LibreELEC 8.0.0: Failed to start Xorg Server

  • Hi,

    I've installed LibreELEC 8.0.0 on an old Leveno Thinkpad T500 that fails to start Xorg Server in 50% booting. The reason is that the notebook has two graphic cards (intel and AMD). If it detects the AMD graphic card first, it fails to boot and fails to start Xorg Server. There are problems detecting the correct AMD graphic card, that's why it fails loading the corresponding driver through xorg-radeon.conf:

    Code
    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV635/M86 [Mobility Radeon HD 3650] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)
            !!! Unknown header type 7f
            Kernel driver in use: radeon


    If LibreELEC detects the Intel graphic card first, it chooses xorg-i915.conf for configuration and LibreELEC is running.

    Full lspci -v:


    Here is the log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log when LibreELEC detects AMD graphic card first and fails to start:


    Here is the log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log when LibreELEC detects Intel graphic card first and starts LibreELEC without problems:


    Is there a way to force LibreELEC always using the Intel graphic card? /etc/X11/ is mounted readonly due to the squashfs loop device that's why I can't simply replace xorg-radeon.conf. :dodgy:
    Any ideas?

    Edited once, last by orclex (February 24, 2017 at 7:40 AM).

  • Simply put: ATI/AMD Radeon gpu are a handful on their own. :s

    As you already noticed, the LibreELEC system is set to readonly. That is by design.
    Any changes in settings are stored in the /storage partition.
    Try placing your conf file(s) in the /storage/.config folder.

    Using LibreELEC on hardware with two graphics cards is something we virtually have no experience with at all. But perhaps you can be our test subject on this matter? Personally, I'm not a graphics or conf guru, perhaps others can step in for that.

  • Take a look at /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/97-xorg.rules and /usr/lib/xorg/xorg-configure to see how xorg is configured. You can place a manual configuration in /storage/.config/xorg.conf.

  • Unfortunately a first simple test with copying /etc/X11/xorg-i915.conf to /storage/.config/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/xorg-radeon.conf to overwrite the AMD configuration for always using Intel driver is not working. /var/log/Xorg.0.log still says that it wants to load a radeon driver and fails starting X.

  • Ok, I copied /etc/udev/rules.d/97-xorg.rules to /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/97-xorg.rules and commented the line for the amd driver radeon out. That is working!

    Thanks!