PandaBoard ES Rev B3 - Ubuntu 14.04 running, mouse trouble in X

[Marc Novakouski]

Hi there,
I'm a PandaBoard newbie and have been trying to get my board up and running for the last 3 days. For a while I was fighting this error:

U-Boot SPL 2013.04-00015-gfe81c6a (Apr 24 2013 - 14:35:14)

OMAP4460 ES1.1

SDRAM: identified size not same as expected size identified: 0

expected: 40000000


 





After a great deal of research, I found this wiki:
https://eewiki.net/display/linuxonarm/PandaBoard

Which gives me the solution to this problem by allowing me to build everything from scratch, patch the bootloader, and load it all effectively on my SD Card.  I can confirm that if you follow the instructions on that wiki (for the most part to the letter, with some modifications for path and kernel version, let me know if you are interested in specifics) you will end up with a bootable version of Ubuntu 14.04 on your pandaboard.  This leads me to my actual problem.

Once I was able to get Ubuntu running, I wanted to run a windows manager.  So I downloaded X (apt-get install xubuntu -desktop) which, of course, took forever, but eventually succeeded.  Now, oddly, whenever I try to manually boot to the desktop using startx, it hangs, but that's not the actual problem I'm fighting, as rebooting the board will boot directly to X.  My problem is, once I get into X, after a small amount of mouse usage (move it randomly for < 30 seconds) the mouse cursor will freeze.  Luckily, I have the Serial port hooked up to my development laptop, and when the mouse freezes, I get the following error scrolling (it scrolls when you move the mouse, stops when you stop):
[[time]] omapdrm omapdrm.0: dispc_ovl_setup failed: -22

Continue to move the mouse and the error will continue to scroll.  Wait long enough and/or move it enough, and you will trigger the following error which DOES scroll continuously independent of if you are moving the mouse:
[[time]] [drm:omap_irq_error_handler] *ERROR* errors: 00000200

Here's the interesting thing.  If I switch away from the X desktop using ctrl-alt-1 and switch back with ctrl-alt-7, it somehow resets the state and I can use the mouse for another 15-30 seconds before the first error starts again.  Google tells me that the dispc_ovl_setup error traces back to an omap error, which seems to mean that it's somehow failing to draw the cursor, but the mouse location is still being processed.  Which is true!  Because I can still move it and it highlights the things it should be over, I just don't get a cursor icon.  And again, once I swap out and back to the desktop I get another 15-30 seconds or normal usage.

Any thoughts or suggests would be highly appreciated!
Thanks very much!