Monday, December 5, 2011

Ubuntu Unity

I've been struggling with Ubuntu's Unity desktop since I upgraded a few months ago. I'm not having the same issues as it seems some others are with the radical redesign of the desktop. Instead, what I am facing is a very nice interface that is too unstable for me to keep.

I've heard that Unity has issues with dual monitor support, so I just assumed that it was too new or unstable to fit my needs. I went to change to the old classic Gnome backend and even tried the new Gnome 3.0 settings but I received the same crashy results. What has been driving me the most crazy is that I run VirtualBox for my Windows work and currently we are now in the middle of a major migration project. I'm spending too much time rebuilding Windows after my GPU card seems to freeze.

I found out that my graphics card is not fully supported under Ubuntu or at least not with a current kernel. http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware  I'm currently running with open source drivers but I'm going to attempt to build the fglrx modules to see if they will work on the new 3.0 kernel.

I wonder how many people are not liking Ubuntu's Unity because of it's dependence on hardware acceleration and the kernel upgrade to 3.0.

Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520030] radeon 0000:01:00.0: GPU lockup CP stall for more than 10004msec
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520035] ------------[ cut here ]------------
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520066] WARNING: at /build/buildd/linux-3.0.0/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_fence.c:267 radeon_fence_wait+0x3fb/0x430 [radeon]()
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520070] Hardware name: OptiPlex 745              
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520072] GPU lockup (waiting for 0x000787AA last fence id 0x000787A9)
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520075] Modules linked in: hidp bnep rfcomm pci_stub vboxpci vboxnetadp vboxnetflt vboxdrv binfmt_misc snd_hda_codec_analog snd_hda_intel snd_emu10k1x snd_hda_codec snd_ac97_codec snd_hwdep snd_pcm snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq uvcvideo videodev joydev snd_timer btusb bluetooth usbhid hid snd_seq_device v4l2_compat_ioctl32 radeon snd ppdev ttm drm_kms_helper soundcore drm ac97_bus snd_page_alloc emu10k1_gp psmouse serio_raw parport_pc gameport i2c_algo_bit dcdbas dm_multipath lp parport floppy tg3
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520123] Pid: 2468, comm: compiz Not tainted 3.0.0-13-generic #22-Ubuntu
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520126] Call Trace:
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520135]  [<ffffffff8105e8af>] warn_slowpath_common+0x7f/0xc0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520140]  [<ffffffff8105e9a6>] warn_slowpath_fmt+0x46/0x50
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520159]  [<ffffffffa015227b>] radeon_fence_wait+0x3fb/0x430 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520165]  [<ffffffff81153ffd>] ? kmem_cache_alloc_trace+0x11d/0x140
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520171]  [<ffffffff81081d40>] ? add_wait_queue+0x60/0x60
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520193]  [<ffffffffa016d630>] radeon_ib_get+0x110/0x1a0 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520216]  [<ffffffffa016efd8>] radeon_cs_ioctl+0x98/0x1e0 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520231]  [<ffffffffa00b4574>] drm_ioctl+0x3e4/0x4c0 [drm]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520254]  [<ffffffffa016ef40>] ? radeon_cs_finish_pages+0xe0/0xe0 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520259]  [<ffffffff8104c84e>] ? perf_event_task_sched_out+0x2e/0xa0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520265]  [<ffffffff810097ba>] ? __switch_to+0x1ea/0x310
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520269]  [<ffffffff8104e8fd>] ? set_next_entity+0x9d/0xb0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520273]  [<ffffffff8117959a>] do_vfs_ioctl+0x8a/0x340
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520279]  [<ffffffff815e7f04>] ? __schedule+0x3d4/0x700
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520283]  [<ffffffff8117a7fa>] ? poll_select_set_timeout+0x7a/0x90
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520287]  [<ffffffff811798e1>] sys_ioctl+0x91/0xa0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520292]  [<ffffffff815f27c2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520295] ---[ end trace c7810cd722715065 ]---
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.668081] radeon: wait for empty RBBM fifo failed ! Bad things might happen.
Dec  5 12:57:25 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.815837] Failed to wait GUI idle while programming pipes. Bad things might happen.
Dec  5 12:57:25 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.816938] radeon 0000:01:00.0: (rs600_asic_reset:342) RBBM_STATUS=0x9401C100
Dec  5 12:57:25 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8759.315026] radeon 0000:01:00.0: (rs600_asic_reset:361) RBBM_STATUS=0x9401C100