ATI fglrx 8.31.5 Display Drivers

[vini]

Hey ya,

It works, I have got rid of the libGL.so.1.2 in /usr/lib and created a symbolic to the fglrx GL libs. It looks much better but there are still some weirdness, for example when I run glxgears it doesn't show up if its windown is small (default size). If I make the window bigger it shows up but the gears stop moving if I move the window across to the right half of the right screen. There appears to be a line that when crossed the gears stop moving.

Apart from this everything looks good.

Thanks for your help,
Vini

Hello Vini,

it seems quite a few people are trying to get this solved. Here is what I did (After a few days of lots of linking and then starting from scratch):

When trying to build the ati.com ATI driver on FC6 , one MUST have installed:
1. development libraries packages
2. development tools packages
3. GNOME development packages
4. X development packages
5. Old Software development -> compat-libdistc++-33-*
6. qt-devel
7. rpm-build

Then it compiles fine, no problems with "cannot stat firecontrolxyz . ." etc. I do not know exactly what is being installed to prevent the "cannot stat ... " problem, but this way you can solve it. Afterwards, you remove 1.-4.,6. and 7.

Solution to persistent MESA GL renderer when installing the 8.31.5 driver from livna (as you apparently did)

yum install xorg-X11-drv-fglrx.i386

The corresponding libGL.so.1.2 from this package will be installed in /usr/lib/ati-fglrx/ . Of course, the existing ligGL.so.1.2 provided by MESA, which resides in /usr/lib, will be found in the path first. So rename /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 to /usr/lib/ligGL.so.1.2.MESA and copy /usr/lib/ati-fglrx/ligGL.so.1.2 to /usr/lib. It did the trick. After rebooting (NOT only restarting X, funny, that . . ) I got the following on fglrxinfo:

display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON X300 Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6174 (8.31.5)

So there you are

Regards,

J.

[vini]

Hi Michael,

I have managed to fix my GL problem, it all seems to work well now. Please see my last post for more information on how I did it. I have also managed to configure my card to work with Big Desktop, it looks fine and works the same way as xinerama. My KDE hasn't complained yet and it is behaving the same way as before.

The Big Desktop also fixed an annoying problem that I used to have, the cursor wouldn't changed when moved across to the second screen. Like if you were typing a text and had a text cursor on the left screen and then suddenly moved it across to the right screen, it then would stay a text cursor while on the right screen. This no longer happens...

As for the resolution, I am not sure what to do. My xorg.conf explicitly states the resolution I want (1920x1200) but when the X server starts it resolution is always 1680x1050. Any ideas why this is happening?

Thanks a lot for your help so far!
Vini

Big Desktop shouldn't give window manager problems.

In regards to your resolution issues, you could manually specify the higher resolution in your xorg.conf. The drivers likely aren't pulling all of the EDID information.

[Michael]

I don't think there are any limitations with the fglrx drivers for the resolution. Just to check, but your monitor can support the resolution? Is there anything regarding the resolution in your Xorg.0.log?

[vini]

Hi Michael,

This is the section when I specify the resoltion.

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection

I have another similar entry for Screen1. Wiich I think is no longer needed as I am using Big Desktops, is it correct?

This is a link to the screen, it does support the resolution I want.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/2407wfp?c=au&cs=aubsd1&l=en&s=bsd

Thanks
Vini

I don't think there are any limitations with the fglrx drivers for the resolution. Just to check, but your monitor can support the resolution? Is there anything regarding the resolution in your Xorg.0.log?

[Michael]

Correct, for Big Desktop you should only need one screen entry.

You could try the next fglrx display driver when it's released to see if it by chance fixes your resolution problem.

I am also able to check with ATI as to any limitations that the fglrx drivers may have when running at 1900 x as well as being in a Big Desktop mode.

[vini]

Hi Michael,

If you could check that with ATI that would be great. Do you know when a nover version of this driver may be released?

After a configured my machine to use Big Desktop there is something that is looking a bit strange. The round outer corners of every windows hava a black sharp square corner underneath, it is a bit hard to explain but it seems that the window manager (KDE) is not understanding something properly. Also the waiting cursors are no longer transparent, when the cursor turns into a waiting cursor and starts bouncing it has a blackbox around it.

I am using "OverlayOnCRTC2" "1" - I am not even sure why I have that in mu config file. Would that have anything todo with it?

Thanks
Vini

Correct, for Big Desktop you should only need one screen entry.

You could try the next fglrx display driver when it's released to see if it by chance fixes your resolution problem.

I am also able to check with ATI as to any limitations that the fglrx drivers may have when running at 1900 x as well as being in a Big Desktop mode.

[Michael]

Hi Michael,

If you could check that with ATI that would be great. Do you know when a nover version of this driver may be released?

After a configured my machine to use Big Desktop there is something that is looking a bit strange. The round outer corners of every windows hava a black sharp square corner underneath, it is a bit hard to explain but it seems that the window manager (KDE) is not understanding something properly. Also the waiting cursors are no longer transparent, when the cursor turns into a waiting cursor and starts bouncing it has a blackbox around it.

I am using "OverlayOnCRTC2" "1" - I am not even sure why I have that in mu config file. Would that have anything todo with it?

Thanks
Vini

For transparency see -- http://phoronix.net/forums/showthread.php?t=367

Unfortunately, I cannot state when the new drivers will be coming... But keep in mind they are usually about the middle of the month.

I'll check with ATI in the next couple of days about the problem.

[vini]

Sorry for asking but I am curious about this, do you work for ATI?

For transparency see -- http://phoronix.net/forums/showthread.php?t=367

Unfortunately, I cannot state when the new drivers will be coming... But keep in mind they are usually about the middle of the month.

I'll check with ATI in the next couple of days about the problem.

[Michael]

Sorry for asking but I am curious about this, do you work for ATI?

No, I am not a paid employee of ATI Technologies or Advanced Micro Devices. I am a Fedora package maintainer for the fglrx drivers (after Niko's departure, prior to that I ran all the tests to ensured the scripts had worked). I also cover the ATI drivers at Phoronix thus I have other contacts at ATI, as well as NVIDIA.

[vini]

No, I am not a paid employee of ATI Technologies or Advanced Micro Devices. I am a Fedora package maintainer for the fglrx drivers (after Niko's departure, prior to that I ran all the tests to ensured the scripts had worked). I also cover the ATI drivers at Phoronix thus I have other contacts at ATI, as well as NVIDIA.

Michael and everyone else,

Everything work perfectly on my machine now, transparency is back and the Big Desktop configuration solved many other problems that I was having. The only thing I haven't managed to fix yet is the resolution, but I can live with this for a while as 1680x1050 is not too bad.

Thank you all for your help!

Regards,
Vini