PowerPC bugs

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2012 at 08:54:57PM +0100, o jordan wrote:
> Phil, Colin et al This is an insanely easy bug to fix.  I knocked up a
> patch for yaboot-installer in a few minutes to show how to solve the
> problem.  I've attached it to the bug 1040526.  The use of the
> vt.handoff=7 parameter boots radeon cards into a 16 bit desktop by
> default.

vt.handoff=7 is only one part of a much larger complex of code to do
flicker-free boot, none of the rest of which is present in yaboot, and
it's quite entitled to assume that the rest of that setup code is there.
I'd be fairly concerned that this would break something else on a
chipset-specific basis.  Andy Whitcroft, if you're reading this on
kernel-team@, what do you think?

> To boot into a higher depth (e.g. 24 bit) or to boot into KMS
> you will need to add a boot parameter. The difficulty has always been
> Colin Watson's and lubuntu-qa's insistence that the user should not be
> expected to add a boot parameter.

Blame me and misquote me if you like, but actually I'm quite happy with
a situation where QA passes require a boot parameter, although I would
*prefer* it to be otherwise.

> At present this is impossible because KMS is the best solution for
> some people, whereas for other people it isn't.  You are asking to be
> all things to all people.  To be KMS and not KMS at the same time
> which is impossible.  You have to give the user the choice.  So you
> have to create default options for KMS or non-KMS (which I proposed in
> my "rambling email") or you let the user add their own boot parameter
> to do it (e.g. video=ofonly to turn on KMS). Letting the user add
> their own parameter is obviously the easiest and lowest risk option
> and is the currently documented way.  I've never seen the problem with
> this.

And I've said that I'm perfectly happy with suggesting those or making
other changes to the default yaboot configuration, as long as I get a
signoff from kernel or X guys.  To date, the response to my request for
a signoff seems to have been to shout at me more loudly in the hope that
I'll change my mind, rather than actually going and getting a signoff.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]