[EN] Kernel 3.2 graphics problem

[GoinEasy9]

On my Thinkpad G41:
Graphics:  Card: nVidia NV34M [GeForce FX Go5200 64M]
           X.Org: 1.11.2.902 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1024x768@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NV34 GLX Version: 1.5 Mesa 7.11.2

And only on this laptop, after the install of the 3.2 kernel, the bottom half of the screen is black during the login screen.  I also notice that if I log the user out, the bottom half of the screen distorts, and, then when I press the logout button the bottom half turns black.  I'm also now noticing while typing this that there are problems with some of the letters showing unless I move where I'm typing to above the halfway mark on the screen.  Using the previous kernel, I don't see these effects.

Is anyone else seeing distortions on the bottom half of the screen, probably with an older Nvidia card (FX 5200) like this old lappy has?

Edit: Just double checked, kernel 3.1.6 has no problems at all, even when typing into a text box at the bottom of the screen, and no problems with login or logout screen.

[GoinEasy9]

I'm now up to Kernel: 3.2-0.towo.5-siduction-686 i686 (32 bit) and the problem persists, 3.1 kernel still acting fine.  I wonder what they did to nouveau in 3.2 that's causing this.  You can see the problem in this screenshot: http://paste.siduction.org/20120110210640.png
The bottom of the siduction.org screen is blank.  Once again, it's only with this older laptop with the FX5200 Nvidia card.

[ralul]

There is a debian unstable linux-image-3.1.8 now working!
I don't know why towo needs to jump to that 3.2.0 zero Linux release ....

Towo, do not follow others, but make up your own mind, look at:
 git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git
Though which in effect is followed by others...

[towo]

For those, who have problems with linux-3.2, you can install linux-image-3.1-siduction-$arch and linux-headers-3.1-siduction-$arch for a recent 3.1-branch of the kernel.

[GoinEasy9]

Thanks for the replies.  Since the old lappy is a testbed for siduction, and I already have towo's 3.1-6 kernel on it, I'll just keep testing the 3.2 kernels and use the 3.1 kernel when the need exists.  I just hope nouveau isn't regressing for the older machines.

[ralul]

@towo: just see you have made:
linux-image-3.1-3.1-9.towo.1-siduction-amd64

But linux-3.1.9 is not even released, it is RC. If you look at the stable mailing list, you will recognize the risks of not released but stable-queue patches:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 08:41:35AM +0100, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 01:48:51PM -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> > 3.1-stable review patch.  If anyone has any objections, please let me know.
> 
> Just curious, how well tested are all the patches on 2.6.32 and 3.1 hat I only
> submitted for 3.0?  I'd really prefer if they at least get an xfstest run
> before they get sent out to the world.

I took these patches on my own as they were reported to fix a public
vulnerability which was assigned a CVE.  They applied with no fuzz and
"looked correct" so I applied them on my own.

If I shouldn't have, please let me know and I'll drop them.

Otherwise, a nice run of xfstest by someone would be appreciated.

thanks,

greg k-h

Nearly no one uses xfs as their filesystem and also it turns out that patches are really trivial, I just wanted to shout out a warning: There is a risk of what aptosid has ever done - using stable-queue patches ...

Also: if one compares the queued patches for
linux-3.0 =? linux-3.1 =? linux-3.2
the corresponding patch files are almost identical for all linux versions. This means in regard of the new linux-3.2.zero release: The sloppy errors haven't been found yet. The next point release is probably just about corner cases the sub-maintainers had worked on for longer. It needs some weeks to find the fucking stupid errors of a point.zero release.