Hi & thanks for reading. I have a Biostar 200V with a VIA UniChrome 2D/3D Graphics with motion compensation (KM400). I'd like to use a better driver such that glxinfo | grep direct shows Yes instead of No.

Background:
===========
1) Slack 11.0 xorg 6.9

2) lsmod | grep via:

via 40832 1
drm 70292 2 via
i2c_viapro 7828 0
i2c_core 18192 4 it87,eeprom,i2c_isa,i2c_viapro
via_rhine 21256 0
snd_via82xx 24984 0
gameport 11784 1 snd_via82xx
snd_ac97_codec 97568 1 snd_via82xx
snd_pcm 72840 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec
snd_page_alloc 8200 2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart 6912 1 snd_via82xx
mii 5248 1 via_rhine
snd 46948 11 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu40 1_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
via_agp 8192 1
agpgart 29104 2 drm,via_agp

...so via, drm appear to be good to go.

3)xorg.conf snippets:
...
Section "Device"
Identifier "Via_Integrated_Unichrome"
Driver "via"
#VideoRam 4096
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
...
# This loads the GLX module
Load "glx"
# This loads the DRI module
Load "dri"
...
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection


Issues:
=======
1) There seem to be a variety of drivers to choose from:

unichrome @ sourceforge/git
openchrome
"built-in" with xorg

...which one would you recommend? Any success stories here?

2) Is there a method to do this w/out recompiling xorg (that's a bit intimidating and I've never been down that path!)

3) I've recompiled my kernel. Anything I should look out for in that regard?

Thanks!

Use the driver "via" in xorg.conf.

I have a VIA K8M800 and sort of have it working(My chip is the least supported). The "via" driver has been in X11 since 7.0(same codebase as 6.9) so you shouldn't have any problem. Post the output of /var/log/Xorg.0.log when you have changed the driver to via.

Thanks for the response. I am using the "native" via driver per my first post and it appears in lsmod as "via".

Per your request, I just did a grep on "EE" and "WW":
rich@bairco:~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER

rich@bairco:~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep WW
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/".
(WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/".
(WW) Open ACPI failed (/proc/acpi/event) (No such file or directory)
(WW) VIA(0): Manufacturer plainly copied main PCI ids to Subsystem/Card ids.
(WW) (1600x1200,ViewSonic_A90) mode clock 202.5MHz exceeds DDC maximum 200MHz
(WW) (1600x1200,ViewSonic_A90) mode clock 229.5MHz exceeds DDC maximum 200MHz
(WW) (1792x1344,ViewSonic_A90) mode clock 204.8MHz exceeds DDC maximum 200MHz
(WW) (1856x1392,ViewSonic_A90) mode clock 218.3MHz exceeds DDC maximum 200MHz
(WW) VIA(0): [XvMC] Not supported on this chipset.

I thought this might be helpful too:

rich@bairco:~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep via
(II) LoadModule: "via"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/via_drv.so
(II) Module via: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
(II) VIA(0): [drm] loaded kernel module for "via" driver
(II) VIA(0): [drm] created "via" driver at busid "PCI:1:0:0"

Here's some additional information that I drilled down to following the DRI troubleshooting guide I found at :

http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/DriTroubleshooting:

rich@bairco:~$ export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose
rich@bairco:~$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
libGL: XF86DRIGetClientDriverName: 5.0.0 unichrome (screen 0)
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/unichrome_dri.so
libGL error: dlopen /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/unichrome_dri.so failed (/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/unichrome_dri.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
libGL error: unable to find driver: unichrome_dri.so
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: No

So it appears I'm missing unichrome_dri.so (locate fails to find it). I went to:

http://wiki.openchrome.org/tikiwiki/...inary+packages

where it appears Slack should be ok:

Granted it does say some! I use git to get the latest source and copied the Slack11 source for xorg 6.9 for the xc tree and tried to compile openchrome without any luck.

Questions:
==========
1) Should Slack have the unichrome_dri.co in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/? The obvious answer to me is Pat would have put it there is it should have!
2) It appears to be a bit of a pain to migrate from xorg 6.9 to 7.0/7.1. Has anybody compiled against the source tree provided on the Slack11 DVD? Mine fails at the xmkmf <path_to_xc> stage so I never have a proper makefile for openchrome.
3) Is there another binary (somewhere) for xorg 6.9?

Thanks & Merry Christmas!

1) yes, pat should have put it there, you sure you have all the packages for X11 installed/upgraded?
2) I have only compiled X11 once(6.8) so I couldn't be much help here, maybe some one else has.
3) not as far as I know, although there might be a package out there.

Thanks for the help. I will fiddle some more with trying to use the xorg6.9 source provided with Slack11 and compiling the openchrome download. I wonder if I downloaded a version specific to the 7.x series? I'll dig a bit deeper.

Still, if anyone has a success story compiling openchrome on Slack I'd like to hear it!