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nouveau causing screen smears/garble

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ramack
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nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#1 Post by ramack »

I noticed this on Sid before I downgraded this box to Testing. Now I am seeing the same in Testing as of yesterday after an update and dist-upgrade. Below is from apt-get dist-upgrade

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The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libexiv2-12
The following packages will be upgraded:
  exiv2 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 gnome-desktop3-data gthumb kbd
  libgail-3-0 libgnome-desktop-3-2 libgtk-3-0 libgtk-3-bin libgtk-3-common
  libgtkmm-3.0-1 libimlib2 libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0-0
  libjavascriptcoregtk-3.0-0 libnautilus-extension1a libphonon4 libqt4-dbus
  libqt4-declarative libqt4-designer libqt4-help libqt4-network libqt4-opengl
  libqt4-qt3support libqt4-script libqt4-scripttools libqt4-sql
  libqt4-sql-mysql libqt4-sql-sqlite libqt4-svg libqt4-test libqt4-webkit
  libqt4-xml libqt4-xmlpatterns libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libtag1-vanilla
  libtag1c2a libtagc0 libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common libwebkitgtk-1.0-0
  libwebkitgtk-1.0-common libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 libwebkitgtk-3.0-common
  linux-headers-3.2.0-2-amd64 linux-headers-3.2.0-2-common
  linux-image-3.2.0-2-amd64 linux-libc-dev linux-source-3.2 nautilus
  nautilus-data phonon qdbus tzdata tzdata-java ufraw-batch
57 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 22.4 MB/169 MB of archives.
After this operation, 10.7 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 
Intially thinking it was related to the new kernel, I rebooted using the previous 3.2.0-1 and which produces the same effect. So far it looks like it mainly effects tabs, buttons and webpages in Iceweasel. It has sometimes effected Midori.

An example of the smearing :
Image

lspci output for the video card
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G98 [GeForce 8400 GS] (rev a1)
homemade AMD64, Acer AspireOne 150, Asus eeePC 900, i386; Testing
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XFCE on all.

xendistar
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Joined: 2010-12-29 17:52

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#2 Post by xendistar »

I saw this a couple of days ago while running the nouveau drivers but the reason I was running that driver was a failed nvidia driver install. Once I sorted the nvidia drivers and started running nvidia drivers the problem was gone.

Moving the mouse over them sometimes changed it back to normal text but then would also change normal text else where on the screen to the smudge look. I am also running testing

Jerome
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#3 Post by Jerome »

Same here with an up-to-date wheezy using nouveau.

It affects text, even text in images, such as the text on the diagram on this page :
https://linuxfr.org/news/sortie-de-pulseaudio-2-0

In iceweasel, scrolling the page up and down to force the refresh sometimes gets the text back.

lspci
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G92 [GeForce 9800 GT] (rev a2)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G92 [GeForce 9800 GT] (rev a2)

FWIW, I'm using libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental

cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#4 Post by cynwulf »

http://www.debianuserforums.org/viewtop ... =10&t=1722

Not seeing this problem at all for quite some time, running unstable with nouveau all up to date, etc.

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$ apt-cache policy libcairo2
libcairo2:
  Installed: 1.12.2-1
  Candidate: 1.12.2-1
  Version table:
 *** 1.12.2-1 0
        500 http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/debian/ unstable/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
xorg [correction: the xserver version] in unstable was updated to 1.12 a few weeks ago...? After which libcairo2 was installable without the artifacts appearing.
Last edited by cynwulf on 2012-05-13 18:36, edited 1 time in total.

Jerome
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#5 Post by Jerome »

Thanks.

Downgrading fixes the issue (but some dependencies are broken) :

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dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/libcairo2_1.10.2-7_amd64.deb
I'm wondering how this problem went down to testing while it had been spotted in sid in march.

Regarding Xorg, the version in sid (1:7.6+13) should be in testing (1:7.6+12) pretty soon.

cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#6 Post by cynwulf »

I meant xserver 1.12 not the "xorg". This one had to go through to testing, installing xorg from unstable should also resolve it...

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ramack
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#7 Post by ramack »

cynwulf wrote:Not seeing this problem at all for quite some time, running unstable with nouveau all up to date, etc..
This was the main reason I downgraded from Sid to Testing. Nouveau was smearing and Nvidia driver was laggy. Nouveau on my Testing box was fine until a couple days ago. The nv driver has been dropped from the Unstable and Testing repos and I've tried to get the vesa driver working without sucess. Have either of you tried the vesa drivers?
homemade AMD64, Acer AspireOne 150, Asus eeePC 900, i386; Testing
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BlueSloth
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#8 Post by BlueSloth »

cynwulf wrote:xorg [correction: the xserver version] in unstable was updated to 1.12 a few weeks ago...? After which libcairo2 was installable without the artifacts appearing.
You mention fglrx in that other thread, so I assume you have a radeon card. It works for you because xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.4-2 has a workaround for this problem. The other drivers don't.
Jerome wrote:I'm wondering how this problem went down to testing while it had been spotted in sid in march.
It's not a cairo bug, it's an old Xorg bug that the new cairo is triggering.

Jerome
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#9 Post by Jerome »

Ah. Then it would have meant blocking cairo until Xorg fixes itself.
BlueSloth wrote:You mention fglrx in that other thread, so I assume you have a radeon card. It works for you because xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.4-2 has a workaround for this problem. The other drivers don't.
Are you saying the xserver that is coming soon to testing won't fix the issue for people using a not-ATI card ?

I thought it was said to fix the display problem bug.

It might be my lack of knowledge of debian policy, but I don't see why the cairo release was not delayed for a week until xserver was updated (assuming the new version fixes the bug).

Or perhaps we're not talking about the same issue. I saw smearing, but no lagging.

cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#10 Post by cynwulf »

BlueSloth wrote:
cynwulf wrote:xorg [correction: the xserver version] in unstable was updated to 1.12 a few weeks ago...? After which libcairo2 was installable without the artifacts appearing.
You mention fglrx in that other thread, so I assume you have a radeon card.
I have a 7300GT and using Debian Sid with nouveau - everything up to date - the issue isn't there. YMMV
BlueSloth wrote:It's not a cairo bug, it's an old Xorg bug that the new cairo is triggering.
Precisely.
Jerome wrote:Ah. Then it would have meant blocking cairo until Xorg fixes itself.
As I've said several times in this thread and the other one.
Jerome wrote:Are you saying the xserver that is coming soon to testing won't fix the issue for people using a not-ATI card ?
I also have another system with an HD 3650 running Debian Sid with radeon - everything up to date, not having this issue since xserver 1.12 arrived...
Jerome wrote:It might be my lack of knowledge of debian policy, but I don't see why the cairo release was not delayed for a week until xserver was updated (assuming the new version fixes the bug).
That's not how the unstable/testing branches work. If it's an issue then stable + backports is the way to go.

BlueSloth
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#11 Post by BlueSloth »

Jerome wrote:Are you saying the xserver that is coming soon to testing won't fix the issue for people using a not-ATI card ?
Apparently it fixed it for cynwulf, but that must have been a fluke. The comments in Xorg bug 47226 seem to indicate that nobody knows how to fix the problem, and every driver using EXA should be affected, except the radeon one which has a workaround now.

cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#12 Post by cynwulf »

Downgrade libcairo to 1.10 and the bug should vanish...

http://snapshot.debian.org/package/cairo/

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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#13 Post by ramack »

cynwulf wrote:Downgrade libcairo to 1.10 and the bug should vanish...

http://snapshot.debian.org/package/cairo/
Jerome & Cynwulf, the downgrade worked for me! Thanks for the suggestion. I looked in my dist-upgrade log that I keep and on 20120519, libcairo2 was upgraded.

So I

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$ cd /var/cache/apt/archives
$ sudo dpkg -i libcairo2_1.10.2-7_amd64.deb
I logged out of the X session, logged back in and I haven't seen the smearing yet.

Rich
Last edited by ramack on 2012-05-15 14:58, edited 1 time in total.
homemade AMD64, Acer AspireOne 150, Asus eeePC 900, i386; Testing
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Jerome
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#14 Post by Jerome »

Dowgrading does it. Now, questions are how long will we be keeping the old libcairo, and will this break something else before the EXA bug is solved and libcairo is upgradable ?
ramack wrote:I logged out of the X session, logged back in and I haven't seen the smearing yet.
FWIW, even relaunching concerned software is enough. (You may want to log in/out to relaunch everything, but for the sake of the test, just the app is enough.)

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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#15 Post by ramack »

So far the only issue is:

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$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade 
[sudo] password for ramack: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 banshee : Depends: libcairo2 (>= 1.12.0) but 1.10.2-7 is installed
 libgtk2.0-cil : Depends: libcairo2 (>= 1.12.0) but 1.10.2-7 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.
Banshee opens and plays ok though. I'm guessing that I should I pin the libcairo2?
homemade AMD64, Acer AspireOne 150, Asus eeePC 900, i386; Testing
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cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#16 Post by cynwulf »

Jerome wrote:Dowgrading does it. Now, questions are how long will we be keeping the old libcairo, and will this break something else before the EXA bug is solved and libcairo is upgradable ?
When you're running the testing or unstable distributions - this happens. Put libcairo2 on hold and when xserver 1.12 arrives in testing you can try upgrading again... no one can tell you how long it will take - it depends on the state of the xorg packages in unstable.

http://www.debian.org/devel/testing

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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#17 Post by ramack »

Putting the package on hold is done by pinning it?
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cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#18 Post by cynwulf »

If you use aptitude it's easy enough:

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# aptitude hold libcairo2
unhold should be self explanatory...

Remember that apt-get will not respect hold's made by aptitude...

I don't use apt-get much these days, but I believe it still works in the same way as ever, e.g:

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# echo "libcairo2 hold" | dpkg --set-selections
And to unhold:

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# echo "libcairo2 install" | dpkg --set-selections

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ramack
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Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#19 Post by ramack »

I use apt-get. Thanks, better and easier than pinning. I haven't pinning packages but only a couple times, and that was pinning to Testing or Stable in Sid. Can you pin package versions? Holding looks more appropriate in this case.

Rich
homemade AMD64, Acer AspireOne 150, Asus eeePC 900, i386; Testing
i386,Dell Vostro 1000 AMD64, Dell Inspiron 1100; Sid
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cynwulf

Re: nouveau causing screen smears/garble

#20 Post by cynwulf »

Yes you can apply pinning in /etc/apt/preferences, but this method is easier and cleaner IMO.

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