[natty beta-1] Screen flashes on and of every few seconds with nouveau driver

Bug #707755 is against the same computer with an earlier build of Natty 11.04, as of 2011-01-252011-01-25.

The date in #2 is 2011-01-25

Here is some information regarding the FreeBSD installation on the same machine, which works using the vesa driver:

[peter@compaq /etc/X11]$ uname -a
FreeBSD compaq.belew 8.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Feb 17 02:41:51 UTC 2011 <email address hidden>:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64

I've attached a tgz archive containing the xorg.conf file and /var/log/Xorg.0.log files from that system.

My next experiment will be to boot in text mode, add an xorg.conf file based on the one originally generated by the PC-BSD live CD, and see if that works with the vesa driver. The problem is clearly with the driver for the nVidia chipset, which is apparently essentially the same as in Fedora 14.

This is a Compaq Presario SR1000 system (System Number EX325-AA-ABA) (originally sold as "Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005")

From your logs it looks like the problem is that something is probing the VGA output repeatedly, and you're the lucky owner of some hardware that flickers when probed (it's not uncommon).

You could check this by adding “drm_kms_helper.poll=0” on the kernel command line; that should disable polling on the VGA (and, indeed, all other) output.

I've the same problem with Ubuntu 11.04 daily build (april 9) on my ATI (!) based system.

I will try “drm_kms_helper.poll=0” as a kernel boot parameter

I tried the “drm_kms_helper.poll=0” as a kernel boot parameter, but the screen still flashes.

sander@athlon64:~$ dmesg | grep helper

[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic-pae root=UUID=9adcf26d-4b8c-48e2-9f9f-528963628734 ro quiet splash drm_kms_helper.poll=0 vt.handoff=7

sander@athlon64:~$

Is there anything else I can do? There is no Additional Driver in use, nor offered.

FWIW: Xorg.0.go attached

I tried "classic desktop (no effects)" (at login) and the fglrx driver, but I still have flashes a few times per minute.

Is this going to be solved with the real Natty release, or is there a workaround, or should I just stay with Ubuntu 10.x (which shows no flashes)?

My problem was with the live CD (I have FreeBSD taking up the whole
disk drive, and don't want to install Ubuntu in this system). There
doesn't seem to be an easy way to choose the desktop, since the system
auto-logins to Gnome when it starts up, without showing a login screen
(unless there is a problem with that, which is another question).

With FreeBSD, and I believe Fedora 14, there is a way to choose the
vesa driver, which doesn't do this. Under Ubuntu, you would have to
boot into text mode, create an xorg.conf file which chooses THAT
driver, then startx.

On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:22 AM, Sander Jonkers
<email address hidden> wrote:
> I tried "classic desktop (no effects)" (at login) and the fglrx driver,
> but I still have flashes a few times per minute.
>
> Is this going to be solved with the real Natty release, or is there a
> workaround, or should I just stay with Ubuntu 10.x (which shows no
> flashes)?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/747069
>
> Title:
>  [natty beta-1] Screen flashes on and of every few seconds with nouveau
>  driver
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-nouveau/+bug/747069/+subscribe
>

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That's why you have a UNIX or Linux or BSD server for backups.

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UBUNTU 10.10 October 2010
  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynx

Hey peterbe,

You filed this bug report against natty, but I see it's still open and
doesn't appear to have much activity recently. So, now that oneiric
is released and stable, this may be a good point for you to upgrade
and re-test if this issue is still present there.

If it's solved in the new release and you think it's worth backporting
the fix, please indicate that. Or if having the fix in the new release
is good enough, feel free to close out the bug (or let us know and we'll
close it.)

If it's not solved, leave the bug report open. I can't promise we'll
get to it (we get way more bugs filed than we can usually get to), but
your testing and feedback can help out if and when we do.

This computer is now running 64-bit xubuntu 11.10:

Ubuntu version and kernel version
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=oneiric
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 11.10"
Linux compaq 3.0.0-12-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 7 14:56:25 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3800+
cpu MHz : 1000.000

lsmod shows that the nvidea driver is being used

I have an xorg.conf file to control the screen mode - a portion looks like

Section "Device"
        Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "Configured Monitor"
        Option "DPMS"
        HorizSync 28-51
        VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Default Screen"
        Monitor "Configured Monitor"
        DefaultDepth 24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth 1
                Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection

It was previously running 'natty' with the same xorg.conf file.

I'm not sure if I can just boot the live xubuntu 11.10 cd - I'll try that later.

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]