good intentions
 

I'm not sure if you mean that you have the same card, Radeon xpress 200M (NOT OTHER ONES!), since the installation is different. I assume you do not have the same card, because your naive installation procedure doesn't apply to that card. Even worst, the installation varies with the monitor you have. (the version of the drivers also have a great difference on what do you have to do).

easy update script for Ubuntu 5.04 and R4000
 

The Compaq R4000 has an AMD Sempron CPU, ATI Express 200M Video, ATIIXP chipset, and builtin Broadcom Wifi card. The HP zv6000 is pretty much the same and there are others with similar components so this might help others. So...

There's a pretty easy way to install Ubuntu on the Compaq R4000. I've run it twice now and it works pretty good. The last time I ran it, I had to run a system update( "sudo apt-get update" then "sudo apt-get upgrade" ) before running the script. This updated the system to the latest patches before the script was installed. The only other thing I needed to do when it was all finished was to input my Wifi settings to get wireless working.

The reason for running the system upgrade was because there's an update to the mesaGL stuff which confuses the ATI driver if the upgrade is done after the script is run. Start to finish in 2.5 hours over a fast network link.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=65089

Also, the package can be pulled apart and used independently. I use the ATI driver install script so it's easier to run after I build a new kernel. Just got win4lin working for instance. One more thing, I don't run hardwired much so I commented out the "map eth0" line in /etc/network/interfaces file so that the network startup doesn't take forever waiting for eth0 to get an address.

I have a Compaq R4000 with a AMD 64 Athalon, Radeon Express 200m and 15inch widescreen viewbright.

This was the driver I use: fglrx64_6_8_0-8.16.20-1.x86_64.rpm
What i previously wrote is good for that or any other chipset using the Radeon Express 200m, depending on screen. Just make sure you copy the Monitor settings, Hori & Vert refresh rate from the current VESA xorg.conf into the new one.

and then change the monitor settings with the KDE utility and not the one red hat installs.

_______________________________________

What is a problem to you, is trivial to me!

Hi xXFreeLancerXx,
i was astonished reading your posts ;)

Like locutus24, i have Compaq R4000 with AMD Sempron CPU, ATI Express 200M Video, ATIIXP chipset, and builtin Broadcom Wifi card.
I was very unlucky with eth0: to get it work i have to disable acpi into grub.conf
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4.netdev.7 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet acpi=off

i have to take away battery from my R4000, too, when using acpi=off

then, i downloaded and runned:
ati-driver-installer-8.20.8-i386.run

but fglrx doesn't compile under FC4 2.6.14-1.165 kernel; does xXFreeLancerXx is using a kernel by ftp.kernel.org instead of a distrib kernel? and which kernel version?
at last, which linux distro?
TIA
What is a trivial to you, is problem to me!

I use Fedora 3 - 4 distro. since i'm constantly finding new security lock downs i've managed to re-install alot. i probally managed todo just about every kernel & kernel update in those 2 distros including the kernel update.

What distro are you running? I'm gonna have a lot of free time in the next week recovering from small surgery maybe i can load it on and troubleshoot for you, give some more detailed feedback.

I wish ATI would just get on this and release a damn packed or rpm for this world known issue.

Over the holidays, I tried installing Ubuntu's Breezy(latest stable) and Dapper(next version) and when I tried the ATI driver( both .run and .rpm/.deb ) I could not get 3D acceleration. And IIRC, the issue is the same as what I saw last year. That was that the AGP interface used in the newer Xorg system is not compatible with the older one used in the ATI driver.

Checking my Dapper Drake partition( kernel 2.6.15 ) the fglrx driver( 8.20.8 autorun ) still doesn't run. Autorun compiled it and it loads but Xorg doesn't recognize the driver( Driver "fglrx" )...

Until that changes, I figure I'll stick with Hoary(5.04) and the ATI 8.13.4 driver since it works. Having accelerated 2D and 3D is a must on this laptop IMO.

Has any body tried gentoo on this series laptop! i haven't had time to go thru the long installation! :study: I've installed that distro on other laptops and have had few problems

Not here but I will say that I believe the issues are related to the kernel and X-Server used. The 2.6.10 kernel has problems with ATI_IXP IDE driver( but is patchable ) and 2X CPU clock timing problem( also patchable ). I forget the X-Server version but from what I came across, the Xorg server in Ubuntu 5.04 works with ATIs 8.13.4 driver and not much after that. I've not been able to get ATIs drivers to work with newer Xorg servers.

Since I'm seeing ATI putting the x200 and other x300 based chips in many laptops these days, it sure would be nice if the ATI management put some paid resources behind the task of GNU/Linux support. From what I've read, it's a voluntary effort now.

Anyways, it might make more sense to spend a little time looking at what disto has what kernel and what xserver.

BTW, even the 2.6.15 kernel needed the timerhack 2x CPU clock patch for this laptop. The ATI_IXP driver was fixed in the 2.6.11 kernel. I've only messed with Kubuntu/Ubuntu kernels on this laptop.

I'm also having great difficulty getting the ATI driver to work on a Compaq R4000.

I successfully got Mandriva 2006 64 bit installed, and got the correct screen resolution (1280x800), so that was ok, but it's awfully slow - only 700fps in glxgears.

I installed the ATI driver and followed them instructions. Now I can't start X, it complains about not finding or loading fglrx and that fglrx_drv.so can't be loaded.

Now I'm a little stuck. I had a problem with libgc not being installed (easily fixed, install), but the "missing" file is there, so, what am I missing? Anyone got any helpful suggestions?

haven't messed with the 64-bit side much since I saw very little preformance difference and nothing I currently do requires/needs 64bit-ness. But, I've messed with the 32-bit ATI drivers and here's what I found.
1) the old ATI driver(8.13.4) has decent performance:
2D: glxgears=1250fps
3D: fglxgears=250fps
but only works with tweaking on the 2.6.10 kernel or maybe newer kernels with older Xorg driver.

2) any newer releases of ATI's drivers no longer support the onboard video RAM of the R4000( 128MB model ). To get the ATI driver to work, you have to enable shared video memory in your BIOS. I think it's called SidePort or UMA, or something like that. You can't miss it in the BIOS settings.

3) for dualhead and new drivers, you have to disable onboard video memeory completely and set shared to 128MB.

4) using shared memory is much slower than the old/working ATI driver with onboard memory. About 50% slower.

So, we've go a laptop that's been screwed with regard to video output because ATI doesn't support Linux. It really pisses me off since I only purchased this after seeing on ATI's site that they said they supported Linux with the 200M. It was their product advertising page.... Had I looked for their driver page on this, I would have found that the support was NOT official and just a sidejob for a handful of ATI engineers who are Linux friendly. And, I've heard that we can't even rip out the 200M ePCI card and put in a Nvidia card because the HP/Compaq BIOS won't support it/allow it.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this seems to be the state of ATI's Linux support on the Compaq R4000 and HP vz6000 laptops with the ATI Express 200M ePCI card. :-(

Thanks for the help.

I tried Mandriva 2006 32bit and got about 300fps for glxgears, the ati driver loaded perfectly but still couldn't exceed 300fps.

Mandriva 2006 64bit gives 700fps for glxgears and DVD playback is good even at full screen. However I still can't load the ati driver... same error about not loading fglrx_drv.so (but it is there, where it looks for it.)

I can see the best thing to do (for now, anyway) is to use the default Mandriva driver. Mightn't be good, but it's the best and fastest *working* setup :/

Thanks again.

With those low numbers, the DRI interface is probably not working. Test from a desktop terminal window: glxinfo | grep direct
you should get: direct rendering: Yes

As mentioned all over the place, you'll also want to verify that DMA is enabled for your drives( hdparm /dev/hda ) AND that the timerhack patch is not needed( top shows ~50% CPU minimum ). It would be a decent system if it weren't for the ATI card/driver. Good luck.

I have been using Mandriva x86 64 on a Compaq Presario v2413us (Turion, 1GB RAM, ATI shared 128 MB RAM) for about 4 months. I recall getting this problem a while ago, but seemed to clear up after an update. Have you ever run an update or are you still running original binaries?

I have only been able to run 24 bit color (vs. 32 bit). I am not sure if it is Mandriva vs. ATI driver, but I have not installed anything from ATI - just whatever came with Mandriva. I also run Win XP 64, where I had to download and install Southbridge, Video, and Audio drivers as they where not packaged with the Windows distro. :)

Some results:

glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: No

glxgears
3361 frames in 5.0 seconds = 671.219 FPS
3912 frames in 5.0 seconds = 782.337 FPS
4205 frames in 5.0 seconds = 840.811 FPS
4202 frames in 5.0 seconds = 840.275 FPS
4203 frames in 5.0 seconds = 840.479 FPS
4205 frames in 5.0 seconds = 840.877 FPS
4205 frames in 5.0 seconds = 840.832 FPS
4196 frames in 5.0 seconds = 839.106 FPS
4179 frames in 5.0 seconds = 835.637 FPS
4202 frames in 5.0 seconds = 840.284 FPS
4185 frames in 5.0 seconds = 836.876 FPS
4176 frames in 5.0 seconds = 835.178 FPS

Some things from Xorg.0.log:

(II) LoadModule: "glx"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/extensions/libglx.so
(II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.2
(II) Loading sub module "GLcore"
(II) LoadModule: "GLcore"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/extensions/libGLcore.so
(II) Module GLcore: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.2
(II) Loading extension GLX
(II) LoadModule: "dri"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/extensions/libdri.so
(II) Module dri: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.2
(II) Loading sub module "drm"
(II) LoadModule: "drm"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/linux/libdrm.so
(II) Module drm: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 1.0.0
ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.2
(II) Loading extension XFree86-DRI
(II) LoadModule: "ati"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so
(II) Module ati: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 6.5.7
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 0.8

(II) Loading sub module "radeon"
(II) LoadModule: "radeon"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
(II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 4.0.3
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 0.8

(WW) RADEON(0): Enabling DRM support

*** Direct rendering support is highly experimental for Radeon 9500
*** and newer cards. The 3d mesa driver is not provided in this tree.
*** A very experimental (and incomplete) version is available from Mesa CVS.
*** Additional information can be found on http://r300.sourceforge.net
*** This message has been last modified on 2005-08-07.

This is pretty much what Xena said and it's inline with what I said, shared memory is about 50% slower than onboard video RAM. 24bit color as opposed to 32bit color is going to make a difference/so is screen resolution/glxgears window size. So I'm not sure what's new here other than maybe an attempt to make the point for 64bit over 32bit systems?

BTW, I come from the point of view of needing 3D performance and the newer ATI drivers on the Radion Express 200M are very poor at 3D since ATI requires disabling onboard RAM usage. It does sound like the opensource ati driver is getting better for 2D stuff.