Mandriva 2007 and Radeon X800 Graphics Card
 

Hello forum,

I thought I would post this in hopes of helping somebody out there who wishes to install the Mandriva 2007 official download release with the AIW Radeon X800XT display AGP card. Don't choose to install the ATI proprietary drivers during the installation process for this card! Use the regular ATI drivers instead.

If you choose to use the proprietary ATI drivers, Mandriva will hang during shut down, and the KDE TV will crash the X server (assuming you have a TV card installed), and the "Display" properties in the "Configure your Desktop" will crash the X server.

But I am so glad I resolved this problem. Everything works like a charm so far.

Best regards,
Roy

Whats the secret
 

Yep I have an X800 and X refuses to load its says no device detected, I have a play around, but how did you get things going, if you don't mind letting me know I would appreciate it.

In Detail
 

Hello zubir

During the install process, right after all of the ATI components for the graphics card were automatically installed, the next window automatically popped up asking me if I wish to install an additional proprietary ATI driver for this card, saying it may take advantage of more of the card's features, and it gave me a yes and no radio button. I just simply clicked on the "no" radio button, and the installation process continued on.

After everything finished, I booted right up into Mandriva with no problems whatsoever.

I'm not really a Linux guru yet, so I just left it at that. Perhaps later, when and if they update that particular proprietary ATI driver, I may try installing it via a tarball or RPM.

While we are on the subject, I did notice that only one of the video heads for the card was configured, and shows up in the hardware window accordingly. I would really like for both monitor outputs to be detected, not just one. But I guess I can live with that.

But I would like to know about your "workaround" that you mentioned when you got the message "no device was found".

Best regards,
Roy

Thank for that, I'll will give it a try, thanks again.

I can get it to boot now but when I logout it hangs the pc and have to reset, its a pain it the ..............

Question
 

Hello zubir,

Did you do a clean install and let it reformat your partition? My workaround might only work with Mandriva 2007, perhaps not another version.

Roy

Update
 

Hello again forum,

I was wrong about the proprietary ATI Radeon fglrx being buggy when it asks if you wish to use it while doing an install of Mandriva 2007 official release. Came to find out that the driver is not buggy after all - it just wasn't being installed correctly because Mandriva 2007 itself needed some updates applied in order for this driver to install correctly. Once the updates are downloaded and applied to Mandriva 2007, the proprietary ATI driver installs correctly and works just fine.

In conclusion, if anyone is having problems with Linux, download and install the updates and chances are that will fix your problem.

Roy