Hola

I am trying to enable desktop effects but I cant. I get a white screen then it goes back to previous setting after a while. Im guessing I need to install drivers for my graphics card? Am I right?

I have a X1950 Pro and have downloaded the X1900 series drivers from ATIs site, but how do I install them?

Thanks.

EDIT: The max resolution I can get now is 1280x1024 but my monitor can go up to 1680x1050, so if I install the drivers can I change the res to a higher one?

EDIT2: Under the hardware device manager it doesnt know my card. It says ATI next to vendor, but for device it says unknown. Also, if i type lspci I get '06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 7280'

I dont know if any of this is needed Im just trying to give as much info as possible.

Buenas,

I have the same card and the same problems (that's how I ended up here). I'm afraid there is no desktop effects until Amd fulfills its promises on the matter, that is, until they reveal critic documentation on their newest cards (they have already revealed it partially) and/or develop the new propietary drivers for linux they are supposed to be working on right now.

By the way, are you talking about the "ati-driver-installer-8.40.4-x86.x86_64.run" package? I have just downloaded it, but I don't know how to install a .run file, Anyway, have you tried with envy or other scripts to install the drivers automatically (automatix, easyubuntu, it seems that I still cannot post URLs sory)? I'm with the beta of Ubuntu 7.10 right now, so I'm not sure if I should use them.

Finally, about the resolution issue (do you have an LG204WT too?) open /etc/X11/xorg.conf and look for the "Screen" section, you just have to write all the resolutions that your screen can bear in the same format and save the file. Reboot the graphics server (did I say it right?) and voila.

EDIT: I've search for the situation on ati drivers and, how do you know? there are already linux drivers that support AIGLX (yes, beryl and compiz for everyone) since mid-September: the 8.41 drivers. For some reason, the drivers you get from ati are the 8.40, o_O, but you can get them in softpedia. It's another .run file so I still have no idea what to do with it,

softpedia works well.

Hey, I have somewhat of the same problem because I am new with linux too. I make this really simple to avoid confusion so sorry if it is too basic. But I do know how to execute a .run file. What you need to do is go into the directory where the .run driver is (or just put the driver in your home folder). Then right click on the driver and go to properties>permissions>check the box that says "Allow executing file as program. Then you open terminal and say "./ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run" or whatever your driver's name is. If it does not run using that type "sudo ./ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run" in terminal. The problem I have is installing it on specifically Ubuntu/7.10. If you don't have the versions they list you need to type "sudo ./ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run --listpkg" and choose your package by saying "sudo ./ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg The folder/Your version" For instance, for me it would be Ubunutu/7.10. Be careful though about typing the folder and version, it is case sensitive, so the computer reads "U" in Ubuntu differently than "u" in ubuntu. So you need to capitalize the first folder. but for some reason I have problems later in the installation:

cp: cannot stat `./usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri': No such file or directory
dh_install: command returned error code 256
make: *** [binary] Error 1

But I'm pretty sure it should work fine if you don't have ubuntu.

Hope that helped,

James