I just install Slackware 12.2 on my brother in laws Sony Vaio and it installed great, apart from the graphics driver. Anyone got any experience of an ati radeon mobility 9200 with Slackware 12.2, basically what to download and install.

samac

There is the free 'radeon' driver in slackware

Adjust /etc/X11/xorg.conf

OR

ATI provides the fglrx driver...see their website...download and run the install script as root from CLI

My apologies I didn't give you all the information.

I have already tried the radeon driver and this didn't work. When I was looking on the ATI site they say they have stopped supporting the radeon mobility 9200. So should I just download the last supported fglrx driver or can I just download the latest driver.

samac

RV280, RS350 are all supported by 'radeon'.

See man radeon

...or install an older version of fglrx

Thanks, I will have a look at the man page. I am just confused by the fact that xorgsetup detected the card and wrote the xorg.conf correctly but X could not start properly. Perhaps it is something to do with the Vaio laptop.

samac

try as root:
then try to startx...

Googling this problem suggests that this is a widespread problem.

The last version of fglrx that supports the radeon mobility 9200 only supports Xfree86 rather than xorg, and it appears that the latest versions of radeon support the 9200 but not the mobility 9200. The X server crashes the laptop in both Slackware 12.1 and 12.2, modprobe radeon does not help.

Does anyone have a working xorg.conf for the ATI Radeon mobility 9200 ?

samac

When you try to startx what happens? Does it go blank, print an error msg or something in between? Its hard to help when you explain your problem in such a vague manner.

As mentioned in a previous thread the X server crashes the laptop. I am sorry that this is vague but as the screen is blank, the mouse and the keyboard do not respond and no error message is left in /var/log/Xorg.0.log it is difficult to be more specific.

I did all of the things that have been mentioned above before starting this thread and more besides. The laptop works with a vesa driver, but that of course does not allow for direct rendering of 3D.

Ideally I need to find out if anyone has got this graphics card working and what their configuration is, I can find no up to date xorg.conf on the web for this specific card.

Also two of the most hardware friendly distributions Ubuntu and Mandriva either fail to install the correct driver or indeed fail to install.

I hope you understand why I have been so vague, when I have so little to go on.

samac

Get a proper xorg.conf file with a slightly older live cd.
Something like:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "radeon-Screen-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "v4l"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "altwin:meta_win"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "radeon-Monitor-0"
VendorName ""
ModelName ""
HorizSync 30.0 - 70.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Gamma 1
ModeLine <put them here>
EndSection

Section "Device"

# Option "SubPixelOrder" "NONE"
# Option "BusType" "PCIE"
# Option "DisplayPriority" "HIGH"
Identifier "Radeon-"
Driver "radeon"
BoardName "Radeon 9200"
#Option "AccelDFS" "on"
#Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
#Option "DRI" "on"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "radeon-Screen-0"
Device "Radeon-9200"
Monitor "radeon-Monitor-0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480"
#(Should correspond to modelines)
EndSubSection
EndSection

#Try uncommenting below

#Section "DRI"
# Group 0
# Mode 0666
#EndSection
#Section "ServerLayout"
# "AutoAddDevices" "off"
#EndSection

#Section "ServerFlags"
#EndSection

Thanks amani

Unfortunately he has gone back home after his holiday, but I will email him the information, and hopefully he will stick with it.

samac