg.conf? what should i put as the driver in the device section when using the nouveau drivers.12:02
JanCyou should not need anything in the Device Section...12:02
jman1234ok well i have tried writing an xorg.conf and so far it hasnt made any difference12:14
=== yofel_ is now known as yofel
stephankI'm writing some WebGL stuff, but I'm seeing incorrect output for some very basic shaders. Now I'm looking at launchpad and (in my case) intel's bugtracker on freedesktop, and lots of bugs seem really broad in subject. I'm not even sure how to figure out if my bug is already known?18:25
stephankHope I'm not being awfully vague. Maybe I should just report the issue, and attach my test case, seeing as I can't seem to find anything related.18:32
JanCstephank: I think the developers prefer clear bugs with testcases over those broad fuzzy ones, so yours would be more likely to get fixed  ;)19:53
Sarvattstephank: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html would be the most appropriate, you want to file it on freedesktop.org against the mesa product with the appropriate dri driver component that you are seeing the failure on. fwiw your webgl test case shows light pink here on the nvidia blob20:01
Sarvattfor firefox you can install libosmesa6 and change the webgl.osmesalib option in about:config to the right path to libosmesa to test software rendering20:03
stephankSarvatt: Totally weird thing is, I get the same result using software rendering. (Pretty sure it's doing sw rendering. I enabled verbose and it tells me in the console.)20:24
Sarvattstephank: just curious, what mesa version?20:27
stephankSarvatt: I'm on maverick, the package version of libgl1-mesa-dri is 7.9~git20100924-0ubuntu220:28
doctormoIn the new xorg input system, how does the system know an input is available?21:01
doctormoI'm trying to think of the quickest way to enable serial wacom tablets which usually have a /dev/ttyS0 node.21:02
doctormoThe file xorg.conf.d/50-wacom.conf mentions something about serial wacom, but then doesn't specify the device to use.21:02
doctormoAs if it's disconnected somehow from detection.21:03
jcristauX gets told by udev when a device appears21:10
doctormojcristau: So is there a way to tell udev there is a certain kind of device connected to a serial port?21:17
jcristauwell you can tell that to X21:18
jcristaulike Section "InputClass" Identifier "my serial device" MatchDevicePath "/dev/ttyS0" Driver "wacom" EndSection21:19
jcristauin your xorg.conf21:19
jcristauwith whatever options are needed21:19
doctormojcristau: I'm unhappy about that kind of method. It's hackish.21:20
doctormoI'd be happier with a udev solution, if possible.21:20
jcristaudunno.  it's serial stuff.  it's always going to be hackish.21:21
tjaaltonserial wacoms should already work21:22
tjaaltonsince lucid21:22
tjaaltonthough only builtin models I guess21:23
doctormotjaalton: Do you know how they work?21:27
tjaaltondoctormo: I have a lenovo X61 which has one21:28
tjaaltonand it works21:28
doctormotjaalton: Did you have to do anything? and is it really serial or is it usb?21:28
tjaaltondoctormo: works OOTB21:28
tjaaltonand it's serial alright21:29
doctormoDamn magic... hmm.21:29
tjaaltonthe serial device is probed somehow when the system starts21:30
tjaaltonso udev knows about it21:30
doctormoAh I think I see where that is happening.21:31
doctormotjaalton: Could I get your help please? I'm after pnp information for your tablet.21:41
tjaaltondoctormo: it's not really mine and not at hand atm (a testbed at work)21:42
doctormoCurses! :-)21:42
doctormoI'm trying to find a good guide to getting pnp info too.21:42
ionI have a tablet if that’s relevant.21:44
doctormoion: Is it serial or usb?21:44
ionUSB21:44
RAOFBoo.  No-one told stephank about piglit?21:59
brycehwho's stephank?22:21
RAOFHe was asking about one of his WebGL shaders that's rendering incorrectly.22:23
RAOFIf he's got a nice test-case, piglit is where it should go!22:23
brycehjust had one of my systems overheat due to a failed fan on a radeon card22:27
brycehI'd just rebooted it but for whatever reason the gpu fan wasn't spinning22:27
brycehI'd noticed a smell like someone ironing clothes22:28
brycehnew graphics card time!22:28
RAOFMmmm.22:29
RAOFThe smell of ironing clothes is surprisingly pleasant.22:29
brycehindeed22:29
RAOFMaybe you should keep that card in there, as an air freshener!22:29
brycehI'm ok with wrinkles22:29
brycehsad... was a nice RV630 dual head card that now supports 3d and kms and everything just right22:30
RAOFYou can probably get about the same performance out of a nice, cheap evergreen card now.22:32
RAOFAs long as you don't mind xorg-edgers, and don't want to alt-tab in compiz :)22:33
brycehI had a spare rv505 single-head card which is enough22:33
brycehfanless ;-)22:34
brycehthe machine in question is only used for doing charts and web page generation now so don't need 3d or dual head22:34
RAOFYeah.  I got a nice $30 fanless r700 a while back.22:34
brycehfor whatever reason the case on this one tends to collect a lot of dust22:35
brycehand the cat likes to sit on it22:35
RAOFI suspect these two phenomena might be related :)22:35
brycehyou may be right22:35
brycehyou know it makes me wonder how many "X bugs" really are over-heating / under-power issues22:36
RAOFAs a proportion of the user-base, I think few people will hit those sorts of problems.22:37
RAOFAs a proportion of the *bug* set… wouldn't it be nice if we could figure out how the user-base is represented in the bug set? :)22:37

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