F19 live hangs

[Al Dunsmuir]

On Saturday, July 6, 2013, 12:08:44 PM, Paul Allen wrote:
> walksalot wrote
>> Booting the 64-bit F19 live DVD on my system results in many minutes of a
>> rattling optical drive, and then a uniform grey screen with a row of about
>> 16 PC block graphics characters in the upper left.  The system is, umm,
>> utterly non-responsive at this point.  Have to power cycle.
>> 
>> My system is a fairly normal Core 2 Duo.  It's getting a bit old, but runs
>> F17 and F18 fine.  I survived the F18 new installer debacle OK, but this
>> is a bit rough.  Anybody seen this?

> Same thing happens with the full x86_64 install DVD.  Both images match
> their respective checksums and both are mountable under F17.

> Now, I've been a Unix admin since the SunOS 2.x days.  I was peripherally
> involved in the porting of Minix to 32-bit mode before Linux ever existed.
> I've been running Linux since around the 0.9.5 kernel.  With all that
> experience, I know it's possible that I'm doing something stupid.  I just
> don't see it.

> Does anybody have a clue as to what might be going on?

> Paul Allen

Paul,

It  looks  like  the  llvm softpipe 3D emulation is being run where in
previous   releases  a real hardward-based  driver  was  being  used.

The F19 llvmpipe seems to having severe issues.  See
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=946964 and
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=955779 for details.

For  me, it was good enough for Live Gnome 3, but died horribly trying
to set up the initial user id or log on after an actual install.

My Dell D810 (1920x1200, Radion X600) was fully functional with Gnome 3
using  R300g  at  F17 GA... then forced to fallback mode (gone in F19)
for a few months  while  regressions  broke  R300g  3D,  and  later back
to full support with later (and current F17) service.  I'd opened
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=869054 to track this.

F18  never  worked  and  F19  versions also seems broken.  Apparently
things got bad enough that the R300g was blacklisted, and the software
3D emulation (llvmpipe) used instead. That driver apparently has in
developed issues of its own.

Others using the Radeon  cards  supported  by  R300g  are (X1100, X1200)
have reported experiencing the same issues with F19.

F19 XFCE works with native support but I found it a tad too simplistic.
I tried installing KDE, but the F19  R300g  3D  issues apparently are
bad enough that part way through the  KDE  desktop  started  displaying
vertical  stripes and repeated miniature  destops  and  simply  died.
F19 Make installed fine, and works well.

There  apparently  is  one  developer  (Merek - sp?) who is doing some
R300g  and  R600g  development  on older cards.  Once I get some spare
time  (jwork  and  real  life  are a tad busy this month), I intend to
contact  him and see what I can do to help the process of fixing R300g
along.

Al