Radeon 7200 (aka Radeon 100QD) and MythTV
 

Hi guys,

I've spent about the last week trying to get drivers for this video card working on the version of linux that i'm using. I found the "GATOS" Drivers (google for GATOS, cant post url yet) and tried to install them as ubuntu used only the default VEGA drivers. Unfortunately I was using X.org and Ubuntu 7.10 (kernel 2.4). Cue me installing Xfree86 and realizing that I needed 2.4 kernel to begin with.

Now I've installed Redhat 7.3 (kernel 2.4) and it has problems compiling drivers for my 3com wireless card (3com 3c905c) but it seems my display is finally out of low-resolution mode.

What I'm really looking for is a little help with someone who's gone through this before that might be able to get me pointed in the right direction.

What distro should I use?
Did the GATOS drivers help you with TV-in?
Is what I want to do even possible?

Please help,
migm

Radeon 7200 is an R100 chipset, supported by the "radeon" driver in the kernel. This is an open source driver included in Ubuntu 7.10 (and, indeed, all linuxes).

Ubuntu uses a 2.6 kernel by default, not 2.4 as specified (typo?). If your /etc/X11/xorg.conf has the vesa driver, just edit that to say "radeon". (Assumes that "VEGA" is a typo for "vesa" and not "VGA".)

Same with RH7.2 - which is extreme legacy: do not use. You will have problems compiling things on this platform as it is extremely old and out of date.

GATOS: General ATI TV and Overlay Software suite for capturing video. Note: this is a set of application and utility programs, not drivers.

Go back to Ubuntu - enable the radeon driver.
Install gatos with:

sudo apt-get install gatos

From the man page, dosn't look like you actually need MythTV with this.

Ref:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list...5759?page=last
... you as well I guess.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/
... Mythbuntu - ubuntu distro set up with everything mythtv related.

post Deleted.

Simon, thank you for your exceptionally clear reply.

1)Yes that was a typo I did mean to say 2.6 and vesa. Never type while having to pee and being new to linux drivers
2) Under Ubuntu I was never able to get out of VESA mode even when selecting the radeon driver from the xorg autoconfig -- then again I never tried editing the .conf file directly.

I will give this a shot tomorrow and report back either way.

Cheers!
Migm

edit: GATOS doesn't seem to have quite the functionality of MythTV, hence why I wanted to install it.. I want to be able to encode, store for later and also stream.

I attempted your recommendations and was met again with a low resolution screen. This is where I was before before I uninstall Ubuntu -- where do I go from here?

Everytime I boot it seems to load the default VESA drivers and default failsafe monitor despite my xorg.conf settings.

Here's my xorg.conf:



Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "eraser"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R100 QD [Radeon 7200]"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Dell 1702FP"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 31-81
VertRefresh 56-76
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R100 QD [Radeon 7200]"
Monitor "Dell 1702FP"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1280x1024" "1280x768" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

It shouldn't boot to failesafe without giving you a message about it.

xorg.conf edit required: make the monitor and screen sections look like below, and add the modules section.

Thanks for you reply. Bit of an update, I am able to get the system booted in 1280x1024 mode but it seems to be stuck in 8 bit color mode despite having set a default depth in both screen and display subsections. I believe there may be a bug in the latest ati driver and I'll be reverting back to ati_6_6_3 to see if that might help..