trouble configuring kernel settings for a Xeon E3-1200

[visionlogic]

Hi Everyone,
Earlier this weekend, I was having some trouble with the graphics on my system. After startx, the image displays darkly tinted red.

I initially thought this was a problem with the driver, because I was getting an error in dmesg:

[theotherjoe]

visionlogic,

I dont have any experience with apple hardware and its special features.
Maybe the first steps to narrow down the problems could be to try different
kernel versions. I probably would start with latest 4.9 and 4.13 versions and
see where that gets you. both versions are available under real time sources,
but I would probably begin with vanilla or gentoo sources.

[Roman_Gruber]

Does your screen works with sysrescue-cd?

Any reason why you are using such dated kernel => Linux 4.11.12-rt-rt14 x86_64 Gentoo

AFAIK, just my humble opinion, new hardware requires latest ~ kernel. And you are also using quite new hardware, the amd gpu is heavily patched afaik in the kernel, so I would try latest kernel, latest mesa and other related packages for such hardware.

Not sure where the difference is on x86 based apple computers vs native x86 computers

[Marlo]

Hello visionlogic,
I think your thread heading is not quite right. The important problem is not (now) the screen, but the kernel configuration for a Xeon E3-1200 in an apple. Consider whether it can be formulated more precisely to the problem.
As a starting point, https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel/Gentoo_Kernel_Configuration_Guide is highly recommended. And use the latest gentoo-sources, these are supported here in the forum.

And if there are any difficulties, your precise questions are better answered.

greetings
Ma
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http://radio.garden/

[visionlogic]

I suppose my trouble is that I'm not sure where else I can go to investigate this problem other than the logs and files I posted originally. I have gone through lspci -v and looked up every item in the kernel driver database: https://cateee.net/lkddb/ , found the associated drivers, and built them into the kernel. I originally did this for all of the items that did not have a "kernel driver in use: ___" section, but then went through again tonight for each and every one.

Although most everything I found in this database was accounted for in my configuration, I did find that this setting was not selected https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/EDAC_IE31200.html However, this doesn't seem related to this problem and building it in did not fix my situation.

Originally, I thought the problem had to have something to do with the graphics drivers because of the effect on the display. I still think the problem falls under the category of "display problem" because of the dark red tint on the display. The screen is unusable in this state. The only d messages that seem like errors I have posted below. After looking online for hours, I cant seem to find a solution for my particular case or an indication of what the cause might be. Whenever I search for these errors online, all I can find are bug reports for systems and problems that don't seem similar.

The reason I am using a realtime kernel is because the goal for this system is an audio processing rig. The version I am using actually seems to be quite recent. A non RT kernel is not an option for this use case. I actually know that this kernel version should work because I initially had it working with genkernel.
Everything broke when I tried to build in support for amdgpu. Configuring the kernel from scratch was an attempt to solve the problems I encountered. I have another Gentoo system where I configured the kernel from scratch, and thought that having less superfluous options built in would help me isolate the issue.

Marlo, you are right: the title of this post should be something like: "trouble configuring correct kernel settings for a Xeon E3-1200 in an apple" I will update it as such.

[visionlogic]

Also, Roman_Gruber --yes, the screen works with SRCD. It also worked before, back when I was using genkernel and not using the amdgpu driver. I could go back to this configuration, but I'd rather have a kernel minimally configured for my system and use the drivers meant for my hardware. Plus, there were other problems with the configuration I had before.

My fear is that it is not a matter of failing to enable a setting, but instead that it is a matter of some setting I have enabled causing this broken functionality. Although I am not quite sure how to diagnose the situation other than looking for problems at boot and in dmesg (and the xorg log, which seems clean. The boot log is also clean).

My current kernel configuration is:
https://paste.pound-python.org/raw/4eu5bRJ0nOQwMZYOMOux/