[LAU] rt kernels

[Brent Busby]

On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> I experienced the same issues regarding to the resolution and the 60 
> Hz stroboscope (and a non working mouse wheel for my PS/2 mouse, slow 
> down Internet for PPPoE etc.) with current debianoid Linux. They drop 
> old hardware, even if they claim not to do.

I don't know if it's related to your problem, but since I run Gentoo, I 
see a lot of the changes that happen as they come down from upstream.

Some things that have changed recently regarding the kernel and X11, or 
at least probably since the last time you upgraded:

* KMS is now becoming normal.  KMS is Kernel Mode Setting, which means
   the kernel now has control of your video resolution rather than the X
   server.  This is apparently more efficient at the machine level, but
   because it is now just debuting, it is still somewhat buggy on some
   video chipsets.  (I have an older Radeon card at home that it doesn't
   work on without all sorts of video problems, but a newer Radeon at
   work that KMS works flawlessly on.)  Because KMS is now in charge of
   setting your screen resolution, your problem may be related.  It is
   possible to disable it, either with a kernel parameter passed from
   Grub ("nomodeset"), or by recompiling your kernel with the KMS option
   set to default to off.  I had to do this with my home machine.

* Individual device drivers for X11 input devices (keyboard, mouse,
   trackpad, etc.) have become obsolete.  No longer does X use a keyboard
   driver, a mouse driver, and so on.  One driver called 'evdev' now
   handles all input.

* Also, this isn't the actual upstream Linux kernel, but is Debian --
   they have now decided to drop non-OpenSource firmware blobs from their
   packaged kernel.  This has the effect of making some peripherals that
   once worked fine now unusable on the packaged Debian kernel.  In some
   cases, it even makes Debian uninstallable on machines which need such
   firmware blobs to run their disk controllers.

Your problem could be something else entirely though...Linux is a 
rolling stone.

-- 
+ Brent A. Busby	 +
+ Sr. UNIX Systems Admin +	Vote for Cthulhu.
+ University of Chicago	 +
+ James Franck Institute +	Why settle for the lesser evil?