[LUGSB] good/stable video for linux?

Thu May 5 10:03:36 EDT 2005

Can you recommend a good, well-supported AGP, digital video card that's for
Linux (FC3/RHEL4, 2.6 kernel, xorg-x11-6.8.x)?  I'd like something with at
least 128MB ram but preferably 256MB.  I don't need "gamers" features but
don't mind if I have to get extra stuff just so I can have a STABLE machine.

I've used the Matrox MGA G550 before, and had DPMS problems with it (won't
turn off my monitor).  This seems to have been a hardware problem on the
card that some people knew about.

Now I'm using the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 card, but the driver I have to get
from nvidia directly and build it (the default 'nv' driver on linux is
rather poor and won't do more than 800x600).

Alas, the nvidia driver I download definitely has races and is NOT safe
under SMP: I can hard-lock my system within minutes when I run an SMP
kernel.  Also, the nvidia driver interacts poorly with VMware (4.x, 5.0
beta, and 5.0 official): there seems to be some unsafe/unprotected code in
the nvidia driver which is tickled by vmware (see oops trace below).  If run
vmware, the nvidia driver will tickle this bug within hours; if I don't run
vmware, the nvidia driver will take a couple of days before it shows a
problem.  I've been struggling with this for months now, and have submitted
bug reports to both vmware and nvidia (with no results).

I'm pretty convinced at this point that the bug is with the nvidia driver
(see oops trace below), so I'm looking to get a different one.  So I don't
want an nvidia card.  I've heard that Dell uses Intel's video cards so
presumably those should be good (dell does thorough testing of their PC
offering running Linux).

Thanks,
Erez.

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Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 4092da40
 printing eip:
f8e253ff
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
Modules linked in: nls_utf8 vmnet(U) vmmon(U) nvidia(U) rivafb vgastate pcspkr md5 ipv6 parport_pc lp parport i2c_dev i2c_core dm_mod button battery ac uhci_hcd ehci_hcd hw_random snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm snd_timer snd_page_alloc snd_mpu401_uart snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd soundcore e1000 floppy ext3 jbd raid5 xor ata_piix libata aic7xxx sd_mod scsi_mod
CPU:    0
EIP:    0060:[<f8e253ff>]    Tainted: P      VLI
EFLAGS: 00013213   (2.6.9-5.0.5.EL) 
EIP is at Vmx86COWPageRef+0x13/0x21 [vmmon]
eax: 0002f8a4   ebx: 00000001   ecx: f3a7b780   edx: 533ac8ac
esi: 00000000   edi: f3a7b780   ebp: 00000e49   esp: dc99cb20
ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Process vmware-vmx (pid: 13394, threadinfo=dc99c000 task=dee86680)
Stack: f8e2564c 0000c6b7 ffffffff e33a8080 d6994d00 e383bf80 d7f2b580 df625300 
       f551f480 bfffea40 f8e21ad9 e3cc0000 e33a8080 00000000 e3cc0000 bfffea40 
       f8e26a2f 000007df f5230480 00000000 000007df bfffea40 f8e20029 c2e33500 
Call Trace:
 [<f8e2564c>] Vmx86COWStats+0x36/0x127 [vmmon]
 [<f8e21ad9>] HostIF_VMLock+0x1a/0x26 [vmmon]
 [<f8e26a2f>] Vmx86_GetMemInfoCopy+0xc8/0x159 [vmmon]
 [<f8e20029>] LinuxDriver_Ioctl+0x440/0x8b2 [vmmon]
 [<c024a165>] cfq_set_request+0x33/0x6b
 [<c0240919>] elv_set_request+0xa/0x17
 [<c0242506>] get_request+0x395/0x39f
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9450f14>] _nv004321rm+0x18/0x48 [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9323916>] _nv001783rm+0x26/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9323916>] _nv001783rm+0x26/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9450f14>] _nv004321rm+0x18/0x48 [nvidia]
 [<f9450668>] _nv004169rm+0x88/0x94 [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9323916>] _nv001783rm+0x26/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9323916>] _nv001783rm+0x26/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9450f14>] _nv004321rm+0x18/0x48 [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9323916>] _nv001783rm+0x26/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f932390d>] _nv001783rm+0x1d/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<f9323916>] _nv001783rm+0x26/0x2c [nvidia]
 [<c01bd610>] avc_node_populate+0x23/0x25
 [<c01bd37c>] avc_node_replace+0x28/0x30
 [<c01bead5>] avc_has_perm_noaudit+0x8d/0xda
 [<c01beb5d>] avc_has_perm+0x3b/0x45
 [<c01beb5d>] avc_has_perm+0x3b/0x45
 [<c01c00b3>] inode_has_perm+0x4c/0x54
 [<c01bd610>] avc_node_populate+0x23/0x25
 [<c01bd37c>] avc_node_replace+0x28/0x30
 [<c01bead5>] avc_has_perm_noaudit+0x8d/0xda
 [<c01c2456>] selinux_file_ioctl+0x296/0x2a2
 [<c01beb5d>] avc_has_perm+0x3b/0x45
 [<c01c00b3>] inode_has_perm+0x4c/0x54
 [<c011ba34>] __wake_up_common+0x36/0x51
 [<c0180c99>] inode_update_time+0x95/0x9d
 [<c01704c3>] pipe_writev+0x314/0x320
 [<c01704eb>] pipe_write+0x1c/0x20
 [<c01760ad>] sys_ioctl+0x297/0x336
 [<c0162649>] sys_write+0x5a/0x62
 [<c0301d43>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
 [<c030007b>] interruptible_sleep_on+0x101/0x1d0
Code: ff ff ff c7 05 e4 82 e3 f8 00 00 00 00 c7 05 e0 82 e3 f8 ff ff ff ff c3 89 c1 31 c0 85 c9 74 18 8b 15 e0 82 e3 f8 83 fa ff 74 0d <03> 44 91 10 8b 14 95 80 82 e3 f8 eb ee c3 55 89 d5 57 89 c7 31 
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