Bug Day 9 : Dec 10, 2003 : No more running with scissors, let's play in a safe mode.

[Jef Spaleta]

Bug Day Theme:
Vesa Driver Testing for use as an Xfree 'safe mode' option.

Mike Harris has asked for testing of the Vesa video driver, which
could be used for a "safe mode" in Fedora.  The problem is that many
BIOS's Vesa modes are broken, so he needs a good blacklist of broken
situations with the Vesa driver.

Testing a card for use with the Vesa driver involves reconfiguring the
X config(this will most likely have to be done by hand editting the
config file, i don't know if r-c-xfree86 can be used for this, I'm sure
someone will tell me if it can) to use the vesa driver (man vesa) and
then reviewing the X log output to determine which graphics modes the
Vesa driver supports for the video hardware. 

Each supported video mode listed in the X log should be tested to see
if there is an obvious failure/problem. A simple start of the X
server, and fire up an app or two with no on screen corruption or
crash is a good enough quick test. Then, for any failures we need a
bug report, with config file, log file, full details, and lspci -vvn

Filing a Bug:
*Please also use this Summary string when filing a bug
    Vesa Driver Testing Failure for [video card name]

*give as much detail as you can in the description. If multiple modes
 have problems, please detail all of them here.

*attach the output of the lspci -vvn command

*attach for each problematic mode:
X config file
X log file

*When filing a bug please set the tracking bug I have created as a
blocker for the bug you file.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=111786
That way all relevant bug reports will show up in the dependency list
for this tracking bug report. Setting the tracker (111786) as a blocker
will help make sure your bug report on this testing issue is not lost in
the vast sea of bug reports. 

Files of note:
/etc/X11/XF86Config   config file
/var/log/XFree86.0.log   log file

Other things to note:
There is a lot of room here for someone to better define the exact steps
that are needed to do the vesa driver testing to make it easier for more
users to run this test.  I would appreciate any good faith effort to
make it easier to have people participate in this safe mode testing.
A couple of suggestions already thrown my way:

1) an easy to follow step by step guide to reconfiguring the X setup
to run the vesa driver tests. If someone wants to take a crack at this
you can use the http://www.fedora.us/wiki/VesaDriverTesting wikipage to
write up a useful, detailed guideline. Or email me a draft and i'll
place it in a revered location in the triage wiki area.

2) script tools to automate the testing process. I really don't have an
idea about how reasonable it is to automate. But if there is a clever
way to script it to get more people to run the vesa tests... i'm all for
it.

-jef"ow! my eye! my doctor says i'm not supposed to get jigs in it"spaleta

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