Xubuntu determining video driver

Chris H · 07-09-2008, 04:02 PM

I need to find what video driver is being used for my ati card. Usually I'd have a look in xorg.conf. However with this install of Xubuntu 8.04 the xorg.conf file doesn't seem to contain such stuff but refers to "Configured video device".

Now I need to know the driver as I have to blacklist it in acpi-support to get suspend functioning on this laptop.

Any ideas what I can do?

Had a look through the log files and the output from glxinfo and both are fuzzy.

jomen · 07-09-2008, 05:44 PM

Your question implies (to me) that you already know what driver was used by other distributions - it would simply be the same.
The driver-name "ati" should probably be sufficient and the rest will be autodetected by xorg on startup.
See the logs after trying that - but that is what you already did...

Does "lspci" not give you enough information to find out what card you have?

Takla · 07-09-2008, 05:46 PM

you can use either

Code:

lspci -k

or

Code:

lspci -v

-k will give you information about kernel drivers used by your PCI devices

-v will give you verbose (detailed) information about them. It includes the info offered by -k

Chris H · 07-10-2008, 12:37 AM

The card isn't the issue, it's the actual driver that the video card is using that I need to know.

lspci gives me

Quote:

VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Uniwill Computer Corp Unknown device 2324
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
I/O ports at c800 [size=256]
Memory at dfef0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Expansion ROM at dfec0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

Drivers in the past have been vesa, ati, fglrx, maybe mesa?

The thing is there are likely to be other things in acpi-support that I have to set and i need to get this right before I start tinkering with other stuff in there.

/var/logs/ gives an indication that it may be the ati driver but running armagetron it refers to the mesa driver.

It used to be so simple just by having a shufty in xorg.conf

Thanks for the suggestions though!

Takla · 07-10-2008, 12:52 AM

Code:

lspci -k

Note the -k

It will tell you the kernel driver in use for your device. It will also tell you which other drivers are also suitable for it.

-k

k

-

kthxbye

Chris H · 07-10-2008, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takla

Code:

lspci -k

Note the -k

It will tell you the kernel driver in use for your device. It will also tell you which other drivers are also suitable for it.

I did try that but got

Quote:

lspci: invalid option -- k

jomen · 07-10-2008, 01:09 AM

If this is not a really wiered thing - it is obviously a radeon card - and that is the name of the driver for xorg too: radeon
A non-accelerated alternative to that would be vesa.
as a comparsion - here is mine:

Code:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd P35 notebook
	Flags: bus master, fast Back2Back, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
	Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
	I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
	Memory at d0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at d0120000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
	Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
	Kernel driver in use: radeonfb

The last line is saying that the console-framebuffer-driver "radeonfb" is loaded - "vesafb" would (and does) work just as well. But that does not have anything to do with what driver is used for xorg. In xorg it its name is "radeon"

You would need some kernel-modules: agpgart + drm from the device-drivers / graphics support category too.
drm for your card
agpgart for your agp-chipset if you have such a thing.

[edit]
The "-k" option to lspci only works on version 2.6 kernels. That is what my man lspci says.
I can't imagine that Ubuntu is not using such a kernel - wiered too...

Takla · 07-10-2008, 01:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris H

I did try that but got

So use -v if your distro's version of lspci doesn't allow the -k option. You will be offered information about the kernel driver in use.

and it isn't --k, it's -k

Chris H · 07-10-2008, 01:36 AM

-k does give --k on the error report.

using -v I get

Quote:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Uniwill Computer Corp Unknown device 2324
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
I/O ports at c800 [size=256]
Memory at dfef0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Expansion ROM at dfec0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [58] AGP version 3.0
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

Almost there!

Any idea why xorg doesn't set up a full xorg.conf like it used to? This is the first distro I've used where all the settings and info aren't clearly detailed.

Chris H · 07-10-2008, 01:41 AM

grep on the /var/logs gave me

Quote:

Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//radeon_drv.so

That look promising?

glxinfo gives me

Quote:

name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
client glx vendor string: SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_allocate_memory,
GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_swap_control,
GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control,
GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync,
GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
GLX version: 1.2
GLX extensions:
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
GLX_MESA_swap_control, GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method,
GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync,
GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
OpenGL vendor string: DRI R300 Project
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R300 20060815 AGP 8x TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.3 Mesa 7.0.3-rc2
OpenGL extensions:
GL_ARB_fragment_program, GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample,
GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp,
GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map,
GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine,
GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3,
GL_MESAX_texture_float, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat,
GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix,
GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_window_pos,
GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_blend_color,
GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate,
GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint,
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_convolution, GL_EXT_copy_texture,
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters,
GL_EXT_histogram, GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_polygon_offset,
GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_EXT_secondary_color,
GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side,
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_subtexture, GL_EXT_texture, GL_EXT_texture3D,
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_add,
GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3,
GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias,
GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_object,
GL_EXT_texture_rectangle, GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_APPLE_packed_pixels,
GL_ATI_blend_equation_separate, GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3,
GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once, GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip,
GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_INGR_blend_func_separate,
GL_MESA_pack_invert, GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture, GL_MESA_window_pos,
GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_texture_rectangle,
GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_NV_vertex_program, GL_OES_read_format,
GL_SGI_color_matrix, GL_SGI_color_table, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap,
GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp, GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp,
GL_SGIS_texture_lod

Chris H · 07-10-2008, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jomen

The "-k" option to lspci only works on version 2.6 kernels. That is what my man lspci says.
I can't imagine that Ubuntu is not using such a kernel - wiered too...

uname -r gives 2.6.24-19-generic

It is a 64 bit installation, maybe that has something to do with it.

jomen · 07-10-2008, 02:27 AM

So you want to suspend to hd and the driver needs to be unloaded before it will work - is that why you want the name to be in the blacklist?
For me this works perfectly without unloading the driver - might be different for you...

xorg can work reliably without a config-file - it can autodetect everything. Mostly...

Look through Xorg.0.log

Code:

less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

and you will find what driver is being used.
You can run xorgcfg and set up a "real" config-file.

Chris H · 07-10-2008, 04:36 AM

On Ubuntu 7 and Linspire I needed to leave the driver loaded else it wouldn't fire up again after resume. As per acpi-support

# Add modules to this list to leave
them in the kernel over suspend/resume
MODULES_WHITELIST="fglrx"

The above was when I had the fglrx driver.

However, I had issues with fglrx locking up so I don't want to mess too much with my current setup and whatever driver is loaded I want to keep using. Hence needing to know so I can stop it being unloaded. If I leave the whitelist empty then my screen refuses to return after resume, just stays black with no backlight or anything.

I will check the xorg-log again but previously have only found the radeon_drv.so as posted above.

Thanks to Jomen and Takla for your help with this!

Chris H · 07-11-2008, 02:43 PM

I ended up loading the restricted ati binary driver. Once that was installed then fglrx appeared in xorg.conf. Adding fglrx to my acpi-support file means I'm now working with suspend/resume.

Previously I have issues with the fglrx driver causing hang-ups. Hopefully this won't recur on this Xubuntu 8 install.