Re: ATI Radeon M10 woes

[Tim Currie <tim algernonsystems com>]

Alex Deucher wrote:
> --- Tim Currie <tim algernonsystems com> wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >   I've posted about this before, but since the message was
> > completely 
> > ignored, I'm going to try again. I apologize for repeating myself,
> > but 
> > I've spent the last month trying to solve this myself, to no avail.
> >
> >   I've got a shiny new Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop with an ATI Radeon 
> > Mobility 9000 (M10 I think; lspci reports 0x4e50), running Red Hat
> > 9.0. 
> > I've managed to get XFree86 running with the VESA driver at
> > 1600x1200. 
> > I've tried a number of things to get it to run in the native mode of 
> > 1920x1200, but with no success. I've googled it to death and found a 
> > variety of seemingly hopeful suggestions, none of which have helped. 
> > Some of the things I've tried include: adding custom modelines in the
> >
> > display section and referencing them in the screen section; defining
> > new 
> > modes; installing various custom radeon drivers (including one or
> > more 
> > from Mike Harris' ftp); and screaming loudly at it (while this was, 
> > admittedly, one of the less-effective solutions, it was more
> > satisfying 
> > than any of the others).
> >
> >   The proprietary ATI drivers don't work at all. They install fine,
> > but 
> > when I attempt to start XFree86 the screen turns an unwholesome
> > blotchy 
> > grey and the computer locks up tight. This, by the way, is the same 
> > thing that happens whenever I try ANY radeon-specific driver,
> > regardless 
> > of it's source.
> >
> > Thanks for any help you can offer,
>
>
> You may want to try a newer RPM, or a binary snapshot. mobility 9000 is
> actually M9. M10 is the mobility 9600, it's r300 based, so no
> opensource 3d. M9 has opensource 3d support.
>
> DRI snapshots are available here:
> http://dri.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/Download
>
> newer RPM's are available from redhat.
>
> Alex

Hey! Good news!!!

By the way, sourceforge appears to be down, so I never got to try your 
suggestion. :(

But, in the end it didn't matter. I went to Dell's support forums (uh... 
duh! why didn't I START there?!?) and found a whole herd of people who 
were having the same problem with my exact hardware configuration. I 
followed the very long thread for a few pages and came across a complete 
XF86Config file that did the trick. Apparently the secret is in the 
modeline. This is what finally made the difference:

Modeline "1920x1200" 161.750000 1920 2020 2052 2184 1200 1202 1208 1235\ 
-HSync -VSync

If anyone is curious, I'd be happy to post the entire config file, just 
for the record.

Yes, I'm using the ATI proprietary driver, but I'm more politically in 
line with Eric Raymond than Richard Stallman, so it's not going to keep 
me up nights. ;)

Thanks again for your suggestion.

-Tim


--
Proprietary software is like petrified wood. It used to be alive, but
then it was fixed in time and put in a box. GNU/Linux software, in
contrast, is alive, always changing and improving. I love that it's
more a process than a product.
                       - Pamela Jones, groklaw.net