I'm getting these lines in /var/log/messages everytime I boot: <...> Feb 7 23:45:12 UFO Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1280x1024-24@75 <...> Feb 7 23:45:12 UFO mtrr: v2.0 (20020519) <...> Feb 7 23:45:12 UFO vesafb: unrecognized option mtrr Feb 7 23:45:12 UFO vesafb: NVidia Corporation, NV11 Board, Chip Rev B2 (OEM: NVidia) <...> As you can see, vesafb doesn't recognise mtrr option, but in the handbook's grub.conf example this option is mentioned, so I think there's something wrong. emerge --info Portage 2.1_pre4-r1 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.6-r2, 2.6.15-gentoo-r5 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.15-gentoo-r5 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.00GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre15 ccache version 2.4 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.17 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-Os -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-Os -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.dtiltas.lt/mirror/gentoo/ http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/" LC_ALL="lt_LT.utf8" LINGUAS="lt" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X a52 aac aalib acpi alsa apm artworkextra asf audiofile avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts browserplugin bzip2 cairo cdb cdparanoia cdr chroot crypt curl dbus dri dv dvd dvdread eds emboss encode exif expat fam fat ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif glut gnome gnutls gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal howl idn imagemagick imlib irssi java javascript jpeg lame lcms libg++ libwww live logrotate mad matroska mikmod mjpeg mmx mmxext mng motif mozilla mp3 mpeg mplayer nautilus ncurses network nls nptl nsplugin ntfs numeric nvidia offensive ogg oggvorbis openal opengl oss pam pdf pdflib perl pic png python quicktime readline real reiser4 reiserfs sdl shorten spell sqlite sse sse2 ssl symlink tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb vcd vidix vorbis win32codecs wxwindows xchat xine xml xml2 xv xvid zlib elibc_glibc input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse kernel_linux linguas_lt userland_GNU video_cards_nvidia" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, LANG, LDFLAGS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
The option isn't recognized because you're using an old and invalid format. What you probably want is 'video=vesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap,1280x1024-24@75' (you need to explicitly specify the type of the memory range, hence the '3'). Please consult Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt for more info about this.
Ok, then it's a problem with documentation, because in the handbooks vesafb-tng options are outdated. In the example grub.conf, there's an old and invalid format, as you said, vesafb-tng configuration. /doc/en/handbook $ grep mtrr * hb-install-amd64-bootloader.xml: <ti>mtrr</ti> hb-install-amd64-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or <c>video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>. hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml: <ti>mtrr</ti> hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or <c>video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>. hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml: <i>append="video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85"</i> Handbooks should be updated to use the new option's format. Reopening the bug.
(In reply to comment #2) > Ok, then it's a problem with documentation, because in the handbooks vesafb-tng > options are outdated. In the example grub.conf, there's an old and invalid > format, as you said, vesafb-tng configuration. > > /doc/en/handbook $ grep mtrr * > hb-install-amd64-bootloader.xml: <ti>mtrr</ti> > hb-install-amd64-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or > <c>video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>. > hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml: <ti>mtrr</ti> > hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or > <c>video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>. > hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml: > <i>append="video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85"</i> > > Handbooks should be updated to use the new option's format. > > Reopening the bug. > Actually, for vesafb-tng the video line as specified works for me: video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1024x768-24@60 However, this is for gentoo-sources 2.6.12-r9. I'm using vesafb-tng on x86.
Just FYI, the latest stable kernel(gentoo-sources) on x86 is 2.6.15-r1 and on amd64 it is 2.6.15-r5 (acording to packages.gentoo.org). IIRC, documentation is bsed on latest stable packages, so in this case it really should be updated, if the new vesafb mtrr option's format is introduced from 2.6.15 kernel. Can't verify this, as I don't have any runnig on <2.6.15 kernel pc's.
It's still not fixed: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#doc_chap1 You can just replace your information about mtrr in the handbook (mtrr Setup MTRR registers) with info from Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt: mtrr:n Setup memory type range registers for the vesafb framebuffer where n: 0 - disabled (equivalent to nomtrr) 1 - uncachable 2 - write-back 3 - write-combining 4 - write-through And replace mtrr with mtrr:3 in your example: The result of those two statements could be something like vga=0x318 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap or video=vesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap,1024x768-32@85. Remember (or write down) this setting; you will need it shortly. I think users using the latest (stable) kernel set this incorrectly and just don't look to dmesg messages and don't notice "vesafb: unrecognized option mtrr" message.
Okay, I've confirmed this problem exists for kernels >=2.6.14. And it's a very safe bet that most users are using a recent kernel. The problem will be that there is a fair number of users who have <=2.6.13, so their mtrr lines will have to be different. I guess the example could just mention something like "if you use a recent kernel, your config could like this: <blah>mtrr:3,<blah>" etc. I'll take this bug. Another grep for the boot config reveals that it's also in the AMD64 networkless handbook: /doc/en/handbook $ grep -R "mtrr," ./ ./hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or <c>video=vesafb:m trr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>. ./hb-install-x86-bootloader.xml: <i>append="video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32 @85"</i> ./2006.0/hb-install-amd64-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or <c>video =vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>. ./hb-install-amd64-bootloader.xml:video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap</c> or <c>video=vesafb :mtrr,ywrap,1024x768-32@85</c>.
Okay, all the current handbooks with this section have been updated; both networked and networkless AMD64 handbooks, as well as the networked x86 handbook. Many thanks to ext for carefully watching his dmesg and reporting this!
