Gentoo oInspiron 600m KDE, ATI, Kmilo, and ACPI help needed.

[nevinsb]

Gentoo on Inspiron 600m KDE, ATI, Kmilo, and ACPI help needed. I screwed everything up!

I used to use Redhat Linux, but ever since FC2, FC3, and FC4 came out, I have gave up on Redhat, so I do have some experience. I went to Gentoo hoping to learn more about linux, and because Fedora became so screwed up.

I had to re-install because of that persistent volume bug mentioned below, but now I broke a lot of stuff, and not sure what to do. I had Gentoo working perfectly before, so this is very frusterating.

I just re-installed Gentoo 2005.1 on a Dell inspiron 600m. 1.6 ghz, 80gb HD, 512 mb ram, Dual Layer Nec 6500+ DVD, 14.1" 1400X1200 display, 64mb ATI Radeon mobility 9000.

Please tell me which information I need to get for you so you can further help me, or if you need remote access to the laptop.

I have been following these guides if there are any questions:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Gentoo_on_Dell_Inspiron_600m#Ethernet_Card_.28Driver.29
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/power-management-guide.xml
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_KDE_Desktop_for_the_end-user
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_ATI_Drivers

The first problem I have is that regular user can not start KDE. They receive a black screen with just a cursor. I didn't see a useful error when I killed x-windows. Edit: I just noticed it actually was starting TWM, and I also found this:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-312166-highlight-dcopserver.html
What is the reason it is not creating the user directories? I should be able to fix the regular user KDE problem now, but I will let you know if something else goes wrong. (I love answering my own questions)

Second problem, is I can not get the ATI fglrx module to load. I receive the following error:
Fatal: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.14.gentoo-r5/video/fglrx.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
(EE) fglrx(0): DRIScreenInit failed!

Dmesg reports:
fglrx: Unknown symbol module_refcount

I have tried removing the "Direct Rendendering Manager (Device Drivers -> Character devices -> Direct Rendering Manager" in the kernel configuration, then I did a make && make modules_install, and unmerged and merged the ati-drivers, and did a modules-update but no avail. Is there something else I need to do? I have the following enabled in the kernel for the video drivers:
Device Drivers --->
Character devices --->
<*> /dev/agpart (AGP Support)
<M> Intel 440LX/BX/GX, I8xx and E7x05 chipset support

The next problem I ran into, is when I start KDE with the DVD drive installed, the KDE volume thing is in the middle of the screen, and is acting like the volume key is stuck down. It always wants to go to 0 volume. I was able to cure this by amputation when I stop the kmilo service in the KDE Control center, but obviously this is not a solution to the problem, just a temporary solution. I was getting an error about DellI8xsomething not being able to contact kmix/mixer0. This bug was reported here, but no solution:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97803

Alright, the next issue, ACPI. This one could be dangerous.
CpuFreq is kindof working. If I unplug it, it goes to 600mhz, reguardless of wheter the processor is being utilized or not. Then when I plug the power back in, it stays at 600mhz. When I type cpufreq-info, I get this:

current policy: frequency should be within 600 MHz and mhz GHz.
The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 600 MHz.

I can force it back to 1.6ghzwith a cpufreq-set command.

Here is the output from "tail -f /var/log/acpi | grep "received event" when power plug pulled and put back in:
received event "ac_adapter AC 00000080 00000000"
received event "battery BAT0 00000080 00000001"
received event "processor CPU0 00000080 00000007"

received event "ac_adapter AC 00000080 00000001"
received event "battery BAT0 00000080 00000001"
received event "processor CPU0 00000080 00000002"

Alrighty. Next issue, something I have never been able to get working. The LCD display lid switch button.
the received event for the lid switch keeps counting up by 1 every time I close the lid, and never shuts the display off. If I use the radeon tool command, I can manually turn the light off, so that works, but something in the ACPI isn't working correctly. Am I not correct that this script:
event=button.*
action=/etc/acpi/actions/button.sh %e

Would need to be changed to something like:

event=button lid0 00000080 00000001
action=/etc/acpi/actions/button.sh %e


I can't recall exactly what the ACPI received event was, but I will look that up in a min and correct that in my post.

Here's the output from "Received Event" when the LCD button is pressed:
"button/lid LID 00000080 00000001"
and depressed:
"button/lid LID 00000080 00000002"

Thanks for your help.
Ben

[cynric]

Out of all of that, I think I can only touch on the video. After you removed DRI support and re-compiled the kernel, did you copy it to /boot and reboot? If not, those new changes haven't been loaded so it'll still use the old kernel to compile against. Hopefully that's all there is to it. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Reaching way out on the limb about the ACPI stuff. I don't think it matters which line you use as long as it's unique. If "event=button.*" corresponds to only the LCD button, then that's all you need.

[nevinsb]

No, I did not copy it to /boot/ I will do that and give it a shot.
I will also give .* a shot. It is unique.

[nevinsb]

Good call on the bzimage copy. That fixed the ATI module not loading problem. I now have 3d acceleration Im going to start cracking away at the ACPI Radeon problem to see if I can come up with something more useful to report.

[nevinsb]

Alright. I made some more foreward progress in the area of the ACPI/Cpufreq. I removed /etc/acpi/events/pmg_battery, because basicly what was happening was it would try switching twice, once for pmg_ac_adapter and another time for pmg_battery, so it always ended up in battery mode. Sofar, no ill effects from just deleting random files.