Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Thinkpad W500 (FireGL v5700) + hardware drivers = no desktop

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Thinkpad W500 (FireGL v5700) + hardware drivers = no desktop

    I've just installed Linux Mint 10 (branch of Ubuntu 10.10) on my new Thinkpad W500 last night; everything appeared to be going smoothly until I activated the fglrx hardware drivers (for the FireGL V5700 Mobility GPU card) via the hardware devices panel...

    Now on restart the GUI refuses to launch and instead boots me into the text console - I can login and such but haven't thus yet figured out how to launch the desktop (although since I am relatively new to Linux so I may just not be familiar with the command to do this); 'startx' gives me an error along the lines of "there is no compatible display"...

    How do I get the desktop to launch with the proprietary drivers... or, if I need to deactivate these from the console how do I go about doing this?

    Searching the web (and these forums) doesn't bring up any immediate answers... was runtime switchable graphics support on the Thinkpad laptops ever successfully implemented?

    Thanks!
    __________________
    Lenovo Thinkpad W500 / Linux Mint Julia
    Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 / 6GB PC3-8500
    ATI FireGL V5700 512MB
    80GB Intel SSD

  • #2
    If you have a switchable graphics system you need to use BIOS settings to pick "discrete graphics only" or whatever the option is named on your system.

    Switchable graphics is a Vista/Win7-only thing right now AFAIK, and I'm not sure about Vista.
    Test signature

    Comment


    • #3
      w500 switchable graphics... scriptable?

      I did figure this out eventually on my own - but since between the Linux Mint and Ubuntu support forums you are the only person who has responded I'd like to thank you nonetheless

      Is there a means of scripting the boot sequence for Mint/Ubuntu such that, depending on which (integrated or discrete) graphics option I've set in the BIOS the correct drivers will be used?

      I've found the following:

      Hi, guys. I have Lenovo t500 laptop with two video cards ATI Radeon HD 3650 256 and Integrated Intel GMA 4500HD I'm running Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 with the latest FGLXR drivers 8.660 also i've installed xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu1 to use integrated video card sometimes for more battery time I've found in that forum nice solution to pickup required Xorg config file on the boot time. Create script xinit_conf in the /etc/init.d directory and create a symlink in the /etc/rc2.d


      but apparently there are issues getting the system to load the fglrx drivers correctly... there is also the link I provide in my response to his question but that is an older thread for a Sony laptop with different hardware.

      Any advice?

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by bridgman View Post
        If you have a switchable graphics system you need to use BIOS settings to pick "discrete graphics only" or whatever the option is named on your system.

        Switchable graphics is a Vista/Win7-only thing right now AFAIK, and I'm not sure about Vista.
        Also, in the link above he mentions the "xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu1" driver for the integrated Intel GMA 4500WHD... is it necessary to install this separately in 10.10 or is it included in the package; when running on the integrated gpu if I bring up the "hardware drivers" panel no proprietary drivers are listed...?

        Comment

        Working...
        X