Installing latest Open Source ATI drivers under Ubuntu 8.04

[oibaf]

I've been using these instructions for the ati driver and it's been working great.

Today, I installed the pending updates on this Hardy machine and the kernel was updated to 2.6.24-19. I rebuilt the drm module (using "easy" installer) and even went through all the steps again.

Now my video is almost too slow to use -- with a single xterm running top just moving it shows %85 cpu usage for xorg. glxgears is about 850fps.

I'm not seeing anything obvious in:

http://hank.org/Xorg.0.log

My config is http://hank.org/xorg.conf


I have a FireGL 5250 on a T60p thinkpad. Again, was working great before (and have been though one kernel update where rebuilding the drm modules was all I needed to do. No I can hardly drag windows.

Can anyone offer suggestions to get me working again?

Thanks,

You should run the module installer after the reboot with the new kernel and then reboot another time.

[Kano]

You reboot more often that you do when you use Win

[freetime]

You should run the module installer after the reboot with the new kernel and then reboot another time.

Sorry, I should have included more details. I did reboot -- multiple times. After both building just the drm modules and then again after following all the steps from the first post of this thread.

UPDATE: When I disabled the AccelMethod EXA then the extreme slowness went away:

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "FireGL"
	Driver      "ati"
#	Option          "AccelMethod"   "EXA"
	Option		"DVI-0"	"External"
	Option		"VGA-0"	"External"
	Option		"LVDS"	"Panel"
	
EndSection

Does that give any clues what might be causing the problem?



I'm sure I'm missing something obvious. Was there anything in my Xorg.0.log file that indicated what might be the problem?

What can I check to make sure all the modules are getting installed correctly and that xorg is using the correct parts? Tough part of debugging this is not knowing how all the parts work together and how to check that they are all in use.

Thanks,


(II) LoadModule: "dri"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions//libdri.so
(II) Module dri: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.4.0.90, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.3
(II) Loading extension XFree86-DRI
(II) LoadModule: "ati"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//ati_drv.so
(II) Module ati: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.4.0.90, module version = 6.8.191
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 2.0
(II) LoadModule: "radeon"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//radeon_drv.so
(II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.4.0.90, module version = 4.3.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 2.0

[izm99]

Thanks so much Tormod! Now I have 3D for my X1250 using radeon (ati)! Woooh. Seems stable enough.

You may want to add something like this to your script:

SS=/etc/apt/sources.list
#cp -a $SS $SS.bak

NUM=0
BAK=$SS.bak
while [ -e $BAK ]; do
	 BAK=$SS.bak
	 BAK=$BAK.$NUM
	 NUM=$((NUM+1))
done
cp -a $SS $BAK

If it runs into a hitch on the first run, it won't obliterate the original sources.list on subsequent runs.

[tormod]

I'm not seeing anything obvious in:
http://hank.org/Xorg.0.log

I can see that you didn't upgrade the xserver to 1.5... That will probably fix it.

[tormod]

You may want to add something like this to your script:

Thanks izm99, I will add a little check to not overwrite the backup.

[the_olo]

With the latest libgl1-mesa-dri 7.1.0~git20080704.e187627, I get the following error in Xorg.0.log and Xserver fails to start:

(EE) AIGLX error: dlopen of /usr/lib/dri/r200_dri.so failed (/usr/lib/dri/r200_dri.so: undefined symbol: _glapi_tls_Context)
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
(EE) AIGLX error: dlopen of /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so failed (/usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so: undefined symbol: _glapi_tls_Context)

Fatal server error:
GLX: could not load software renderer

I've read (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t...light-xgl.html) that this is probably because Mesa is built with tls (USE=nptl) but xorg-server / xgl is not.

[tormod]

With the latest libgl1-mesa-dri 7.1.0~git20080704.e187627, I get the following error in Xorg.0.log and Xserver fails to start:

Thanks for reporting this and the hint to the solution. Seems like I *cough* forgot to test this build.

It has now been fixed in new packages.

BTW, testing this, I discovered an issue with a new input policy in the xserver: mouse and keyboard doesn't work unless I add this to xorg.conf:

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option "AllowEmptyInput" "false"
EndSection

[arentoine]

Thanks for reporting this and the hint to the solution. Seems like I *cough* forgot to test this build.

It has now been fixed in new packages.

BTW, testing this, I discovered an issue with a new input policy in the xserver: mouse and keyboard doesn't work unless I add this to xorg.conf:

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option "AllowEmptyInput" "false"
EndSection

Thanks for fixing xserver, I had to revert to 1.4 over the weekend. I'm now back with 1.5 which happens to be much faster than the AMD binary driver on my RS400/Xpress 200. The updated xserver seems to have fixed the only problem I noticed which was the user switch applet that didn' work reporting xserver could'nt start.

AIGLX flies with smoother line scrolling with Firefox. F-Spot Screensaver offers better OpenGL transitions. Xv seems to be working on the Video playback side. All this with a lower reported FPS from GLXGEARS 1100 FPS compared to 1800 FPS with AMD Binary. Enabling EXA makes a big difference.

Cheers

[hobbes]

I decided to take a shot with ati-radeon.

I'm really glad to see video playback actually working, no flickering.

I can even playback some 720p movies without a/v sync problems. (Sapphire AGP X1600 pro)

But some others do. Especially those with open scenes eg. like nature shots...

glxgears hangs my system. Always.

I noticed when using multiple windows, compiz effects seems to lag.

Some random freezes while watching movies.

here is my Xorg.0.log:

http://pastebin.com/m7cfb24b8

I really want to keep this driver from now on.

PS: I just noticed that my AGP X1600 Pro is running at 4x.

[ 24.023286] Linux agpgart interface v0.102
[ 32.327080] agpgart: Detected VIA PT880 Ultra chipset
[ 32.353007] agpgart: AGP aperture is 512M @ 0x80000000
[ 49.502635] agpgart: Found an AGP 3.5 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
[ 49.502851] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode
[ 49.503086] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode
[ 69.288550] agpgart: Found an AGP 3.5 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
[ 69.288584] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode
[ 69.288693] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode


Anyone?