[SOLVED] Using ATI:s driver: no 3D, no VT-switc

pingu · 05-20-2010, 04:10 AM

Graphics card is ATI Technologies Inc RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670]
After fresh install of Debian Lenny VESA was used, neiher xserver-xorg-video-radeon or radeonhd worked.
I installed ATI:s proprietary driver, after that there are 2 problems:
1) I can no longer switch to a text terminal with ctrl+alt+F# - it worked with vesa driver. There is no option "VTswitch" in xorg.conf
2) The new fglrx does not give 3D, also very bad performance - dragging windows on screen makes them stutter for instance.
Here are some messages:

Code:

dmesg:
[   25.681656] fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[   25.713619] [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 1886 MBytes.
[   25.713619] [fglrx]   vendor: 1002 device: 9490 count: 1
[   25.713619] [fglrx] ioport: bar 4, base 0xee00, size: 0x100
[   25.713619] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[   25.713619] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:00.0 to 64
[   25.717625] [fglrx] Driver built-in PAT support is enabled successfully
[   25.717625] [fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.56.4 [Dec  1 2008] with 1 minors

Code:

 fglrxinfo:
X Error of failed request:  BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  147 (ATIFGLEXTENSION)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  65 ()
  Serial number of failed request:  10
  Current serial number in output stream:  10

Code:

 cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(EE) fglrx(0): Hasn't establisted DRM connection
(EE) fglrx(0): Hasn't establisted DRM connection
(EE) fglrx(0): atiddxDriScreenInit failed, GPS not been initialized.
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed!                  *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO)             *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available                *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *

(EE) fglrx(0): XMM failed to open CMMQS connection.

lsmod shows that fglrx is loaded

xorg.conf was created by the installer, recreating with "aticonfig --initial" results in the exact same.
Here is /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

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

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Configured Mouse"
	Driver      "mouse"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Default Screen"
	Monitor    "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

I've googled a lot and found lots of people with same problems. No answer though...
(This is daugter's computer, I installed the exact same version of ATI:s driver on my computer and it works just fine.)

Simon Bridge · 05-20-2010, 06:23 AM

How did you install fglrx?

Have you seen:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=48145

Curiously - Radeon and RadeonHD are both supposed to support this card.
http://www.x.org/wiki/radeon
... so really need to know in what way these drivers did not work to troubleshoot them.

pingu · 05-20-2010, 08:07 AM

I installed it by downloading & running ATI:s installer "ati-driver-installer-10-4-x86.x86_64.run"

I've seen that thread, also a bunch of other similar.
They seem to have a similar problem but no solution. One thing is different though: most people have problems because mesa is used, which obviously doesn't work with fglrx.
My problem is there's no 3D-driver at all, OpenGL-section in CatalystControlCenter is empty.

As to radeon & radeonhd driver, message when trying to use them is

Code:

(EE) No devices detected
Fatal error
No screens found

I've tried with various versions of xorg.conf, starting with ati:s but changing driver.
Changing driver to "vesa" works though (but screen is not nice)
And when setup by the system, xorg.conf beeing empty, vesa is used not any radeon-driver.

(Edit) This computer is an amd64 w 2GB ram, graphics card is pci-express.
The card runs excellent in Windows so no hardware defect.

pingu · 05-20-2010, 08:31 AM

Reading through the log again, found these informations:

Code:

(II) "dri" will be loaded by default.
...........
(II) LoadModule: "dri"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions//libdri.so
(II) Module dri: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
	compiled for 7.1.0, module version = 1.0.0
	ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.3
(II) Loading extension XFree86-DRI
.........
(WW) fglrx(0): Textured Video not supported without DRI enabled.
............
(II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable

Seems strange, dri is loaded but not enabled?

adamk75 · 05-20-2010, 03:34 PM

Quote:

[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.56.4 [Dec 1 2008] with 1 minors

That is definitely not fglrx 10.4, which you said you downloaded and installed from the AMD website. That's a much older version. Which means you are probably using one version of the fglrx Xorg driver and another version of the fglrx drm. That will not work. Remove fglrx entirely, including the old kernel module, and then reinstall it. And then reboot, just to make sure the new fglrx kernel module is loaded.

Adam

Simon Bridge · 05-23-2010, 08:42 AM

Ditto adamk75;
You can get into trouble mixing drivers.
You should be using the debian binary package from your repos, not the amd supplied one, it is better packaged for your distribution so these things don't happen. You should have been using the pre-installed radeon driver in your kernel before that.

What went wrong using the radeon driver?

adamk75 · 05-23-2010, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Bridge

Ditto adamk75;
You can get into trouble mixing drivers.
You should be using the debian binary package from your repos, not the amd supplied one, it is better packaged for your distribution so these things don't happen. You should have been using the pre-installed radeon driver in your kernel before that.

What went wrong using the radeon driver?

Lenny is probably too old to properly support newer HD cards with the open source drivers.

I really wish Lenny would die a slow painful death.

Simon Bridge · 05-23-2010, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Lenny is probably too old to properly support newer HD cards with the open source drivers.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/

Code:

Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.4 was released January 30th, 2010.

... though 5.0 was last year, and it was in development for almost two years before that.

Its not clear how OP got the radeon driver (or radeonHD). If it was a matter of doing a windows-style: "lets get the driver off the website and plug it in" then that would explain the symptoms - neither kernel nor X would have been up to it. OTOH: if they were the ones that came with lenny, and/or updated from the repos, then what's the problem?

Quote:

Originally Posted by OP

fresh install of Debian Lenny VESA

... so, presumably the first-boot was with the vesa driver. So how was the radeon driver enabled and tested?

Whatever - I'll agree that OP wants squeeze.

adamk75 · 05-23-2010, 03:11 PM

Lenny uses X server 1.4.*, and the Xorg components from the same time frame. Which means that even if 2D was supported, it's almost certainly without any 2D or 3D acceleration :-)

Adam

Shadow_7 · 05-23-2010, 03:58 PM

Assuming you did a distro specific install.

# dpkg-divert --list

Normally /usr/lib/fglrx/... version of libGL.so.* stuff for ATI's variant. And it doesn't overwrite the /usr/lib/libGL.so version that X loads by default.

glxinfo should make it obvious which is being used.

$ glxinfo | grep -i "vend"

If MESA is the primary hit, you're not using ATI's acceleration / proprietary driver.

# modinfo fglrx

And make sure that you are using the module that you thought you were using. IIRC, the distro specific install just puts a tarball for the fglrx module in /usr/src/. Which doesn't build and install it. Or I could be wrong.

business_kid · 05-24-2010, 05:42 AM

I have got the OSS ati stuff running recently. At that time that I got advice, only one distro was up to date enough to run the kit. Mesa, xorg-server, and radeon drivers are all going forward together and he would need a very recent system. The fglrx drivers are developed on the same boxes. Given the way Debian stays off the bleeding edge, debian users will be waiting a year for this stuff.

Simon Bridge · 05-25-2010, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Lenny uses X server 1.4.*, and the Xorg components from the same time frame. Which means that even if 2D was supported, it's almost certainly without any 2D or 3D acceleration :-)

This is why I answer these things - I learn stuff. Thanks.

business_kid · 05-26-2010, 03:34 AM

I have the stuff running: xorg-server-1.7.7, libva-0.31, pixman-0.16.6, xf86-video-ati-6.9.0, mesa git (7.9 devel), kernel2.6.33.2 - those sort of versions are better. I may actually have a version off the minimum in some cases there, but not libva or pixman, or the xf86-video-ati.

pingu · 05-26-2010, 06:35 AM

OK, it's been a while but problem is now solved!

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk75

Code:

[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.56.4 [Dec 1 2008] with 1 minors

That is definitely not fglrx 10.4, which you said you downloaded and installed from the AMD website.

You're so right, Mr Sharp-eye!

How did this happen? Probably because this is my daughters computer, she installed Debian and called for me when 3D didn't work.
I guess she installed some driver and I installed another - not checking exactly what was already installed...

I sent her your answer, she called me yesterday evening to tell that after removing all fglrx-stuff and reinstalling ATI:s driver it now works fine.

The radeon & radeonhd driver never worked though, I tried them earlier on her computer w fresh install of both Mint & Ubuntu but no success. I think they simply don't support Radeon HD 4670.

Thanks all for your help!

adamk75 · 05-26-2010, 06:57 AM

radeon and radeonhd both most certainly support the HD4670. Both with accelerated 2D and (if the kernel and Mesa are new enough) accelerated 3D.

Adam