[SOLVED] plasma-desktop rendering problem

[jmontelius]

I upgraded to 9.10 from 9.04 without any warnings on my old Thinkpad R40. Everything is up and running but the rendering of window borders and the plasma panel is a mess (black and white stripes, nothing shows).

Everything inside windows renders ok. I can add widgets to the desktop and they render ok. However, if I add a panel it is all gray and navigation is impossible. Any hints?

$ plasma-desktop --v
Qt: 4.5.2
KDE: 4.3.2 (KDE 4.3.2)
Plasma Workspace: 0.3

update - will try to install the ati drivers

update - realizing that ATI does not any longer support "old" chip sets :-( I have this problem on another machine with an older chips set but it still works under 9.04. Hmm, not very good.

[tocamac]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

I have the same problem, also on Thinkpad (T40) with mobility Radeon 7500. But I did a fresh install of 9.10 from the CD. I am curious about your result...

[jmontelius]

Re: plasma-desktop xorg kwin ATI radeon rendering problem

I think it has to do with the radeon support for the graphics ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 that is based on R100. The fix that does not work is to use drivers from ATI but ATI does no longer support R100 and R200 chips for linux.

I have another machine with R200 chip and there everything works but 3D rendering is too slow to use.

The question is why everything works but the window borders and plasma panel. I've added application launcher etc to the desktop as widgets and they work ok.

I guess the problem is more related to: xorg, kwin and radeon

[tocamac]

Re: plasma-desktop xorg kwin ATI radeon rendering problem

I think it has to do with the radeon support for the graphics ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 that is based on R100. The fix that does not work is to use drivers from ATI but ATI does no longer support R100 and R200 chips for linux.

AFAIK ATI never supported these cards in Linux, radeon has always been open source driver.

[kubicle]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

I have a T41 with an rv250 radeon card, and in karmic (with the newer drm/radeon/mesa/xorg -drivers), I had to increase AGPSize option to make desktop effects work again. Not necessarily a fix for older cards, but worth a shot. Here's the relevant section of my xorg.conf (some of the options aren't necessary and some are commented out):

Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "radeon"
Option "DRI" "true"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "AccelDFS" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
Option "FBTexPercent" "0"
Option "EXAOptimizeMigration" "true"
Option "EnableDepthMoves" "true"
Option "SWcursor" "off"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPSize" "32"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "always"
#Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
#Option "MigrationHeuristic" "smart"
#Option "AGPFastWrite" "yes"
#Option "MergedFB" "true"
#Option "DepthBits" "16"
#Option "DynamicClocks" "on"

[tocamac]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

I have a T41 with an rv250 radeon card, and in karmic (with the newer drm/radeon/mesa/xorg -drivers), I had to increase AGPSize option to make desktop effects work again. Not necessarily a fix for older cards, but worth a shot. Here's the relevant section of my xorg.conf (some of the options aren't necessary and some are commented out):

Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "radeon"
Option "DRI" "true"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "AccelDFS" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
Option "FBTexPercent" "0"
Option "EXAOptimizeMigration" "true"
Option "EnableDepthMoves" "true"
Option "SWcursor" "off"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPSize" "32"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "always"
#Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
#Option "MigrationHeuristic" "smart"
#Option "AGPFastWrite" "yes"
#Option "MergedFB" "true"
#Option "DepthBits" "16"
#Option "DynamicClocks" "on"

That didn't work for me (Radeon Mobility 7500).

[kubicle]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

I have a T41 with an rv250 radeon card, and in karmic (with the newer drm/radeon/mesa/xorg -drivers), I had to increase AGPSize option to make desktop effects work again. Not necessarily a fix for older cards, but worth a shot. Here's the relevant section of my xorg.conf (some of the options aren't necessary and some are commented out):

Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "radeon"
Option "DRI" "true"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "AccelDFS" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
Option "FBTexPercent" "0"
Option "EXAOptimizeMigration" "true"
Option "EnableDepthMoves" "true"
Option "SWcursor" "off"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPSize" "32"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "always"
#Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
#Option "MigrationHeuristic" "smart"
#Option "AGPFastWrite" "yes"
#Option "MergedFB" "true"
#Option "DepthBits" "16"
#Option "DynamicClocks" "on"

That didn't work for me (Radeon Mobility 7500).

Another thing that you might have a go with (in addition to setting the options), is playing with kernel mode setting (KMS), by appending "radeon.modeset=1" (KMS on) or "radeon.modeset=0" or "nomodeset" (KMS off) as a kernel boot option.

[jmontelius]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

Another thing that you might have a go with (in addition to setting the options), is playing with kernel mode setting (KMS), by appending "radeon.modeset=1" (KMS on) or "radeon.modeset=0" or "nomodeset" (KMS off) as a kernel boot option.

Thanks, that did it. I booted with "radeon.modset=1" and windows and plasma panel now shows fine.

For anyone finding this thread here is a bit of a howto:

Reboot and hit <esc> to enter the grub boot selection.

Select the firts kerner and hit "e"

move down to the line /boot/wmlinuz-2.6.31..... and choose "e"

add "radeon.modset=1" at the end and hit <return>, then hit "b".

If it works you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst so that the option is there by default.

[tocamac]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

I have a T41 with an rv250 radeon card, and in karmic (with the newer drm/radeon/mesa/xorg -drivers), I had to increase AGPSize option to make desktop effects work again. Not necessarily a fix for older cards, but worth a shot. Here's the relevant section of my xorg.conf (some of the options aren't necessary and some are commented out):

Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "radeon"
Option "AGPSize" "32"

That didn't work for me (Radeon Mobility 7500).

Another thing that you might have a go with (in addition to setting the options), is playing with kernel mode setting (KMS), by appending "radeon.modeset=1" (KMS on) or "radeon.modeset=0" or "nomodeset" (KMS off) as a kernel boot option.

Well, I tried that. With "radeon.modeset=0" and "nomodeset" there is no change. With "radeon.modeset=1" I get a black screen. I can't even switch to the text console...

[markofealing]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

Well I don't know why this is marked as solved. It isn't!

I've got a Dell Latitude C640 also with a ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 and have exactly the same problem (vertical bars for window borders, and for kicker). Basically the GUI is pretty unusable. Have booted off the live desktop CD and exactly the same problem. This did not exist in 9.04 so is a bug introduced in 9.10.

Entering "radeon.modset=1" in GRUB does not work.

To me it looks like it's a bit of a train wreck and the Radeon Mobilty 7500 driver is broken.

[markofealing]

Re: [SOLVED] plasma-desktop rendering problem

Just been on to Launchpad to see if there is a bug report, there is one and it is marked currently as medium.

Bug ref 416001 concerns xserver-xorg-video-ati in Karmic and is also posted ustream in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23668.


"It turns out the issue is related to the new acceleration method in Karmic. Adding the following to the Device section fixes it.

Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"

However this has a major hit on graphical performance. So it looks like I'm going to restore my laptop back to 9.04 and wait for it to be fixed (hopefully) in 10.04.

At least on my Dell C640, Karmic is a disappointment.

[kubicle]

Re: plasma-desktop rendering problem

Well I don't know why this is marked as solved. It isn't!

It's customary for the OP to mark the thread as solved if his/her issue is solved. If the same fix does not work for you, you can still keep posting on the thread (or make a new one if you suspect it is not the same issue...or different hardware etc.).

[erehwon]

Re: [SOLVED] plasma-desktop rendering problem

I have (had!) the same problem. Thanks to everyone for explaining it better than I could have and providing a solution. My old Sony laptop has Kubuntu working on it again!

markofealing - I had problems getting it working but then realised that there is a text mistake in what jmontelius put down. The entry should be
"radeon.modeset=1" NOT "radeon.modset=1". IE with an extra 'e'.
Once I worked this out my desktop was fine.

Thank you jmontelius for describing the problem and spelling out the solution. I'll forgive you the small mistake!

[erehwon]

Re: [SOLVED] plasma-desktop rendering problem

Perhaps I spoke too soon!

My system was working perfectly for about 5 minutes. The window borders and plasma panel all displayed correctly and I started to enjoy my Koala. Then I had lots of little problems which rendered my system unusable. I don't know which if these is important but I'll describe each one in case anyone else experienced the same thing.

First of all I noticed that the font rendering wasn't working properly. Most (not all) text was hard to read. This was on all windows, menus etc.

Next, Akonadi starts up but displays some problems. It then goes away.

After that the system begun to run very slowly. I found out that gdb was running at 50% CPU. Killing that process got everything working again.

The system then said that a language pack wasn't installed properly and did I want to complete the installation. I said yes, and it all finished properly.

I think started to lose everything - plasma panels, background image etc and I ended up with a grey/brown screen with only a Home.desktop icon in the top left corner and a (working) Dolphin file manager window showing.

Now when I boot up, it gets to the login screen perfectly. I log in and it briefly shows my desktop, including all panels, and then goes to the grey/brown screen with Dolphin, as before.

I'm sure most (or all!) of the problems have nothing to do with my display problems but I thought it best to include them just in case.

Does anyone know what's causing my problem. I think it must be something to do with kwin/kde etc but haven't a clue where to start. I'm wondering if my best bet is to do a clean install, just in case the update is conflicting with some of the things I had installed before.

TIA

[erehwon]

Re: [SOLVED] plasma-desktop rendering problem

OK, before anyone tells me to look at other posts... I had a look at other posts and found the answer.

I deleted my ~.kde folder and got my desktop back.

Apologies for anyone reading my previous ramble for no reason at all.