Bug 8853 – Xserver for matrox G450 seems flakey

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Russell Sutherland 2002-10-07 10:00:34 UTC]

I've installed the mga driver in my /etc/X11/XF86Setup file.
My card is a G450.
There is an error message re. mga_hal module not found.

The server operates at 1600x1200 at 16 bits, but leaves colour/window trails
often, when windows are dragged from place to place.

I've not seem this behaviour with the other XFree86 servers I've used
(i.e. OpenBSD and Debian Linux)

Thanks in advance.

[Comment 1 Martin Schlemmer (RETIRED) 2002-10-12 14:57:07 UTC]

Have you tried 4.2.1 yet ?

[Comment 2 Karl Steddom 2003-04-18 12:05:31 UTC]

The Matrox HAL library is a proprietary binary library to enable DualHead on the G400 
and G200, TV out, and digital flat panel support. Information and the license can be 
found at http://www.matrox.com/mga. The files can be downloaded at 
ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/archive/linux/2001/beta_1_3_0/. According to the readme 
found at the above FTP site, the DualHead support is now opensource for the G450 in 
this driver, but not the G200 and G400, they still require the binary library. The G450 
can use the HAL module if it is present and if support was compiled in. This may 
improve your stability. 
 
As far as I can tell the latest versions of xfree (4.2.1 and 4.3.0 in the current portage 
tree) still use this beta driver releasaed in May of 2001. 
 
I have a G400 that I use in dual head mode. To enable this I needed to compile xfree 
with the HAL module. I tried to use the prebuilt module available at the above ftp site and 
while it worked, it was very flakey. To use the HAL module, the only way I found was to 
include the mgaHALlib.a in the build. 
 
Download the driver.tgz to your distfile directory.  You will need to edit the file 
/usr/portage/x11-base/xfree/files/xfree-4.2.1-r2/site.def and change the line #define 
UseMatroxHal  NO to read #define HaveMatroxHal  YES. Then add the following to 
your xfree-4.2.1-r2.ebuild file in the area where you find hunks commented as  #Update 
Savage driver, #Update SIS Driver, and #Update WacomDriver: 
 
#Add Matrox HAL library to mga driver 
ebegin "Adding Matrox HAL library to mga driver" 
cd ${S}/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree/drivers 
tar -xzf ${DISTDIR}/mga-1_3_0beta.tgz mga/HALlib/mgaHALlib.a || die 
eend 0 
 
Note: this only extracts the binary HAL library just in case someone has patched the 
driver elsewhere. The support for the HAL library will be built into your driver and the 
library will be compiled as a .o file and installed along with the rest of xfree. 
 
This fixes my bug for dualhead support for the G400 and G200 and I have tested this 
on xfree-4.2.1-r2 and xfree-4.3.0-r1. 

[Comment 3 Michael Fitzpatrick 2003-04-24 10:51:33 UTC]

Russell, did any of the advise (or a later version of xfree) sort this out?

[Comment 4 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) 2003-10-07 13:29:47 UTC]

So, Russell?

[Comment 5 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) 2003-11-13 20:55:53 UTC]

Closing due to lack of response.