there are multiple problems rolled into one. to sum it up: booting 2.6.32.* and 2.6.33 kernel with radeon.modeset=1 causes it to stall for ~33 seconds. finally kms kicks in . on 2.3.32 it set an incorrect mode (too high refresh rate), on 2.6.33 it works correctly. 2.6.31 was the last properly working kernel where kms had no delays. however, i found in dmesg that delay was (probably) caused by missing firmware, namely radeon/R520_cp.bin . i included that in my initrd and when booting with KMS display goes entirely white. and it seems to lock up completely. lspci: 05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV515 PRO [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series] 05:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV515 PRO [Radeon X1300/X1550 Series] (Secondary) right now i'm using daewoo cmc-1427x old crt display. maybe that's the source of the problem? i'll provide necessary logs, if needed.
so, currently to get kms working properly i need to - boot with radeon.modeset=1 (or set it in kernel config) - exclude radeon firmware from initrd - put up with the delay if the firmware loads later on (and logs show it does) there are no issues.
as suggested by jglisse on #radeon i tried to modprobe radeon modeset=1 and try to access dmesg after that. unfortunately system completely locks up and ssh session dies. with or without firmware in place. i can see vertical black and white stripes, and few seconds after screen becomes white and locks up. fedora 13 alpha kernel *works* and KMS starts correctly , although there is a non-fatal segfault after requesting firmware somewhere in dmesg, maybe it doesn't load at all?. also, there is no ~30second delay. X also starts up (i assume that's what graphical installer uses). i'm attaching dmesg + dmidecode from fedora13 live media. http://pastebin.ca/1830262 - dmesg http://pastebin.ca/1830263 - dmidecode (maybe it'l be useful)
ok i discovered that this boils down to a dodgy d-sub connector on my oooold crt. still, old x.org mode setting was way more robust than KMS - at least i didn't get gpu lockups like now.
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