#80 Screen gets turned off until reboot (DGA+ATI only?)

[Samuel Lidén Borell]

When I try to start all-demo (or any other program/game
that uses Allegro) my screen gets turned off. It stays
turned off even if I switch to another VT, change
resolution in Xorg or whatever (but the computer still
responds). The only thing that helps is a reboot.

This happens on Ubuntu 5.04 on a computer with a ATI
Radeon 9500 Pro graphics card. The fglrx driver is
installed and both 2D and 3D acceleration works flawlessly.

I have encountered exactly the same problem two other
computers (one with an ATI X300 card, and the other
with an ATI 3D Turbo something), but I don't know if
the game I tried to start then was using Allegro.

If i rename the "alleg-dga2.so" file then everything
works fine.

I'm using:
Ubuntu Linux 5.04
X Window System Version 6.8.2 (Ubuntu 6.8.2-10
20050405154308 root@terranova.warthogs.hbd.com)
Allegro 4.1.15-5

[Elias Pschernig]

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"Allegro 4.1.15-5"

That is a severely outdated version (over a year, and 7 or 8
upstream releases in the meantime). Please file a bug report
to ubuntu about the Allegro package and ask them to keep
their packages of Allegro somewhat up to date at least.

Can you try Allegro 4.2.0, and see if you get the same
problem? We should maybe make the DGA driver never get
auto-detected, even if you run as root.

[Samuel Lidén Borell]

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I tried 4.2.0 and it turns off my screen too.

We should maybe make the DGA driver never get
auto-detected, even if you run as root.
I didn't run it as root. I have tested this both with an
user in the video group and another who's not in the video
group.

[Elias Pschernig]

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Well, the easy fix in your case is to use ./configure
--disable-xwin-dga2 then. And make sure you de-install the
dgl module first (make uninstall or make uninstall-shared
should do).

Since DGA is deprecated according to x.org
(http://x.org/X11R6.8.2/doc/XDGA.3.html), I assume, some
drivers are simply broken. Do you have any other DGA
application you could try?

I can't get DGA to work here at all, so for the final 4.2.0
the best thing probably is to simply change the driver to
never get auto-detected. And don't forget to file a bug
report about the outdated Ubuntu package :)

Attached is a patch to disable auto-detection of the DGA driver

[Elias Pschernig]

Don't autodetect DGA

[Samuel Lidén Borell]

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I ran the "dga" program. It didn't turn off the screen but
it flashed white instead of filling the screen with
different colors as it is supposed to do. And it started
sending keystrokes to the active window like crazy...

And don't forget to file a bug
report about the outdated Ubuntu package :)
I've already submitted a bug report to Ubuntu ;)

Attached is a patch to disable auto-detection of the DGA
driver
It works.

[Elias Pschernig]

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applied it