Ubuntu and fglrx

escordeiro · 11-12-2006, 08:51 PM

Hello,

I'm trying to install XGL on my Ubuntu desktop, following this guide:
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=916

Following the first step, I've tried to install my ati card's drivers following this:
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...allation_Guide

The card is a Radeon 9600. The problem is, whenever I create the .Xsession script on my home folder to try to run xgl, there is no acceleration at all, and also no xgl-like effects.

Troubleshooting this, I've run fglrxinfo, which reveals that it hasn't actually detected my card...it's output is:

Code:

$ fglrxinfo
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (1.5 Mesa 6.5.1)

The output of dmesg | grep fglrx shows that there was an error:

Code:

$ dmesg | grep fglrx
[17179591.516000] fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[17179591.516000] [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 929 MBytes.
[17179591.516000] [fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.25.18 [May 18 2006] on minor 0
[17179608.568000] [fglrx:firegl_unlock] *ERROR* Process 4276 using kernel context 0

Process 4276 is actually Xorg:

Code:

$ ps -A | grep 4276
 4276 tty7     00:00:32 Xorg

Does anyone have a clue on how to solve this? How can I get fglrx working?

Thanks!

NosLycn · 11-15-2006, 02:22 AM

Do you have fglrx working when not attempting to use xgl? I had similar problems once before and it all had to do with my not installing those stupid ATI drivers properly.

A sometimes simpler method is to use the fglrx drivers located in the Ubuntu repositories.

Your xorg.conf, does it list fglrx as lines similar to these:

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver "fglrx"

Aye, it should and probably does.

b0uncer · 11-15-2006, 02:33 AM

I agree that it's probably ATI drivers, not XGL. First try to get the drivers installed, check glxinfo to see that DRI is actually running (and not Mesa, but your new drivers) before going to the XGL setup part.

ATI drivers are not the easiest on earth to get installed (properly), and I've heard the newest from ATI's site don't even work on all the old cards anymore. This might be bogus too but check out their release notes at ATI's site, to see which cards are actually supported. My own experience was, back when I tried XGL with Dapper (Radeon 9200SE), was that the Ubuntu-provided drivers and packages worked and I got XGL (which was horribly buggy), but if I tried to use ATI's drivers downloaded directly from their site using their installer the process of installing the driver failed.

I also tried out TV-out but it turned out impossible; I got the picture, yes, but it was all too bright (wrong gamma value) and I was unable to correct it with any of the tools provided. For this I think nVidia cards are better, I never had problems (not big at least) installing them -- anyway, the point was: do the ATI driver install cleanly (i.e. remove all old drivers first, if any), step by step, precisely as the docs tell you to.

escordeiro · 11-15-2006, 05:27 AM

Right, I agree that the problem is the ATI driver itself. Thinking back a while, I believe about a year ago I had installed the driver from the ATI website, and it might be that while trying to install the Ubuntu package for it, I get a conflict with the ATI one...so I'll try to install the ATI again and check back here.

Oh, and running fglrxinfo really showst hat the Mesa driver is being used, so it's definitely a driver problem.

Thanks for the replies!