I bought and installed an ATI 9600 AIW (lspci id: RV350 AP) and I am using it with a VIA P4VM800 motherboard. But on all Mandriva 2006, 2005, Ubuntu 5.10, and Fedora Core 4 I can't seem to get the proprietary driver to work. In all cases the driver installed and I did enable shared POISX memory but still it doesn't seem to work. Here is my fglrxinfo:

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 6.2.1)

I don't want to think that this card only seems to work on Windows. Many people say they have got it work, but I don't know why this is an issue for me.

Everything seems to look fine in the Xorg.0.log except for these

(WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found

(WW) fglrx(0): Bad V_BIOS checksum

(WW) fglrx(0): Specified desktop setup not supported: 8

(EE) fglrx(0): [agp] unable to acquire AGP, error "xf86_ENODEV"
(EE) fglrx(0): cannot init AGP

(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed! *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *

The AGP issue is familiar because I have seen it on Mandriva 2006.

Any ideas anyone?

Doesnt seem like you've installed the driver properly.
Have you built the module in /lib/modules/fglrx/
?

And you need the module agpgart.

I have installed it propertly because if there was an error it would say so. It seems like the problem could be because AGPGART is not loading like it should. ATI says that this known issue can be worked around by having Config_AGP=y on the kernel or making sure that the agpgart module is loaded, and as well as the corrosponding driver in my case via-agp. But the via-agp should have a number greater then 0 but for me its always 0, never higer. In my /etc/modprobe.preload via-agp is listed twice, but it doesn't load like its supposed to. I am re-compiling the kernel with agpgart built in and trying out the installation again. If it fails then I will just use Windows. I have no idea how Mandrake gets it to work because I have used the rpms from tux3d and they failed as well. I have tried this on Ubuntu 5.10, and Fedora Core 4 and no success. So I am seeing if this will work, or I will just go back to Windows. Its stupid to have bought a cool video card like a 9600 just to use it with a shitty xorg driver.

Well..
If i do fglrxinfo it shows that my GLvendor is ATI. Not
mesa3
I have agpgart as a modules. also via-agp as a module.
I use slackware and I load
agpgart before via-agp
then I load the fglrx module.
And I need to compile the module everytime I compile a new kernel.
/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/make.sh
then
/lib/modules/fglrx/make_install.sh

Don't use rpms.
Download the driver from ATI and do what they tell you to do.

Your driver did not install correctly. This is shown in your fglrxinfo. Instead of Mesa it should say ATI. If you use an rpm, be sure to use the command rpm -ivh --force ./ati_blahblah.rpm

The problem has to do with the default drivers refusing to leave. Like MeatAbstract has said, follow the instructions on the ATI website exactly, and you usually won't have any problems.

There is another good tutorial here: http://www.cosmicpothole.com/Linux/ati.php

Let us know how well it works,

Steve

I have tried all scenerios. I have used the following ati-kernel and dkms-ati from the Mandriva 2006 repo, and everything installed correctly, but then I couldn't uninstall them because the scriptlet failed. Then after re-installing the distro I used the plf rpms and the installed, but nothing the same happens with fglrxinfo, there is no ati only mesa. I think the problem is the via_agp, its always the same issue agpgart can't be initiaed. I have used the fglrx .run file from ati, and as well as the rpm. I installed the rpm and it worked because it didn't conflict with libxorg. So the issue is hardware, what I have is a Asrock P4VM800 which I believe is the only one in existance because I seem to be the only one who can't this shit to work. So screw it! Nvidia same issue installed drivers bad gl/glx I only got it to work on Ubuntu, but this time not even that worked. In all cases I have installed kernel-source dkms dkms-minimal and the updated xorg 6.9.0

I re-compiled the kernel without dri support and the /dev/agpgart built in and no go, so I have reverted back to Windows I will keep linux on a drive just to screw around with.

You give up too easily.... Dont let it whip you!!1

Dave

Oh yeah.. Confusious say, "Play with it long enough it will come....."

works for me...
Dave

If you intend/have to use the kernel's agp modules you need to set
Option "UseInternelAGP" "no" in the config file.

"Internal" here refers to Ati's agp code included with the driver.

So, OTOH if you intend to use Ati's ["UseInternelAGP" "yes"], you can't have agp built into your kernel or loaded if they are modules.

Basically the kernel can't deal with both agp modules [Ati's and it's own] at the same time.

That's why it's always best to have the kernel's agp as modules, makes it easier to try your Ati driver one way or the other, at least until you know what works.

After trying everything I can it is my conclusion that the problem is not the fglrx driver but infact its the motherboard itself. This is apparent because the module agpgart being placed in the /etc/modprobe.preload doesn't seem to load the module, even when just using the ati driver and not the fglrx one. This is because the cheap motherboards from Asrock are not always the best. The chipset is a P4M800CE and lspci | grep AGP brings up nothing. So this is the issue with my config as for others all I can say is that if you're using VIA then you might have some issues. I will still keep linux but will definitly keep Windows. When I list the modules with lsmod agpgart loaded as well as fglrx and via_agp but it seems like the via_agp module for 2.6.12-14 kernels is in perfect and possibly using a gerneric setting.

Horay there is a glimmer of hope, after checking out the kernel.org site I was reading the changelog for kernel 2.6.15 and see that the AGPGART will now support P4M800CE chipsets which is what I have I will compile it and install it and see how it works out.

commit c243f1f1f6545985afcc6adf1fc085729029c3ee
Author: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>
Date: Mon Nov 21 06:53:16 2005 -0800

[AGPGART] Support VIA P4M800CE bridge.

Signed-off-by: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>

Now after using kernel 2.6.15 I can't seem to be able to compile the driver anymore. Here is the fglrx-install.log output:

[Message] Kernel Module : Trying to install a precompiled kernel module.
[Message] Kernel Module : Precompiled kernel module version mismatched.
[Message] Kernel Module : Found kernel module build environment, generating kernel module now.
ATI module generator V 2.0
==========================
initializing...
kernel includes at /lib/modules/2.6.15/build/include not found or incomplete
file: /lib/modules/2.6.15/build/include/linux/version.h
[Error] Kernel Module : Failed to compile kernel module - please consult readme.

I don't get it cause now my agpgart includes via_agp and the via_agp is no longer 0 its now 1 so the drivers will work, that is if I can get them to compile. Apparently there is supposed to be some sort of patch but I have found it and it seems to erronious.

Its all good from here, after compiling kernel 2.6.15 with the 2.6.15.1 patch the ati-drivers compiled correctly.Here are my following outputs of mine:

dmesg | grep agpgart:

agpgart: Detected VIA P4M800CE chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 128M @ 0xf0000000
agpgart: Found an AGP 3.5 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode
agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

Modules linked in: fglrx nls_iso8859_1 udf raw ipv6 snd_seq_dummy snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_emu10k1 snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm snd_timer snd_ac97_bus snd_page_alloc snd_util_mem snd_hwdep snd soundcore ipt_REJECT ipt_LOG ipt_state ipt_pkttype ipt_CONNMARK ipt_MARK ipt_connmark ipt_owner ipt_recent ipt_iprange ipt_physdev ipt_multiport ipt_conntrack iptable_mangle ip_nat_irc ip_nat_tftp ip_nat_ftp iptable_nat ip_nat ip_conntrack_irc ip_conntrack_tftp ip_conntrack_ftp ip_conntrack iptable_filter ip_tables tulip af_packet eth1394 ide_cd ohci1394 ieee1394 loop ext3 jbd via_agp agpgart sata_via libata scsi_mod video thermal processor fan container button battery ac ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore
Modules linked in: fglrx nls_iso8859_1 udf raw ipv6 snd_seq_dummy snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_emu10k1 snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm snd_timer snd_ac97_bus snd_page_alloc snd_util_mem snd_hwdep snd soundcore ipt_REJECT ipt_LOG ipt_state ipt_pkttype ipt_CONNMARK ipt_MARK ipt_connmark ipt_owner ipt_recent ipt_iprange ipt_physdev ipt_multiport ipt_conntrack iptable_mangle ip_nat_irc ip_nat_tftp ip_nat_ftp iptable_nat ip_nat ip_conntrack_irc ip_conntrack_tftp ip_conntrack_ftp ip_conntrack iptable_filter ip_tables tulip af_packet eth1394 ide_cd ohci1394 ieee1394 loop ext3 jbd via_agp agpgart sata_via libata scsi_mod video thermal processor fan container button battery ac ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore

It worked I guess patience does pay off.

Stupid application kfire the fireworks screensaver kept starting up and the desktop kept freezing, now I screwed up my box, so I will start again thank god I didn't update or spend all that time getting it to where I like my Mdk distro to be.