[LUGSB] good/stable video for linux?

Thu May 5 12:03:52 EDT 2005

I've got ATI Radeon cards on both my laptop and desktop and they work
pretty will with the open source drivers, including features like
multiple displays, xv and 2D acceleration.  3D acceleration works on all
but the latest cards, but is less than stellar.

Vinay

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 10:03 -0400, Erez Zadok wrote:
> 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.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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