ATI RADEON 9600

[Ryan J Zygar]

Thank you. I am not at the computer yet but this gives me something to 
digest. You brought up that the NVIDIA drivers overwrite the config? 
SEE NOTES BELOW

On Oct 29, 2003, at 11:19 PM, Mike A. Harris wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Ryan J Zygar wrote:
>
>> So when I rebooted today into the newest kernel, I got a prompt to
>> config my Radeon card I enable it that is the prompt. Then on to XFree
>> and so I chose the Video Card Radeon 9600 and the Monitor Viewsonic
>> PF790 and Video Setting 1280X1024. It continues to GREAT fedora login.
>> I login and as Gnome starts to load _CRASH_ the machine just hangs.
>
> Keep in mind that the redhat-config-xfree86 tool configures only
> the drivers supplied with the distribution.  If you use
> unsupported 3rd party drivers such as the ATI or Nvidia
> proprietary drivers, you need to use their own configuration tool
> or hand edit the config file and tweak it while following their
> 'README' documentation et al.  The ATI fglrx and nvidia drivers
> will not be used by the distribution config tools.
>
>
>> Login screen login/password Gnome starts loading.... STOP! It hangs
>> mouse is dead machine is dead no CNTRL-ALT-DEL either. HUNG.
>
> Unfortunately you're not using the Red Hat supplied kernel, so
> any number of problems could be occuring.  Best thing to do is
> boot with the Red Hat supplied kernel and use that.  If you need
> the unsupported NTFS module, there is prebuilt rpm packages of
> the NTFS module on freshrpms.net IIRC, or http://ntfs.sf.net or
> somesuch, although I don't recall the specific details.

Alright I will go that route for the meantime that doesn't hang up to 
hard I have my SMB share to fall off with a mirrored image of what is 
on the NTFS side so my focus XFree!

>> Load back in and CNTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE 6 times to break out of the
>> GDM.  Console is just fine. PROMPTED that X will restart in 2
>> minutes. I delete XFConfig to buy sometime. Crazy enough it
>> doesn't detect the card. Used a VESA driver edited the PROMPTS
>> from redhat-config-xfree (KILLER APP BTW) Select Radeon 9600 and
>> Viewsonic PF790 and it writes the file /etc/X11/XFconfig of
>> course and restarts X (GREAT JOB REDHAT).  Login and start up as
>> soon as the Gnome Dialog comes up no Icons stream across and
>> HUNG!
>
> The config tool will configure the card to use the "radeon"
> driver, and ignore ATI's binary driver.  I don't know if ATI's
> drivers overwrite the libGL, libglx and other things in the same
> manner as Nvidias do or not, but if they do, this could cause
> potential hangs as well.

Yes I know that it does overwrite the files. But after rpm -e --nodeps 
that file from ATI
I reinstalled the MESA .rpms the MESA libglu libglx I cannot remember 
the names but the MESA* ones. Should that have reinstalled an 
overwritten the ATI files? How can I remove the libraries and reinstall 
rm -rf /usr/X11r6/lib/X11/modules (whatever the path) then reinstall 
then reinstall the rpms. Just using the VESA driver to get by.

>> insmod radeon
>> insmod radeonfb
>
> Both of those are wrong and bad.  "radeonfb" is Radeon
> framebuffer module which is unrelated to what you are trying to
> accomplish.  "radeon" module is the kernel DRM module for Radeon
> hardware.  XFree86 does not support DRI on Radeon 9600 at all, so
> that module wont do anything for you, although it will interfere
> with the ATI binary modules should you try to use them.  In
> short, you never ever ever ever need to load kernel modules by
> hand with insmod or modprobe to use XFree86.  The X server will
> load whatever modules it needs automatically, and if it doesn't
> then you've either got misconfiguration of something or
> misinstallation of drivers.

I was just trying anything. Thanks for the explanation though! Why 
doesn't Redhat insmod for Framebuffer support like? Just curious I 
remember trying some distro awhile back that did that.

>
>> The VESA driver works fine and I can use that but then I have
>> 800x600 display and like 50HZ of refresh. So you know that I
>> didn't buy the card for that :-)
>
> The "radeon" driver will work with full 2D acceleration but
> without 3D using the distribution supplied "radeon" driver.
> Again however, installation of ATI's binary drivers may or may
> not disable your ability to use the distribution supplied driver.
> I haven't looked at recent ATI drivers to see how they install
> themselves and what if anything they change.

Thanks!



>> What on earth can this be I wonder? My machine is broken.  I
>> figure remove the MESA* stuff reload the glrx-glc22*rpm from ATI
>> and just try again.
>
> Uninstall ATI's drivers, reinstall all of the XFree86 rpms that
> come with the distribution including Mesa.  Run:
>
> redhat-config-xfree86 --reconfig
>
> You should have working 2D only video.  Then if you prefer to
> install ATI's drivers, please read the README documentation et
> al. that come with ATI's drivers, which give quite detailed
> instructions on how to get the driver properly installed,
> configured and working.
>
> I definitely recommend doing all of this with the Red Hat
> supplied kernel though.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Good luck!
> TTYL
>
>
> -- 
> Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
> OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat
>
>
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
> fedora-list at redhat.com
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>