Salix Forums

My trusty old RV350 Radeon/Compaq monitor setup isn't liked by this new kernel mode-setting thing.. there's a ton of 'EDID checksum is invalid' messages flooding dmesg that cause pauses in input.
Debian 6.0 is actually the newest distro I've tried that doesn't spam dmesg (even though it should use modeset by default) and has good 2D/3D performance with the open drivers.
There's a user patch to stop polling the video ports after three unsuccessful tries, but is that the best option for now?
echo N > /sys/module/drm_kms_helper/parameters/poll seems to be hit and miss for me..

Does disabling mode setting works? On the lilo screen, hit the tab key and type "linux nomodeset"

Yes, radeon.modeset=0 (or nomodeset) works and eliminates the spam but instead makes 3D and composite flaky, really no good in KDE.. next time I'll just go with intel or nvidia
EDIT:
Or just go with E17 as window manager + KDE apps = no more lag and looks good

You can disable the 3D effects in KDE, too.

Yeah.. get a black corrupted screen with nomodeset and effects enabled in KDE and horrible performance with them disabled, but I'm guessing my single core pc is just not powerful enough to run a full KDE desktop - even with 2GB RAM So KDE apps + some fast window manager is just perfect for me.

I mean you can disable KDE's workspace effects to get a better performance without 3D acceleration. No need to use another window manager (but of course you can use e.g. openbox).