Bug 368275

Summary: weird screen distortions with Core 2 hardware
Product: [Plasma] kwin Reporter: Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) <estellnb>
Component: compositingAssignee: KWin default assignee <kwin-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME    
Severity: grave CC: kde.org
Priority: NOR    
Version: 5.6.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Debian testing   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: screen distortions as visible with plasma 5 under a current Stretch

Description Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-05 12:29:52 UTC
It is somewhat bitter that KDE5 plasma which was initially advertised to be even less resource intense than plasma4 does not run on P4 systems (it simply blackscreens). It may not be possible to support old hardware forever though. However when I realised that multiple current versions of the KDE5 plasma desktop do not even run on my Core 2 Quad with G96GLM [Quadro FX 770M] (tested under Arch, Mageia and Stretch) I got really annoyed.  Please have a look at the attachement - and keep graphics cards common with Core 2 systems like the Radeon R5 230 or the G96GLM, both UHD capable, supported!

Reproducible: Always
Comment 1 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-05 12:30:59 UTC
Created attachment 100936 [details]
screen distortions as visible with plasma 5 under a current Stretch
Comment 2 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-05 12:35:22 UTC
  plasma4 has worked very well on all these systems including Core 2 / UHD support and the P4 2,8GHz ones. Unfortunately Arch linux has recently dropped its plasma4 support and all the new distributions already ship with plasma5. - so please try to support at least the Core 2 Duo/Quad systems which feature up to 3,3Ghz x 4 - more than fast enough for current purposes.
Comment 3 Marco Martin 2016-09-19 11:19:10 UTC
can you try to disable desktop effects? (alt+shift+f12)
Comment 4 Marco Martin 2016-09-19 11:20:23 UTC
*** Bug 368344 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-19 13:22:23 UTC
Today I have tried it with plasma-desktop 4:5.6.5-1 under Debian testing and a Core 2 Quad with Nvidia Quadro FX. It just blackscreens no matter whether I press alt+shift+f12 (like it always did on P4 machines). Pressing Alt-Shift-F12 does not help. The only error message I get is "cannot load system tray icon."
Comment 6 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-22 19:45:02 UTC
Ooopsla; today I have re-tested since there was a new KDE and Mesa update for Debian Testing. If I switch off the desktop effects then it in deed shows the desktop background (I must have pressed Strg instead of Alt the last time since both keys are exchanged on my keyboard). However there is nothing more that I can do: no context menu on the desktop no plasma toolbars (need to restart lightdm).
Comment 7 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-22 20:35:18 UTC
works with mesa 12.0.3-1, kernel 4.6.0-1 and plasma-workspace 4:5.7.4-1 under Debian Stretch.
Comment 8 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2016-09-22 20:45:29 UTC
Sorry for the inconvenience but there were multiple issues each interfering with the other
* first of all I got different results with lightdm and by running startkde as root (it finally worked with the latter)
* secondly there was also a kernel issue with 4.8.0-rc7+ though the effects with xfce are rather hardly noticeable; however kde5 fully relying on OpenGL 2.0 likely breaks by https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97614
   Finally I believe the latest updates either to Mesa and KDE have fixed some issues. Now KDE5 really runs very stable and fast even with some desktop effects (have not tried to reset to the default config); as far as this I could test.
Comment 9 Elmar Stellnberger (AT/K) 2018-02-01 08:29:33 UTC
There are still problems with mesa-common-dev 13.0.6-1+b2, plasma-workspace 4:5.8.6-2.1, Xorg 1.19.2 and kernel 4.15.0-rc9+. It is possible to boot into KDE when I switch the desktop effects off by Alt-Shift-F12; however that does not seem to resolve the problem fully. Interestingly there were absolutely no problems with this setup when I had been working with my smaller integrated display only. Problems come when I enable my external 4K screen. So very likely there seems to be a memory allocation problem with nouveau as the problem only appears with higher graphics modes.
Comment 10 kde.org 2021-11-06 20:00:40 UTC
This issue report is quite old. Can you please confirm, that it still persists with KDE 5.23?
Comment 11 Bug Janitor Service 2021-11-21 04:39:25 UTC
Dear Bug Submitter,

This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least
15 days. Please provide the requested information as soon as
possible and set the bug status as REPORTED. Due to regular bug
tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDSINFO status with
no change in 30 days the bug will be closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
due to lack of needed information.

For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the
wiki located here:
https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging

If you have already provided the requested information, please
mark the bug as REPORTED so that the KDE team knows that the bug is
ready to be confirmed.

Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!
Comment 12 Bug Janitor Service 2021-12-06 04:38:47 UTC
This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least
30 days. The bug is now closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
due to lack of needed information.

For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the
wiki located here:
https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging

Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!