Nouveau doesn't play nice with vanilla kernels

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2009-10-27 at 12:10 -0400, Jim wrote:
> On 10/27/2009 10:29 AM, Aioanei Rares wrote:
> > On 10/27/2009 04:23 PM, Jim wrote:
> >> On 10/27/2009 09:57 AM, Aioanei Rares wrote:
> >>> As the title says, if I boot a git kernel (Linus' tree), plymouth 
> >>> doesn't work, nor does X start. I have to change the graphics driver 
> >>> to nv in xorg.conf and restart in order to  get  the git kernel 
> >>> working with X, but then the Fedora kernels won't start X with the 
> >>> nv  driver.  Anyone else  having these problems?
> >>>
> >> Yes, If you updated the new kernel-2.6.31.5-96 yesterday get rid of 
> >> it and bootup
> >> in old kernel.
> >> I had the same problem.
> >>
> > Thanks, but then the first issue remains : why can't nouveau start X 
> > with vanilla kernels?
> >
> I use a nvidia 8200 card and it won't detect nouveau either.
> I installed system-config-display and went into change driver , my card 
> is detected with a Vesa driver.
> I selected nouveau and restarted   X  but it will only accept a higher 
> resolution and would not allow me to keep my settings at 1024x768.

Most modern drivers use a different method for specifying resolutions.
This was introduced with RandR 1.2. s-c-d has never been updated to use
this.

You can use gnome-display-properties to change the resolution inside
GNOME (and configure multiple displays, and a few other things) and any
changes you made are saved via gconf, so they will be applied each time
that user logs in. If you want to set them system-wide so they apply to
all users and desktops and login managers, you'll have to edit xorg.conf
manually according to this guide:

http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12

s-c-d is pretty obsolescent these days, it probably needs to be revised
or shot in the head soon.

-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net