CRUX PPC

I'm trying to setup a custom 3.2.1 kernel.
Everything is working fine, I could even log in and start X and use the system as usual.
I'm using as a default video card a PCI-e radeon HD4550 and the problem I'm facing is that after U-Boot load the kernel the screen doesn't show any console. By using a serial cable I could check that the system is indeed working just fine but I've got no video output neither on the radeon nor on the soldered SM502.

I've tried compiling a kernel without support for the SM502 and leaving only the console radeon fb.
I've tried switching off "map the console to the primary display device" but nothing happens.
I've tried activating the DRM/KMS of the radeon but the system just freeze.

I saw that you are planning to fix such bug for release 2.8
from http://cruxppc.org/ToDo2-8:
"sam460ex: it doesn't create other fb devices (e.g. for a pcie addon video card)"

Is there any news on the subject?
This is a *very* important bug which make useless any work I'm doing as anyone using the Sam460ex does use a Radeon.

The Sam460ex isn't included in the Linux kernel but it simply uses the already existing Canyonlands support however the Sam460ex is slightly different from the standard AppliedMicro Canyonlands devel board. This means that there isn't a maintainer i.e. nobody cares if some commits cause a brackage on Sam460ex if the Canyonlands still works fine.

Complain about the vendor and ask to provide a Linux port. That's how normally the things go on but as I guess it's not their target market.

Btw linuxppc developers, thankfully, are smart enough to accept my bugreports and a fix for RTC[1] was already added to the 3.1-stable tree instead the other one for SM501[2] is frozen waiting for a better solution:
[1] http:/ /www.spinics.net/lists/stable-commits/msg14969.html
[2] http:/ /patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/128880/
I also submitted the bugreports to Acube... and the following patches too.



This is a further and different problem.. it's 'cause you don't have a console using any pcie video cards.

@acrux

Thanks a lot for any effort you might carry out on the subject.

I'm sadly aware of the lack of Linux support by the vendor, but as you might imagine, it is a very small company producing an hardware that keeps alive a *very* small user base, the so called "amigans", an ancient race of nerds.

At last we removed any regression. And i'll try to do something more in the next future.



i can understand, i was from the dark side... a Sinclair UK addict [ZX81,Spectrum,Spectrum+128K,QL].

Just to clarify my words...
there aren't available new Power Architecture based machines (that aim to be a desktop/workstation) equipped with a PCI-E except from the Sam460ex. And looking to old times the only three with a pcie videocard are the iMac G5 "iSight" (with ATI gpu and specific Apple firmware), the Power Mac Quad G5 (with Nvidia gpu and specific Apple firmware) and the YDL Powerstation. Well, there are also POWER6/POWER7 servers that can be only equipped with a GXT145 PCI-E (with Matrox gpu and specific IBM firmware). Moreover, YDL Powerstation and Acube Sam460ex are the only ones able to use radeon pciexpress videocards without specific firmwares.

Modern PCI-E videocards are not recognized by the old linux framebuffer subsystem and they solely can be managed by the new KMS frame buffer that doesn't work properly on Power Architecture. Anyway, Apple's G5 and YDL Powerstation can fallback to use the old OpenFirmware frame buffer.

Because the userbase is non-existent, the dri-developers don't have these "rare" machines and definitely are not interested to work on. Thus they need to be encouraged and supported from vendors... Along they seldom receive bug reports for these kind of issues on ppc/ppc64.

Well, at least I exists... I hope...

A probable solution for Sam460ex users can be to boot directly into a graphical environment, skipping tout court the text console prompt.
I know, I know, that's basics stuff, but as I never did that I have to study the basics...

Is there any shortcut in Crux on how to do that?

you can find more infos reading this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=384