scubanator87

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I have a buddy whom I converted not to many months ago pose me a question that I just didn't have a clue if it could be done.

He wanted to know if you could possibly have both a working fglrx configuration in xorg and a working ati/radeon configuration and just switch between the two.

If you wanted to play something like TC:E you could just activate the fglrx driver.

If you wanted to show off beryl/compiz with aiglx just activate the ati/radeon driver.

I know they each load their own module to the kernel but would it be possible to have both loaded and just use one or possibly tell the kernel on boot (in grub) which kernel to pick?

His original question is as follows:

"i need you to figure out how i can have one session that has flgrx enabled and one with open source driver and aigx enabled."

Findus

Please note that I don't know much about xorg.conf editing, and I am still learning Linux, so I am just posting this to try and help you along the way. This is what I thought might be possible when I read your post.

It might be a solution to write two different xorg.confs, and then switch between using them by renaming them, so that at any given point you have one xorg.conf.radeon and one xorg.conf.fglrx. You would then use one of them by renaming it to just xorg.conf, and restarting your xserver.

I don't know how efficient this is, or how well it would work, but at least it is some thoughts on the subject that may help you along.

- Delphi

scubanator87

Well i thought of that. But My experience with installing the fglrx is that it didn't really work that well cause to use the mesa based ati/redeon driver always needed an install then reboot first. Then on reboot the old drivers modules would be removed.

Would it then be possible to make a script to load or unload modules without having to reinstall each?

UhhMaybe

If YOU need to reboot YOUR system after changing the Kernel modules, then the shell scripts need to be set to the files that the system knows are Not temporary. So the shell scripts do Not need to be repeated. If the Kernel is loading the modules; one ATI module per reboot, it should work. If it were me, I'd use two Distro's in the same Linux Box.

jay73

Yes, that should be possible. You would have to switch drivers und the device section of xorg.conf (radeon to flgrx or the other way round) and then hit ctrl + alt + backspace). It's a bit inconvenient but it generally works; having a script would make it more convenient, of course.

scubanator87

Well if you were able to install 2 distros say on 2 different partitions could they use the same home dir?

And just switching the drivers in the xorg.conf then restarting the xserver wont work since i have already tried that.

jay73

Well, yes, but I wouldn't recommend it because the home directory contains some vital configuration files. Having two of the same OS most probably reduces the risk of running into conflicts but still wouldn't use a single home. What you can do as an alternative is leave home under / for both OSes and then make a separate data partition that will be shared by both. This partition can be made after installing but it can just as well be created during install: give it a mountpoint while installing the first, then use that same mountpoint while installing the second and tell the installer to preserve its contents. If you intend to use different OSes, things may get more complicated because they may assign different UIDs & GUIDs.

Btw, I'm surprised that simply restarting X didn't work. It works alright for me but maybe that's just another difference between ATI and Nvidia.

thegoofeedude

I maintain two different xorg.conf files -- one uses the "fglrx" driver, and the other uses the driver "ati". I run dual monitors, and had trouble with fglrx using the second monitor correctly. So when I want to play a game, I just copy xorg.conf.fglrx to xorg.conf and restart X. Otherwise, I copy xorg.conf.ati to xorg.conf and restart X (and use both of my monitors.)
A bit clunky, but it works. ;-)
Good luck!