Since I’ve been running ArchLinux I have been experiencing certain problems. When I try to log out from XFCE4, the system appears to hang. Then, I should switch to another tty, and switch back. Then the logout window is displayed, however, the background is scrambled.
I am also experiencing trouble taking screenshots. Also now, when I run xfce4-screenshooter, it hangs until I switch to another tty and back. This makes me think the problem is related to grabbing the content of the screen.
It seems, with the particular graphics chip that is in my new laptop, a new acceleration method called “glamor”
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI#Glamor:
Since xf86-video-ati driver-1:7.2.0-1, glamor is automaticaly enabled with radeonsi drivers (Southern Island and superior GFX cards)
My graphics chip turns out to be such a “Southern Island” chip. From my /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[ 3682.989] (--) RADEON(0): Chipset: "VERDE" (ChipID = 0x682d)
It says “VERDE”, which is, according to theRadeon Feature Matrixa Southern Island chip. The “marketing name” however, seems to be different, as the chip inside my laptop is called “FirePro M4000”. Whatever it’s called, it’s causing me trouble.
The Wiki page is even mentioning how to enable this “glamor” thing on older cards, but I wish to disable it. Looking at the man page of “radeon”, it reveals an option, “AccelMethod”, which can be either “EXA” or “glamor”.
Creating a /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf file with
Section "Device"
Identifier "Radeon"
Driver "radeon"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection
solves the problem. I can now log out without having to switch to a different tty, and take screenshots. Also, the problem of the missing/blank icons in my system tray has been resolved by this.