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Video Types
Hi all ,
Was not sure exactly where to post this , it is not so much a problem as some advise needed please . I am also very new to the Linux in all forms . I am not computer illiterate , just Linux illiterate ( smile ) . By way of explanation first: I am running kanotix-VMware-XP with an ATI 9800 video card . The reason for this is I have some high end graphics programs that will not run in Linux Distro's . My wish is to do as much as possible in Kanotix and the rest as required in VMware-XP . I have been reading around the forums about kdm ( I think it is ) , X , and xorg . I have read so much now that I have read myself into confusion . My system runs in kdm and not X , it says it can not start X because it is not the default . I would like to utilise my card to its full potential , or as much as possible , because of the work I do . Question: What is the main difference between these ? , condensed version would be fine ( grin ) , Which one would be the best to use with my card ? , or is the difference so slight that there is no point in persuing this further ? Any help would be greatly appreciated . D.A |
Hi D,
kdm is a display manager: it starts X for you, and takes care of the login process. X (or X-Windows) is provided by either XFree86 or Xorg. X does the actual display work. But wait .... there's more! Now you have to get your head around "Window Managers" and "Desktop Environments"!!! (helps to have 2 heads1 ;)) but that can wait until later. Hope that helps ... Oh ... yeah ... "can't start ... not default" ??? more input, please? :) What happens if you do "/etc/init.d/kdm restart" as root? M. |
Hi M ,
Thanks for that , understand what you say there . I am just looking for the most out of my card because I do a lot of graphical work on a 19 or 21" monitor , this at the moment is on the 19 , and in full screen 1280x1024 , when you scroll , there is a little lag there , but still quite workable , no problems . But if I can get the full usage out of my card , why not ? . But if this is the best I get , well that is fine also . It still amazes me how well it all works anyway . XP in VMware works just about as good if not better in some cases than native XP , untill you hit the graphics , and this is one of the main areas that Linux per-se falls down very badly , with video and hardware drivers . From what I have found it is working on Xfree86 , I found that listed there some where as running , so I would say that it is working fine , as it should . I have been banging around in Kanotix , or Debein , or what ever you want to call it for about a week now , getting the feel of it . Multi desktops , multi user etc , etc , good stuff . I do not have to dual boot . Boot up kanotix , do what ever , then double click the icon for VMware , one click on a button and XP comes out of hibernation , and that only takes six to eight seconds ( I timed it several times ) , so for the matter about ten seconds I am in XP working , exactly where I left off last time , but wait , there is much more , now to come back to Kanotix , without hibernating , it is just ctrl-alt and one mouse click , and wallah , back to Kanotix , VMware-XP is idling on the tool bar untill required again . For example , I set Kanotix to do a large download , while I tootled off into XP to do other work . I mean , I ask you , as that a dream setup or what ? . For me it is . Oh ... yeah ... "can't start ... not default" ??? more input, please? :) What happens if you do "/etc/init.d/kdm restart" as root? Answer : a B.S.O.D ( B for black ) , and the command prompt , not knowing the command to return to the desktop , the good old reset button ( smile ) . I am still pretty certain that it is working fine though , tried to pause the load screen , but some how the pause key deas not seem to pause it . Any other way i can get you further information on this ? Have a good one D.A |
Hi D.
Check out CTRL+ALT+Fn For performance make sure drivers are installed, and see: http://www.rage3d.com/content/articles/atilinuxhowto/ http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/linux_8.14.13.html https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...asp?deptID=894 To see what's going on with X, check out /var/log/XFree86.0.log Later! M. |
Hi M ,
Check out CTRL+ALT+Fn : What is Fn ? Fn to me is usualy Funtion Key , which one ? ( smile ) , or I am a little brain dead today ( smile ) . Will check out the links also . H.A.G.O D.A |
Try all of them :) ... you'll get the idea.
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Damnit M ,
that's Russian roulette with all cylinders loaded ( grin ) . Ok , I will play then . Some info from the XFree86.1 log file . There is one Shxt load of information in those log files , if you know what you are looking at ( smile ) . (II) LoadModule: "ddc" (II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libddc.a (II) Module ddc: vendor="The XFree86 Project" compiled for 4.3.0.1, module version = 1.0.0 ABI class: XFree86 Video Driver, version 0.6 So I guess by this it is running XFree86 . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Some more snipets of info ATI driver running , and it recognises my card . (II) ATI: ATI driver (version 6.5.5) for chipsets: ati, ativga (II) Primary Device is: PCI 02:00:0 (--) Assigning device section with no busID to primary device (WW) RADEON: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:2:0:1) found (--) Chipset ATI Radeon 9800SE AH (AGP) found ----------------------------------------------------------------------- After all that I am a bit lost ( smile ) , understand some . But it seems that I am running on XFree86 , with ATI driver installed , and recognising my card . Had a look at those threads for updating the driver , not sure if it is needed , but I think I will give that a miss for the time being untill I gain some more knowledge on all this , convert the package , re-compile and so on . I am glad that I have ATI and not Nvidea , have read where they are a bigger problem ( smile ) . I think I will go and play with my Fn keys now ( smile ) . H.A.G.O D.A |
Quote:
If you edit your XF86Config file: #vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 you _should_ notice a device section, use Section "Device" to search mine, using the *cough* nvidia solution, reads: Section "Device" Identifier "nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 440 AGP 8x]" # Driver "nv" Driver "nvidia" EndSection In your case I'm guessing it should be either 'ati' or 'ativga' instead of 'nvidia'. Your warning suggests that your device section contains a driver that doesn't match your card. Note that your Section "Screen" should contain a device line refering to the declared device above. eg. Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 440 AGP 8x]" Monitor "Generic Monitor" DefaultDepth 24 ... M. PS. I very much doubt you will already have the nice&pretty ATI drivers installed. Make sure you get them from ATI and build them! :) |
It is correct that KDM is a display manager, but KDM does not start X. X is already loaded when KDM loads up. KDM is a login manager that works in GUI that handles the desire desktop manager or window manager to load for the user.
It is false that ATI is easier to install than nVidia. ATI takes more work to install than nVidia. People that can not install nVidia does not have the kernel source or kernel headers installed, does not have a C and C++ compiler, or does not know how to edit a file to add a line or two. Install nVidia modules (drivers) is very straight forward. I suggest either buying a nVidia card or wait a few months before installing the real ATI software. Do not hit the reset, because Linux is very picky with filesystems. Hopefully you are using a journaled filesystem that minimizes data corruption when doing a hard reset. Use either halt, reboot, or shutdown -t now. Also CTL+ALT+DELETE will also do the same in Windows which is reboot. |
Hi M ,
Did the ctrl-alt-fn thing , that was fun ( smile ) . ------------------------------------------------------------ From the config file : Section "Device" ### Available Driver options are:- # sw_cursor is needed for some ati and radeon cards #Option "sw_cursor" #Option "hw_cursor" #Option "NoAccel" #Option "ShowCache" #Option "ShadowFB" #Option "UseFBDev" #Option "Rotate" Identifier "Card0" # The following line is auto-generated by KNOPPIX mkxf86config Driver "fglrx" Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no" Option "VideoOverlay" "on" Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off" VendorName "All" BoardName "All" # BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Card0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultColorDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 1 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 4 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 32 Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection ------------------------------------------------------ As you can see , none of what you suggest is there . I am sure there is no ATI in there . Get them from ATI and build them ? , forget that at the moment , would not have a clue anymore , it has been a longgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg time since I did , get this , fetch that , unpack it , compile it , re-pack it , and hope it works ( smile ) . H.A.G.O D.A |
Hi there Electro ,
Thanks for the reply and the information . On the video cards , ATI is what I have , and I do not intend to buy a NVidea , nothing against them at all ( sorry M ) , a good card . If installing drivers is such a pain in A all the time , I guess I should find a Distro that it is not , if that is ever possible . Do you know of any ? , and not Linspire . Ahh , ooops , did a hard boot a couple of times , still seems to be holding together though ( smile ) , does that come under the heading of ' Abuse ' ( smile ) , well I guess you could say that I am giving it a good test then ( smile ) . The good old C-A-D works , thats good to know . Actualy when I installed it , I just went along with the suggestions and the defaults at the time . For the file system , I think it is ' reisifer ' some thing or other . H.A.G.O D.A |
I _would_ suggest using bright & shiny drivers from ATI,
however, in the meantime, try: man radeon ;) M. ps. It's not that I like nV... that's just what I've got works OK for me using modules-assistant |
Hi M ,
Did the man radeon thing , it gave me information , sorry , but now what fo I do with it ??? , a bit like the dog that caught the car . M , don't get me wrong here , I still do like the NVidea cards , they are a good card , just that their high end cards are toasters now , and the ATI out performs them and runs a lot cooler . As for getting the ATI drivers , downloading no problem , as for the rest of it , forget it at this time . I think I wil have to find a ' Distro ' that does not have all this fooling around just to get a driver on there . I am now seriously thinking about ditching Linux ' Distro's ' . H.A.G.O D.A |
ATI video cards perform the worst in Linux. OpenGL takes a huge toll on the GPU than DirectX. All the in benchmarks are DirectX so the tests are not fair. Anandtech wrote a benchmark tool for Linux and they benchmark ATI and nVidia cards. nVidia beats all ATI cards. I like ATI cards because their video graphics quality outperforms nVidia but nVidia is the easiest to install and to setup for dual monitor or TV output. You can use ATI card that you have, but you probably may want to look into the GeForce7 series from nVidia.
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Getting OT ppl?
D., don't give up yet ... some things in Linux have to be learnt the hard way... and this one isn't one of them! By doing 'man radeon' you should have noticed a line saying Driver "radeon" By using an editor such as vi, you open up your XF86Config-4 file, arrow-key down to the line which currently says Driver "fglrx" Delete fglrx with DEL, press INSERT and type radeon To save and exit: ESC:wq (yes that's 4 keys) Now, as far as the 'getting it going' issue goes: Downloading, compiling and installing drivers for 'special' hardware should not be a big deal. Once you are comfortable with the concepts involved, you will probably find that someone else has already been there and developed a tool to assist you. xdebconfigurator and modules-assistant being excellent examples. Telling you to use these at the outset might seem like a good idea at first, but when something goes wrong .... hmmm .... let's say it's unlikely you'll get much help because you haven't helped yourself. Anyway, once you've edited your XF86Config-4 just try /etc/init.d/kdm restart and see what happens. If you're lucky all will go well. If not, examine your X log again and look for warnings and errors. You may need to #modprobe radeon or something, but that sort of detail is probably left for someone who actually knows anything about ATI and Linux :) Good luck D. |
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