Bug 26930

Summary:	Mach64 video Driver not working since Mageia 7
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Ezequiel Partida <ezequiel_partida>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	Mageia Bug Squad <bugsquad>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal	CC:	lewyssmith
Version:	Cauldron
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:		CVE:
Status comment:

Description Ezequiel Partida 2020-07-10 18:53:42 CEST

Description of problem:

I've been testing MGA7 and MGA8 and I get blinking cursor. This is on a Dell Proliant Server and I plan to install it on 2 more Dell Servers. I'm not a pro on hoy to configure a server without a GUI.

I reinstalled with MGA1 then MGA6 and it works great, but once I did the upgrade to MGA7 the problem came back again.

It seems something wrong with the ATI Mach video driver.

Looking at the xorg log I found:

$ MACH64(0): Unable to map linear aperture. Invalid argument

I also found the same problem on ArchWiki under kernel issues..

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mach64

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

Mageia 7.1 and Mageia 8 Cauldron


Regards
Ezequiel (ZekeMX) Partida

Comment 1 Lewis Smith 2020-07-21 14:50:31 CEST

Sorry to have left this for so long.
Thank you for reporting the issue, which is a reversion from Mageia 6 to 7 (now 8): and the useful Archwiki reference.
"The Mach 64 chip is an old graphic accelerator developed by ATI. This board has basic 3D capabilites. Its support on Linux is poor but exists."
The kernel bit:
 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mach64#Kernel_Issue

Sometimes older video hardware support just stops working due to a driver change; I have had this problem.

Can you please post just the "VGA compatible controller" section of the output from:
 $ lspci -v
which should summarise the video hardware & driver.

CC: (none) => lewyssmith

Comment 2 Ezequiel Partida 2020-07-24 02:22:02 CEST

(In reply to Lewis Smith from comment #1)
> Sorry to have left this for so long.
> Thank you for reporting the issue, which is a reversion from Mageia 6 to 7
> (now 8): and the useful Archwiki reference.
> "The Mach 64 chip is an old graphic accelerator developed by ATI. This board
> has basic 3D capabilites. Its support on Linux is poor but exists."
> The kernel bit:
>  https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mach64#Kernel_Issue
> 
> Sometimes older video hardware support just stops working due to a driver
> change; I have had this problem.
> 
> Can you please post just the "VGA compatible controller" section of the
> output from:
>  $ lspci -v
> which should summarise the video hardware & driver.

Hello Lewis,

lspci -v

03:0e.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Rage 3 [Rage XL PCI] (rev 27) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Dell PowerEdge 750
	Flags: bus master, VGA palette snoop, stepping, medium devsel, latency 32
	Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
	Memory at fdedf000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel modules: atyfb

Comment 3 Lewis Smith 2020-07-26 10:22:22 CEST

Thank you for this information.
I did not ask enough, apologies.

> I've been testing MGA7 and MGA8 and I get blinking cursor
> MGA6 .. works great, but once I did the upgrade to MGA7 the problem came
> back again.
Does the problem happen booting the upgraded or newly installed system? That is, are you able to run the installer to end?

Can you describe the boot process, how far it gets before the 'blinking cursor'. Do you see the Grub2 menu, a subsequent Mageia splash screen, screens of console output during the boot (press Esc to see that from the splash screen). If the last, what are the last lines before it stops?

Comment 4 Ezequiel Partida 2020-08-05 23:18:17 CEST

> Does the problem happen booting the upgraded or newly installed system? That > is, are you able to run the installer to end?

> Can you describe the boot process, how far it gets before the 'blinking  
> cursor'. Do you see the Grub2 menu, a subsequent Mageia splash screen, 
> screens of console output during the boot (press Esc to see that from the 
> splash screen). If the last, what are the last lines before it stops?

On Mageia 7 as well as Cauldron 8 the installation goes very well as normal all the way to the end.

Once the server is rebooted the grub2 menu appears, after choosing Mageia everything seems normal until the cursor appears with no logon screen at all.

Mageia 6 on the other hand installs and boots very nice.. I tried upgrading from GMA6 to MGA7 and the problem comes back...

Comment 5 Lewis Smith 2020-08-06 21:04:05 CEST

Thank you for this further information - which enables another question:

When you see the blank screen instead of the login screen, are you able to do Ctl/Alt/F2-6 to get a console login? Try logging in/out as your normal user, then root.
If this works, we can then ask for certain log files. We will give you the exact commands to type.

Comment 6 Thomas Backlund 2020-08-07 08:12:28 CEST

(In reply to Ezequiel Partida from comment #0)

> 
> It seems something wrong with the ATI Mach video driver.
> 

Yes, its an old driver that no-one really maintains anymore.

> 
> $ MACH64(0): Unable to map linear aperture. Invalid argument
> 

You might get it to work by booting with:

iomem=relaxed

on kernel command line.


The other thing to try is to configure the system to use the vesa driver

Comment 7 Ezequiel Partida 2020-08-18 00:28:14 CEST

iomem=relaxed did the Job.

Thanks a lot.

Regards

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED

Comment 8 Lewis Smith 2020-08-19 21:34:49 CEST

A big thank-you to Thomas for the hint.
And thank you Ezequiel for confirming its effectiveness.