Hello forum,

I'm running Mandriva 2007 (Xorg 7.1.1 and XFree 4.3?) and I am trying to install the ATI proprietary driver for my Radeon X800 video card, and after I "successfully" installed the RPM (fglrx version 4-3-0-8.31.5-1.i386.rpm) from ATI's web site, I then ran aticonfig --initial (which seemed successful), and rebooted my computer.

But upon reboot, I got a no screens error, which read like this:

logfile/var/log/Xorg.0.log
using /etc/X11/Xorg.conf
failed to load module fglrx - does not exist - no devices detected.
fatal error - no screens found

My computer was working fine beforehand, using the standard ATI display drivers from the installation CD.

The instructions on the recovery disk (installation CD) says that it is advisable to use the recovery console to at least get Linux to boot up in a simple, basic vga mode, then once booted, work on the problem from there, instead of doing everything at once from the recovery disk.

That being said, can anybody here please tell me what I should do to get my computer back to the way it was before I installed this RPM? Or better yet, tell me how to get that RPM to work. I don't want to do a bare metal restore because that will not teach me anything.

Will I have to use the vi editor in rescue mode, something I have never had any success with?

Your time and expertise will be most appreciated,

Roy

I know that for me (Gentoo), the driver must be build on the same compiler as the kernel. I don't know if that problem goes for the RPM version as well.

Second option I know, is that your system now needs to load either via-agp or intel-agp (is there a "any-option-agp?") for the driver to work. If you run 'lsmod | grep agp'
If it doesn't state the intel or via agp, you can check what you need with lspci. If it states Intel, add intel-agp to /etc/modprobe.conf, and the via one if it states VIA offcourse.

And does manually probing the fglrx work? If not, that error output might give some information as well (or from dmesg)

Question which should help others to help you: does your system come up and only fails loading X (that is, after error message you get a nice command line -> messing around with xorg.conf) or does it freeze/crash?

If you are presented with a command line screen your system is still fine, but X wrongly configured. But as I don't have an ATI card I won't be able to help you.

Try googing around for an example xorg.conf file from somebody who has the same system as you. You could also try to revert back to open source drivers which seemed to have worked by editing the xorg.conf file as root. Here other will need to say what to do. Proprietary drivers often requires quite a lot of hacking around in the xorg.conf file.

Thank you Spherical and hansalfredche for your response.

I managed to get Mandriva to boot up fine but I had to do it the dummy way, that is to say I did an upgrade install (installed the same version of Mandriva over the identical version), which keeps everything intact without overwriting anything, in order to get to the "post install configuration" summary window where you can make adjustments.

From there, I managed to fix my problem by temporailly installing the drivers for a similar graphics card (one that would still work but wouldn't be as fast), tested it, saved the changes, then re-installed the drivers for the card I actually have, all from that post-install window. That fixed it but I am still using a Mesa driver, not ATI. And the ATI Control Panel doesn't show anything much because it says it can't fine the X11 extensions.

But before I attemt to go any further, I would like to know if there is an easier way to get to that same "Graphics Card and Monitor Configuration Window" without having to do an upgrade install to get to it? Is there a graphics card/monitor configuration editor that can be accessed from the recovery console (on the bootable installation CD), since I wasn't able to boot up to a lit screen in Mandriva to access it from there? That would make life so much easier for me.

To answer hansalfredche's question, the system didn't crash, it just came to a nice command prompt after it couldn't find any screens.

Thanks,
Roy

In the control center, there should be a Graphics Card config and Monitor config somewhere.. I know there is, but it's a sub iirc.

I can't tell you right now because... well, as I said, I'm on Gentoo, thus a commandlinefreak :P

If the command line appears it's not that bad. You can get X back by changing the used drivers to the opensource ones in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. It's the line in the device section which says Driver. You must replace "fglrx" by the opensource counterpart, "radeon" I think (not sure - Google is your friend). Now that you have your sreen back I suggest to install aee, so you will be able to login as root in the command line and then type:

aee /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This will allow you to edit the xorg.conf file manually. You could use vi too, but personally I think it is absolutely unusable by non-geeks because of it's weird logic and unusual commands. Just beware that this file controls the X-server and is very sensitive to changes.

Also, you should have a look at the xorg.conf file now, so you can see how it is structured. Can you tell us which driver is currently used?

That to tell you there is actually no way of getting a X-server up (=no "Graphics Card and Monitor Configuration Window") without prior making changes to the xorg.conf file.

@Spherical:
How do you that if X refuses to start? As I said: if xorg.conf is wrongly configured, X will not come up, so there is no KDE, Gnome, Control Center, just a command line.

PS: For your next try, better use the drivers from plf. Use Google to learn more.