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[SOLVED] Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

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khosrow
Posts: 42
Joined: 2012-01-12 09:23

[SOLVED] Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#1 Post by khosrow »

Hello everybody,
I just purchased an Acer Aspire V5-123 notebook with AMD processor and graphic and installed Debian 7.6 (stable) on it. first of all, I had to install a newer (3.14.0.bpo.1-amd64) kernel image to get the ethernet card working. Then, I got problem with Xorg not starting.
Here is the error lines from /var/log/Xorg.0.log:

Code: Select all

(EE) VESA(0): V_BIOS address 0x0 out of range
...
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
and this is the output by issuing lspci:

Code: Select all

lspci -nn | grep VGA:
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Device [1002:9834]
l

I installed the libgl1-mesa-dri, xserver-xorg-video-ati, and firmware-linux-nonfree packages, as suggested by AtiHowTo from Debian Wiki, but the problem still persists and the last one (firmware-linux-nonfree) actually caused the notebook to freez on boot. so, I removed it.
I searched the net a lot, but couldn't find a solution. Any help is appreciated.

thanks,
Khosrow
Last edited by khosrow on 2014-08-01 04:30, edited 1 time in total.

kmathern
Posts: 603
Joined: 2011-02-05 19:20

Re: Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#2 Post by kmathern »

Your 9834 device (aka Radeon HD 8210) uses the Kabini chipset which isn't supported by the Wheezy version ati/radeon driver.

My pc also has a Kabini chipset, though it's a different pci id, [1002:9838] (aka Radeon HD 8240 / R3 Series). Even though my Radeon HD 8240 video device wasn't supported by the Wheezy version radeon driver, Xorg would still start okay, but it used the fbdev driver instead of the ati radeon driver.

Do you have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf, or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf file (or similar file)?
If so I would rename or delete it.
Xorg should then start up okay (I'm assuming you have the xserver-xorg-video-all metapackage installed which in turn installs the fbdev and vesa drivers {and all the other xserver-xorg-video-* drivers})

To get the ati/radeon driver to work I backported the Jessie xserver-xorg-video-ati & libdrm source packages:
https://packages.debian.org/source/jess ... -video-ati,
https://packages.debian.org/source/jessie/libdrm.
I also installed the wheezy-backports version firmware-linux-nonfree package: https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-back ... ux-nonfree.

With the backported xserver-xorg-video-ati & libdrm packages installed (and wheezy-backports firmware-linux-nonfree), Xorg will use the radeon driver without needing to have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file .

khosrow
Posts: 42
Joined: 2012-01-12 09:23

Re: Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#3 Post by khosrow »

thanks for your reply.
Do you have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf, or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf file (or similar file)?
My X11 config direcory is actually in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d. I renamed it, but X still fails to start and I get:

Code: Select all

Fatal server error: no screens found.
(I'm assuming you have the xserver-xorg-video-all metapackage installed which in turn installs the fbdev and vesa drivers {and all the other xserver-xorg-video-* drivers})
Yes, I checked and I have these packages installed.
As I mentioned in my first post, when I install the firmware-linux-nonfree from Wheezy, my computer hangs on boot because of a conflict in the frame buffer (?), I couldn't catch the error message.

So, as you suggested, before backporting to a newer version in order to use the Radeon driver, I should make sure that I can at least start X.

kmathern
Posts: 603
Joined: 2011-02-05 19:20

Re: Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#4 Post by kmathern »

khosrow wrote:thanks for your reply.
Do you have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf, or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf file (or similar file)?
My X11 config direcory is actually in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d. I renamed it, but X still fails to start and I get:

Code: Select all

Fatal server error: no screens found.
I was assuming X was failing to start because you had an xorg.conf file, and it was set to use the radeon driver (and the wheezy version radeon driver doesn't support the Kabini chipset). But I'm not sure why it's failing now. In my case X would still start, but it would use the fbdev driver instead of the radeon driver.
khosrow wrote:As I mentioned in my first post, when I install the firmware-linux-nonfree from Wheezy, my computer hangs on boot because of a conflict in the frame buffer (?), I couldn't catch the error message.
I'm not sure what would be in the wheezy version firmware-linux-nonfree that causes it to hang. If you decide to backport the radeon driver you'll definitely need to install the wheezy-backports version firmware-linux-nonfree package to get the radeon driver to work. It has the Kabini related firmware files (see: https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-back ... e/filelist, search the page for "KABINI"), they aren't in the wheezy version.
khosrow wrote:So, as you suggested, before backporting to a newer version in order to use the Radeon driver, I should make sure that I can at least start X.
It would be nice to have X working, I'm not sure why it isn't now.

khosrow
Posts: 42
Joined: 2012-01-12 09:23

Re: Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#5 Post by khosrow »

Since this is a relatively new model, I was thinking to upgrade to the testing version of Debian. This way I wont have to backport anything. Do you think this is a good idea?

khosrow
Posts: 42
Joined: 2012-01-12 09:23

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#6 Post by khosrow »

After trying different tricks, I decided to compile the latest kernel (3.15.7) from source and upgrade my system to the testing including the packages mentioned in the Debian Wiki below:

https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo

and now, I have X running. magic!
The lesson I learned here:

NEVER BUY THE NEWEST HARWARE, ESPESIALLY THE CHEAP ONES, IF YOUR ARE PLANNING TO RUN THEM UNDER LINUX.

reinob
Posts: 1189
Joined: 2014-06-30 11:42
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Re: [SOLVED] Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#7 Post by reinob »

khosrow wrote:NEVER BUY THE NEWEST HARWARE, ESPESIALLY THE CHEAP ONES, IF YOUR ARE PLANNING TO RUN THEM UNDER LINUX.
Let me fix that for you:

NEVER BUY THE NEWEST HARDWARE FROM MANUFACTURERS WHO DO NOT PROVIDE OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS OR SPECS, ESPECIALLY AMD OR NVIDIA, IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO RUN THEM UNDER LINUX.

For the rest, actually Linux supports much more and more modern hardware than any version of Windows. It's only that most Windows installations are done directly by the OEM, so you don't get to see the ugliness and sheer difficulty of the process.

khosrow
Posts: 42
Joined: 2012-01-12 09:23

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#8 Post by khosrow »

Ya, maybe you are right. thanks.
I've been using linux for a long time and somehow, don't have a better option, because most of the programming and data analysis I do are just better done with the free softwares developed for linux. However, It's not still clear to me what the best trade off should be. Use a system that just works out of the box (though ugly) without knowing what is going on behind the screen, or struggle for days to have some control on your system. To give you an example, I have on old PCMCIA card which worked just fine with the old linux kernels (2.x), but is not working these days. I noticed this probelm when I needed to use it again after some years. see the post below:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=80848

I spent a few days trying to resolve it, but then I said to myself: how much time I am supposed to spend to get a very routine task done? this is not a modern hardware with secret specs or driver. As I said, it used to work fine.

thanks anyway
Khosrow

mrkapqa
Posts: 181
Joined: 2014-04-22 08:30

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#9 Post by mrkapqa »

Hello , i too have the 8240 Radeon HD from Kabini APU and would like to use Wheezy as Operating System. ON Jessie , the graphics accelleration works, but system is albeit slow.

So , am i right to understand that i would need to install Firmware-Linux-Nonfree from wheezy-Backports and add Jessie to /Etc/apt/sources.list for "backporting"
Xserver-Xorg-Video-ATi and libdrm other file?


Thank you

mrkapqa
Posts: 181
Joined: 2014-04-22 08:30

Re: Xorg driver for AMD nee ATI 9834 video card?

#10 Post by mrkapqa »

kmathern wrote:Your 9834 device (aka Radeon HD 8210) uses the Kabini chipset which isn't supported by the Wheezy version ati/radeon driver.

My pc also has a Kabini chipset, though it's a different pci id, [1002:9838] (aka Radeon HD 8240 / R3 Series). Even though my Radeon HD 8240 video device wasn't supported by the Wheezy version radeon driver, Xorg would still start okay, but it used the fbdev driver instead of the ati radeon driver.


To get the ati/radeon driver to work I backported the Jessie xserver-xorg-video-ati & libdrm source packages:
https://packages.debian.org/source/jess ... -video-ati,
https://packages.debian.org/source/jessie/libdrm.
I also installed the wheezy-backports version firmware-linux-nonfree package: https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-back ... ux-nonfree.

With the backported xserver-xorg-video-ati & libdrm packages installed (and wheezy-backports firmware-linux-nonfree), Xorg will use the radeon driver without needing to have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file .

HELLO ; could you please show how to achieve this backporting of those files?

I do have a small laptop with Kabini , and with Jessie the Graphics work well, but overall it is slow , and i would like to use Wheezy instead if possible. Thank you very much for your kind help.

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