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ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

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saultigh
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ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#1 Post by saultigh »

Hi,

I am using the latest squeeze (2.6.32-6 kernel) on a Thinkpad X100e.
Most things works fine (after some tinkering though) but I cannot install the official ATI driver.
I have tried:
1) Downloaded the latest official drivers from ATI's site.
a) If I choose install, it says that everything works but the driver is not actually installed. After reboot I don't have X anymore
b) If I choose build packages for Debian testing, the packages are not built.

2) Downloaded the not so latest official drivers. Same as in case 1)

3) Tried to install them with the sgfxi script. The script reports a success but still after a reboot, I have no X.

4) Tried to apt-get install fglrx-driver package from sid. Everything installs fine, after reboot I have X but no 3d acceleration.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#2 Post by Bulkley »

Have you done a search of this forum? There is a ton of info on ATI driver setup, both proprietary and open source. Personally, I gave up on proprietary drivers years ago; they are too much trouble.

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#3 Post by saultigh »

I have searched the forum and across the net. I have fought with this issue quite a few days now.

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#4 Post by Bulkley »

saultigh wrote:I am using the latest squeeze (2.6.32-6 kernel) on a Thinkpad X100e.
Which one exactly? There was a version ending in "trunk" that caused problems with 3D.

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gradinaruvasile
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#5 Post by gradinaruvasile »

Hi,

I am using the latest squeeze (2.6.32-6 kernel) on a Thinkpad X100e.
Most things works fine (after some tinkering though) but I cannot install the official ATI driver.
I have tried:
1) Downloaded the latest official drivers from ATI's site.
a) If I choose install, it says that everything works but the driver is not actually installed. After reboot I don't have X anymore
b) If I choose build packages for Debian testing, the packages are not built.

2) Downloaded the not so latest official drivers. Same as in case 1)

3) Tried to install them with the sgfxi script. The script reports a success but still after a reboot, I have no X.

4) Tried to apt-get install fglrx-driver package from sid. Everything installs fine, after reboot I have X but no 3d acceleration.

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Ok, lets take #1. You say there is no X. What is the error message? When X fails, you are given the option to see the error message. What does it say?

You have to install the linux-headers, build-essential packages for the installation to work. If not, the files will be installed, xorg.conf will be setup to use fglrx, but the fglrx kernel module (that is essentially the driver loader) will fail to build and X will fail.
Install them with:

Code: Select all

sudo aptitude install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential
Also, after installing the driver, run

Code: Select all

sudo aticonfig --initial
to make sure xorg.conf is set up right.
Last edited by gradinaruvasile on 2010-04-05 20:07, edited 1 time in total.

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#6 Post by saultigh »

The kernel is the 2.6.32-6-686.

X fails with a no screens message.

Yes, I did run (as root) aticonfig --initial after installation.
P.S. Is there a place to write an account of experiences for a specific laptop model? Because, during searching for this issue, I came across people stuck with other issues in this thinkpad, like wireless and sound (which I have solved. on my machine).

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gradinaruvasile
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#7 Post by gradinaruvasile »

Look at my updated post. Maybe there is something that helps.

There is a how-to section here in the Debian forums. You can post there.

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#8 Post by gradinaruvasile »

saultigh wrote:The kernel is the 2.6.32-6-686.

X fails with a no screens message.
There is no message, but you are asked if you want to look at it.

Also, where did you get that kernel? I use testing and i have -3-686. I looked at Sid, it has 3 too.
What is the output of
uname -r
?

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#9 Post by saultigh »

Yes, kernel is 2.6.32-3. My bad.
My system has build-essential, linux-headers, dh-make and the module-assistant. (dh-make was needed by the ATI installer in order to build the debs.)

h2
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#10 Post by h2 »

saultigh, no fglrx driver I am aware of supports Xorg 1.7, which is what Squeeze/Testing have. And by the time one does, we'll be running Xorg 1.8, and then we'll have to see how that goes.

apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-core
xserver-xorg-core:
Installed: 2:1.7.5-1
Candidate: 2:1.7.5-1

sgfxi should have exited with an error alerting you to this fact, I'll double check that error handler to make sure it's set correctly, in other words, sgfxi should NOT have successfully completed, it should have exited with error if you used the straight sgfxi no args option, ie, download / install AMD/ATI fglrx run packaged driver. sgfxi -d (distro driver package install) might not have that error handling active, since I don't care to track such things due to time contraints, so I just assume the driver works if it's packaged by the distro, not always the case, but sgfxi assumes that.

Your only current choice is radeon: sgfxi -N radeon
will remove all your other fglrx gunk and use radeon driver in xorg.conf and make sure you have that package installed.

sgfxi, just FYI, also of course always checks and installs if missing all the required packages, like headers, etc. As long as xorg itself is installed, the only command required to install anything should be sgfxi <+ no or some option>, all the other steps are automated and scripted in, this was the purpose of that script, to make the stuff easy and scalable.
smxi/sgfxi site (manuals, how-to's, faqs) :: script forums :: Check out inxi sys info script!

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#11 Post by gradinaruvasile »

The manual :

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/ ... _linux.pdf

states that the following versions of xorg are supported:

XOrg 6.8, 6.9, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 or 7.4

As Squeeeze runs 1:7.5+5 (xserver-xorg-core is at 1.7.6-1), it might be that the problem comes from the unsupported xorg.
But Ubuntu 10.04 has 1.7.5 xorg also and it does have the fglrx driver in its repos although it has problems too:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? ... ucid+fglrx

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#12 Post by h2 »

Ubuntu receives custom early prerelease drivers based on betas for cases like this from AMD/ATI.

There is no publically available Xorg 1.7 fglrx driver except for that Ubuntu case.
smxi/sgfxi site (manuals, how-to's, faqs) :: script forums :: Check out inxi sys info script!

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#13 Post by saultigh »

I ran sgfxi withoutharguments and it downloaded the official ATI driver etc etc. Yes, it exited with a success message.

Anyway, I suppose I just have to be patient and wait for a new version of the driver. Problem is that I really need 3d acceleration for a visualisation software project. So I have to dual boot in order to work.. A bit annoying...

With the radeon driver I suppose you mean the xserver-xorg-video-radeon package? It is installed. Does than mean that I am using it right now?

I am sorry, I was never good wih Xorg stuff. Especially now that there is not a xorg.conf!

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#14 Post by h2 »

That was an oversight in sgfxi, I had (wishful thinking) assumed that ATI/AMD would have had xorg 1.7 support by 10-3, so the tests cut off for 10-2, I have now updated that error handler in sgfxi to assume no support until 10-5, I'll update it again if 10-4 has xorg 1.7 support, but I don't believe it will.

Basically do not depend on fglrx drivers on any rolling release system that uses current xorg or current kernels. If you need rolling release, 3d, and non free drivers, use nvidia. Or Intel if your 3d needs are not high (where is that standalone Intel graphics card that rumor had it was in the pipeline?).
smxi/sgfxi site (manuals, how-to's, faqs) :: script forums :: Check out inxi sys info script!

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#15 Post by Bulkley »

h2 wrote:Basically do not depend on fglrx drivers on any rolling release system that uses current xorg or current kernels.
Which is exactly why I stopped using proprietary drivers several years ago.

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#16 Post by saultigh »

How can I be sure that I am using the radeon driver? I can't seem to find anything on it.

Thanks.

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#17 Post by saultigh »

Well, I adde an xorg.conf to my system and put in it:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "radeon"
EndSection

and nothing else. Glxgears have jumped from ~35FPS to ~150FPS which is a good thing. Is there anything else I have to do?

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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#18 Post by gradinaruvasile »

You can safely delete (or rename) xorg.conf. The X server will auto configure itself. For your hardware the radeon driver will be used by default. But first make sure you removed every trace of the fglrx driver.
The glxgears score is very low unless you have 150 Hz refresh rate with horizontal sync which i doubt. I know its not a benchmark, but on a really old 32MB 7500 mobility radeon i had 300 or so with Ubuntu 8.10 that is old too.
Also, you might try installing driconf and play around with its options.

saultigh
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Re: ATI Radeon HD3200 and official driver in Squeeze

#19 Post by saultigh »

I just wanted to post an update. The ATI 10.4 driver (installed through the repositories and following the instruction on the debian wiki) works absolutely fine :D

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