Comment # 11 on bug 1004453 from Max Staudt

I placed a Matrox Mystique in a test box and started Tumbleweed.

I've been able to observe several things:

1. The mga kernel module isn't loaded by default.
  -> No idea why.
  -> No 3D acceleration, which wouldn't work anyway since Mesa has long dropped
Matrox support.

2. Even without mga, X comes up with its own MGA 2D driver when run as root.
  -> So you may or may not need the mga module if X can access system memory as
root.
     It does reference firmware files when checked with 'modinfo mga', so I
don't know.

3. But only if vesafb isn't loaded.
  -> Thus, vga= must not be used to set a graphical mode.

Given that the X server now runs as a regular user in Tumbleweed, I see no real
solution for you, other than a hack such as setting the X server setuid root :(

Debugging the mga kernel module failing to load automatically also seems
pointless, given that modesetting is apparently done via direct memory access
and that there is no user of the DRI1 infrastructure left (Mesa dropped the 3D
support for Matrox several years ago).

If you're so inclined, you can try to port the modesetting code for your card
from the X driver to the new mgag200 kernel module (which was actually meant
for the new G200-like chips found in server chipsets). I haven't looked into
the code, so I don't know whether this is feasible.

Egbert Eich has done this for the classic G200 chips. See:

 
http://kernel.opensuse.org/cgit/kernel-source/tree/patches.drivers/drm-mgag200-Add-support-for-MATROX-PCI-device-IDs-0x520-and-0x521.patch?h=openSUSE-42.2

If you do this, please let me know. As a former Matrox user myself, I would be
very glad to see these cards supported with KMS.


As for solving the problem at hand, I suggest setting a video mode in GRUB and
making sure it's passed on to Linux when booting (see GRUB's gfxmode and
gfxpayload settings). If your card's VESA BIOS supports your screen's native
resolution, Linux will pass the setting to vesafb and you can use X with its
fbdev driver. Make sure to uninstall xf86-video-mga, which is installed
automatically if a Matrox card is found.


Feedback as to what you've tried and whether you found a solution that works
for you would be great! Maybe we'll have to kick xf86-video-mga from the
default installation.