Slack 10-current, 2.6.9 kernel, and ATI 9600XT
 

Been fighting with this video card all day, and yes, I've followed the various threads on installing ATI drivers to be found here on LXQ and elsewhere.

Hardware: ASUS P4P800-VM motherboard, Intel 865G chipset. 1GB DDR 400 Ram, 40GB IDE HD.

Software: Slack 10, updated as of today with -current. Stock Slackware 2.6.9 Kernel. No other packages installed with the exception of swaret 1.6.2 and Firefox 1.0 (final). Gnome apps such as Galeon, Epiphany, gnumeric, etc not installed. X apps such as netscape, mozilla, gaim, etc not installed. Everything works as it should.

Base system to allow choice of applications.

Thank Bog for Norton Ghost. I set up the "base" as described above, and pulled an image to my server, so if something went wildly awry, I could roll back to "base" in 6 minutes rather than the two-plus hours to install slack & current.

ANYWAY, using the instructions found here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&highlight=ati
to install ATI's latest & greatest, 3.14.6

I install the driver, absolutely no error. I enable POSIX shared memory as required by the driver:
http://ati.com/support/infobase/4687.html

Again, no errors.

Reboot, and check that POSIX sharted mem is working, good. All seems OK.

Login as root, startx, Gnome starts up fine. Seems faster than normal. Decide to check out GLXGEARS, and I'm met with instant hard-freeze. Can't dump out of X, or switch to another session. Need to reset.

OK, reset, startx again as root, this time I check out a few applications that all seem to work. Decide to glxgears again. Hard-freeze. Reset, log in as root, adduser, and then logout/login as that user. Startx. run a few apps at random. glxgears again freezes machine.

Whenever I do *ANYTHING* that even touches 3-d acceleration, the machine goes into a hard-freeze.

check out /var/log/Xorg.0.log and there are *no* errors (EE). The only Warnings I get are:
(WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/".
(WW) Open APM failed (/dev/apm_bios) (No such file or directory)
(WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found
(WW) fglrx(0): could not detect XFree86 version (query_status=-3)

That third warning is the one that concerns me, as just above it in the log is:
============================================
(II) FireGL8700/8800: Driver for chipset: ATI RV250 Id (R9000),
ATI RV250 Ie (R9000), ATI RV250 If (R9000), ATI RV250 Ig (R9000),
ATI RV250 Ld (M9), ATI RV250 Le (M9), ATI RV250 Lf (M9),
ATI RV250 Lg (M9), ATI RV280 5960 (R9200 PRO),
ATI RV280 Ya (R9200LE), ATI RV250SE Yd (R9200SE),
ATI RV250 5C61 (M9+), ATI RV250 5C63 (M9+), ATI R200 QH (R8500),
ATI R200 QL (R8500), ATI R200 QM (R9100), ATI R200 QT (R8500),
ATI R200 QU (R9100), ATI R200 BB (R8500), ATI RV350 AP (R9600),
ATI RV350SE AQ (R9600SE), ATI RV350 AR (R9600 PRO),
ATI RV350 NP (M10), ATI R300 AD (R9500), ATI R300 AE (R9500),
ATI R300 AF (R9500), ATI R300 AG (Fire GL Z1/X1),
ATI R300 ND (R9700 PRO), ATI R300 NE (R9700/R9500 PRO),
ATI R300 NF (R9600 TX), ATI R300 NG (Fire GL X1),
ATI R350SE AH (R9800SE), ATI R350 AK (Fire GL unknown),
ATI RV350 AS (Fire GL T2), ATI RV350 AT (Fire GL T2),
ATI RV350 AU (Fire GL T2), ATI RV350 AV (Fire GL T2),
ATI RV350 AW (Fire GL T2), ATI R350 NH (R9800),
ATI R350LE NI (R9800LE), ATI R350 NJ (R9800),
ATI R350 NK (Fire GL X2), ATI RV350 NT (WS/M10), ATI RV370 5B60,
ATI RV370 5B61, ATI RV370 5B62, ATI RV370 5B63, ATI RV370 5B64,
ATI RV370 5B66, ATI RV370 5B67, ATI RV370 5B70, ATI RV370 5B71,
ATI RV370 5B72, ATI RV370 5B73, ATI RV370 5460, ATI RV370 5461,
ATI RV370 5462, ATI RV370 5463, ATI RV370 5464, ATI RV370 5465,
ATI RV370 5466, ATI RV370 5467, ATI RV370 5470, ATI RV370 5471,
ATI RV370 5472, ATI RV370 5473, ATI RV380 AP, ATI RV380 AQ,
ATI RV380 AR, ATI RV380 AS, ATI RV380 AT, ATI RV380 AU, ATI RV380 AV,
ATI RV380 AW, ATI RV380 AP2, ATI RV380 AQ2, ATI RV380 AR2,
ATI RV380 AS2, ATI RV380 NP, ATI RV380 NQ, ATI RV380 NR,
ATI RV380 NS, ATI RV380 NT, ATI RV380 NU, ATI RV380 NV, ATI RV380 NW,
ATI RV380 NP2, ATI RV380 NQ2, ATI RV380 NR2, ATI RV380 NS2,
ATI R420 JH, ATI R420 JI, ATI R420 JJ, ATI R420 JK, ATI R420 JL,
ATI R420 JM, ATI R420 JN, ATI R420 JP, ATI R423 UH, ATI R423 UI,
ATI R423 UJ, ATI R423 UK, ATI R423 UL, ATI R423 UM, ATI R423 ]W,
ATI R423 UP, ATI R423 UQ, ATI R423 UR, ATI R423 UT, ATI R423 ]H,
ATI R423 ]I, ATI RV410 VJ, ATI RV410 VK, ATI RV410 VL, ATI RV410 VM,
ATI RV410 ^H, ATI RV410 ^I, ATI RV410 ^J, ATI RV410 ^K, ATI RV410 ^L,
ATI RV410 ^M, ATI RV410 ^O, ATI RV410 VR, ATI RV410 VS, ATI RV410 ^R,
ATI RV410 ^S, ATI RV410 ^U, ATI RS300 IGP, ATI RS350 IGP,
ATI RS300M IGP
================================================
Now, the ATI 9600XT uses a RV360 chip rather than the RV350 chip that all the other 9600's (LE, Pro, etc...) use. Note that the 360 is not listed.

lspci sees the card as:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] (Secondary)

again. not quite the right chip.

Am I chasing up the wrong tree here? Advice from anyone? Issues with the Kernel possibly? (I know Patrick has just about everything enabled in his generic/test kernels)

(Maybe tomorrow, I'll try sticking in the 9600PRO from my other machine (known good) with an older ATI driver and see what happens.)

When you compiled the kernel, did you make sure you compiled agpgart into the kernel, it is listed in the character devices area, also did you compile in agp in the same area for your chipset? Then make sure you compile in mtrr in the processor area. Now also make sure you disable completely DRM(which is XFree86dri support) in the character devices section, and kernel debugging in the kernel hacking section. The ATI drivers have their own dri in them, if you have it compiled in the kernel you are certanly asking for troubles with 3D.
I once had it working myself, but recently redid my whole system. All the above was taken from here
http://www.rage3d.com/content/articles/atilinuxhowto/
The best ATI how-to IMO, along with ATI's own how-to

Slovak-
Thanks for your quick reply. I'll try the steps you've outlined tonight and see if it all works.
Funny thing is, that I've never had to recompile the kernel in the past to get ATI drivers to work...I've always used the "generic" kernels that Patick puts up. But then again this is my first foray into installing any special hardware into the 2.6 kernels.
I'll report back my findings; hopefully this will help others also.

da reazon
 

Unfortunately even latest ATI binary (*sigh* :() drivers are incompatible with xorg 6.8.x you've probably upgraded to.
Downgrade to xorg 6.7 and enjoy the ride :jawa:

Btw. Doom III runs nice with new 3.14.6 drivers. At last ...

Hello, everybody.

I had the same problem. Here is a link to where you can find the answers you need: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=radeon

Also, if you're still having trouble check that your kernel has the options mentioned in this url set correctly: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=radeon

Let us know if you still have problems.

--Dane

Dunric-

Thanks for the tip. I downgraded to xorg 6.7 and installed the ati 3.14 drivers. Everything works as it should. (Don't forget the POSIX memory install, http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4687.html)

Maybe I'll GHOST this current set-up and go back to slack-10-current and give a recompile a try and see if it'll work w/ xorg 6.8. I'll need to do this someday anyway when I get around to installing win4lin on this box. Maybe this weekend. I'll try your tips then, slovak.

Again, thanks. I'll post back.

Congrats on getting it working :-) Video cards in Linux can be a real bear sometimes.

Have a good one.

--Dane