X.org crash with Ubuntu 9.10 and Catalyst 9.10

[flice]

Hi,

I've used Catalyst driver for 2+ years without major problems. I had a hard time setting up the big desktop mode for the first time, but the setup has worked since then across driver upgrades.

After a recent upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10, I installed the binary 9.10 Catalyst driver (downloaded from the official page, it's not the one supplied with Ubuntu). Now a weird thing: it has worked without a problem for several days across reboots, and then, after a reboot, suddenly stopped working (crashes on X.org startup). The only "EE" message in the xorg log was about EDID and seems non-essential (I think I also have been seeing it before). I recall applying a security update before this last reboot, but I didn't pay attention which packages were updated.

I tried reconfiguring the driver. It works in single-monitor and cloned mode, but as soon as I try "big desktop", it crashes when called from amdxmm.so in something evidently related to xvideo. I'm not entirely sure that I'm doing it right, as amdcccle fails to produce a valid big desktop configuration (if I attempt to use it, upon X restart it complains about incorrect virtual desktop size). So I am forced to use command-line utility, which doesn't really tell what option does what. But I guess any of this shouldn't cause a crash. Besides, the exact same setup used to work, so it seems the reason for the crash are either xorg or fglrx, and not my setup. Here's the log: http://pastebin.ca/1652758. My xorg.conf: http://pastebin.ca/1652840.

I also tried removing the offending amdxmm.so file. Upon the next reboot, the system ended up with a black screen, and wouldn't even let me into the console (ctrl-alt-F1 or any other obvious keys combination didn't work).

(Unrelated, but enraging is that Ubuntu's recovery mode also didn't work: it presented that text menu with choice of logging in as root, etc, but then printed funny red text above this menu with various log error messages about unclean filesystems, and the menu or anything else didn't respond. So I had to boot Windows and move amdxmm.so back to its place to get a working Ubuntu.)

Any help would be appreciated.

Update: I am also seeing this error with the version of Catalyst 9.10 packaged with Ubuntu 9.10.

[flice]

Solved

After losing several hours, I've been able to solve the issue. It goes as follows:
I. If you have to start from scratch, then:
1) sudo aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=right
2) Did I run additional aticonfig commands here?.. Not sure.
3) Run amdcccle and configure "big desktop".
4) At this point, X would crash on me upon restart (I love fglrx! %@#%!#$). What did the trick for me was erasing the /etc/ati/amdpcdb file and rebooting (if I attempted to just restart X, the machine would freeze with a black screen. I love fglrx! %@#%!#$)
5) Then I spent several more hours trying to set the secondary display's refresh rate to 75Hz. No manual seems to mention this, but fglrx only accepts modelines for the primary monitor, and ignores modelines/refresh rates for the secondary (I love fglrx! %@#%!#$). What else didn't work: xrandr, "TargetRefresh" option, "Mode2" option (referring to the custom modeline), specifying hsync/vrefresh through aticonfig, adding the secondary screen to the ServerLayout section (I love fglrx! %@#%!#$). What did work was specifying "hsync2" and "vrefresh2" options in the "Device" section of the primary monitor.

II. Otherwise, make sure you have a usable xorg.conf and just remove the /etc/ati/amdpcdb file.

My message to the ATI Catalyst team: next time you want to write a program, at least try to pretend that you intended it to be used by anyone else.

%@#%!#$

[flice]

I've been reluctant to post here about my problems with fglrx, since they are well-known, and excessive flame won't help it. But hey, I've paid for this with my time and nerve cells (leave alone money), so here it goes:

1) The only reason I still use fglrx is to play 3D games. However, the performance in some 3D games (at least Nexuiz - that's the only one I actively play) is horrific. I play with the lowest settings, and still get frequent FPS drops to 10-20. That's unacceptable.
2) XV tearing.
3) Hard lock-up on attempt to restart kdm. To be fair, it used to be worse (the machine would freeze on Ctrl-Alt-Bcksp), but the current situation is still unacceptable, especially when troubleshooting other issues.
4) Slow development pace. Come on, AMD, I paid for this hardware AND this software! I want it to work!
5) The betas should be open to the public - I want as much people as possible to test each version and report bugs, so that when it reaches my hands, there will be less reasons to worry.
6) Fricking horrible user interface. Unimaginable. "Feature parity with the Windows version" my ass. Okay, this is Linux, so you don't have to make a fancy GUI. But here's a list of things that you ARE expected to supply:
- a state-of-the-art CLI with simple, intuitive and UNAMBIGUOUS commands
- exhaustive documentation along with tutorials, examples, descriptions of pitfalls and accurate list of bugs in each version. No, aticonfig --help is not enough!
- accurate changelog
- public bug tracker
- package repositories
7) Oh, and fast support for new kernels.

Do this, and I will love you. Honestly.

Yours,
-Furious customer

[jrch2k8]

I've been reluctant to post here about my problems with fglrx, since they are well-known, and excessive flame won't help it. But hey, I've paid for this with my time and nerve cells (leave alone money), so here it goes:

1) The only reason I still use fglrx is to play 3D games. However, the performance in some 3D games (at least Nexuiz - that's the only one I actively play) is horrific. I play with the lowest settings, and still get frequent FPS drops to 10-20. That's unacceptable.
2) XV tearing.
3) Hard lock-up on attempt to restart kdm. To be fair, it used to be worse (the machine would freeze on Ctrl-Alt-Bcksp), but the current situation is still unacceptable, especially when troubleshooting other issues.
4) Slow development pace. Come on, AMD, I paid for this hardware AND this software! I want it to work!
5) The betas should be open to the public - I want as much people as possible to test each version and report bugs, so that when it reaches my hands, there will be less reasons to worry.
6) Fricking horrible user interface. Unimaginable. "Feature parity with the Windows version" my ass. Okay, this is Linux, so you don't have to make a fancy GUI. But here's a list of things that you ARE expected to supply:
- a state-of-the-art CLI with simple, intuitive and UNAMBIGUOUS commands
- exhaustive documentation along with tutorials, examples, descriptions of pitfalls and accurate list of bugs in each version. No, aticonfig --help is not enough!
- accurate changelog
- public bug tracker
- package repositories
7) Oh, and fast support for new kernels.

Do this, and I will love you. Honestly.

Yours,
-Furious customer

jajaja lately we are all furious customers here, at least you didnt paid 600$ for a quad fire like me. still my stand here is completly burn/destroy/piss on it(choose one )the fglrx actual code and just remake it from current oss drivers code and add the commercial code on top of it, anyway catalyst 9.10 improved a bit some issues and after some imagination i can get crossfire to work but now acpi is heavily broken so back to nice oss drivers, i just fear that my duals 4850x2 card are going to get removed from main drivers when fglrx gets 100% stable in 2015.

conclusion wait for OSS drivers is our only hope, anyway i see myself with an nvidia gt300 sli system next year or so cuz im moving my workstation to opensolaris so no chance in hell that amd will have any type of support in a near timeframe either and intel gfx sux for real work

btw anyone tested amd opencl implementation?? well i dont think is any stable but well i can be wrong