Well after 15 hours working on Kororaa on Sunday I didn't get anywhere. As per people's suggestions, I updated to xorg-server 1.0.99 and latest x11-drm, xf86-video-ati/i810, etc. Since then, none of the dri worked with normal X (get artifacts on the screen, both intel and ati), fglrx segfaulted the kernel still, but nvidia worked.

Being at the end of my tether I decided to forgo all dri goodliness and stick with nvidia and ati fglrx. I proceeded to downgrade back to sane versions of xorg-server etc and start again. After doing so, radeon DRI worked with X (but not Xgl), fglrx froze startx, and nvidia startx crashed complaining about "cannot allocate DMA memory". This was all on 3 different machines with 4 different video cards.

So ladies and gentlemen, I think it is time that I reverted to an earlier snapshot and stick to the basics. Had I not made some 50 odd other improvements to the livecd I would throw it all away. Hopefully I can get that up and running. If not, you might find me on the 6 o'clock news.

I can say with certainty that this is the single most frustrating and troublesome experience I have ever had with Linux. Ever. Did I say EVER?

-c

Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

After an email or two with my friends at ATI, they informed me that the kernel segfault was due to X crashing at which point the kernel tries to unload the fglrx module which causes the segfault.

So I was being thrown off the track! :o

With this in mind I thought it must be something to do with libglx.so, so I re-compiled this and the problem went away!

So I now have full 3D with fglrx and radeon dri. Now it just remains to have it working properly with Xgl. I can start Xgl manually, but when I try and use GDM it freezes. I have a feeling this might be something to do with the X300 card but this will require more testing.

So, it's another lovely Sunday morning and it's time I was off to the office for another day of Linux work :)

I'll update again this afternoon!

-c

Welcome once again to le update de les miserables.

The new CD appears to be ready to go except for ONE thing.. X under the fglrx driver is segfaulting when 3D is run. X loads just fine, but as soon as I run "glxinfo" or "glxgears" or "fglrxinfo" etc X dies and I get a kernel crash (and don't even think about Xgl yet).

I have uploaded a screenshot from my phone here. Sorry about the poor quality.

If anyone has some ideas, please let me know. I've tried without acpi, apic etc.. perhaps it has something to do with spin lock? But I'm not sure what that's all about.

Nvidia and radeon dri are working just fine. If only I can get this working! ;)

Cheers,
Chris

Your update today comes live from the comfort of my computer chair. How nice for me.
Now, I have been able to get Xgl working on nvidia again, with both Gnome and KDE currently appearing to behave themselves.. *phew*

Next task will be to package it all back on to a CD and ensure it works smoothly on nvidia hardware. After that I'll begin testing on other video cards, including radeon dri. There will no doubt be a few wobbly's thrown in (pardon the Xgl pun) so I can't promise anything yet.

Stay tuned!

-c

Well, after spending over 5 hours online with CoffeeBuzz (author of the xgl-coffee ebuilds) we can't get Xgl to work properly and we are both out of ideas.

He seems to think there is no way to get Xgl working on all three cards, nvidia/intel/ati, so I'm not sure what's going to happen yet.

I think the only thing left to do is go back to version 0.1 and update again from there, using only emerge -uDav world or something..
I might start that tomorrow.. *sigh*.. And the installer is there just waiting! ;)

-c