Comments on: News: ATI Catalyst Drivers 10.2 Released. No Fedora 12 Support.

By: Blanca Huff

Blanca Huff — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 09:47:34 +0000

So, here’s essentially two issues about Fedora 13 beta keeping from using ATI proprietary driver in it: 1) They still continue to include the newest X server in distro, which eventually makes it harder for ATI card owners to get 3D acceleration in OS. Even worse, 2) the newest kernel also isn’t supported by current ATI 10.4 driver and is noticeably slower than previous kernels. To solve this, I replaced current X server with the one from Fedora 11, following this guide: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?p=119541. Since kernel 2.6.31 from Fedora 11 can’t be installed due to broken dependencies, I had to compile it myself. Also “fedora-setup-keyboard” package from Fedora 11 needs to be installed. As a result, now I have Fedora 13 system with kernel and X server from Fedora 11. Works very well and everything is pretty stable too, at least haven’t had a single lock-up in a while. Tried running Ubuntu 10.04 as well, just to get the same behaviour. Since it has kernel 2.6.33 and X server v1.8, it occasionally hung too, so the most stable configuration seems to be what I have now. Also, for me, Fedora 12 had numerous lock-ups due to ATI driver interfering with some driver in kernel 2.6.32 (Mesa experimental driver didn’t have such an issue). I suspect Nvidia’s MPC61 driver in kernel 2.6.32 being faulty, therefore it was necessary to compile kernel 2.6.31. I think, for me, such a surgery will be necessary at least for a few Fedora releases from now on.

By: AnorexiasGrizzli

AnorexiasGrizzli — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:37:45 +0000

just compiled kernel 2.6.34 and xorg 1.8 🙂 everything works fine

Fedora 12 64-bit

By: AnorexiasGrizzli

AnorexiasGrizzli — Thu, 20 May 2010 04:42:08 +0000

actually, there’s a patch for fglrx kernel module to work with kernel 2.6.33/2.6.34, and there’s even a patch for xorg 1.8 to support latest fglrx

kernel module patches can be found here: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=29111
and xorg patches can be found here: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=36328

By: Reloaded

Reloaded — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:24:00 +0000

In case of driver incompatibility with X server this wouldn’t help. Binary drivers need appropriate kernel-devel package and usable development environment in order to successfully compile them.

By: bony

bony — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:59:50 +0000

you just have to remove the 3 packages and maybe create a new xorg.conf file or just rename your backup xorg.conf file, I tried it and my systems worked without any problems…

I also tried the drivers from ati.amd.com and they did not work on my system, so I tried them from rpmfusion and they are working – also without any problems…maybe it depends on the card – my card is an HD 2600 mobility

By: Reloaded

Reloaded — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:35:17 +0000

Looks like you need to add Modes option to you xorg.conf subsection “Display” of section “Screen”. Something like:

Section “Screen”
Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[0]-0”
Device “aticonfig-Device[0]-0”
Monitor “aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes “1024×768” “800×600” “640×480”
EndSubSection
EndSection

That way the highest resolution from modes list will be used.

By: Fedora_12user

Fedora_12user — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:45:06 +0000

10.4 ATI Catalyst drivers appear to be working for Fedora 12
Current Kernel 2.6.32.11.99 fc12.x86_64
Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.7.6-1.fc12.
(The info above I got from the Xorg.0.log.)
I uninstalled the previous 10.3 per the ATI installtion pdf (http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.42&lang=English)
under “Documentation” > “Installer Instructions”.
/usr/share/ati, sh ./fglrx-uninstall.sh. Then I just installed using the “Automatic” per the installation instructions.

However I am no expert and my xorg.conf file is seemingly “barebones” which was created by /usr/bin/aticonfig –initial.
xorg.conf
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “aticonfig Layout”
Screen 0 “aticonfig-Screen[0]-0” 0 0
EndSection

Section “Files”
EndSection

Section “Module”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0”
Option “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
Option “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
Option “DPMS” “true”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “aticonfig-Device[0]-0”
Driver “fglrx”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0”
EndSection

The Xorg.0.log has a lot information that the xorg.conf does not…Like Monitor information. (I have the “Monitor Unknown” showing up.) Plus my Login screen resolution is 640×480 and I tried adding a vga= to the Grub boot but all that did was create another screen before the login. I am able to change the desktop resolution only because of Gnome.

So I was wondering if there is a way to Import or use the information from the Xorg.0.log to automatically setup the Xorg.conf file instead of manually inputting all of the data? I am pretty sure that will solve the 2 minor problems I have.
Thanks

By: Jammer

Jammer — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:51:36 +0000

ATI don’t need to support it, they dont support Windows either. The fact of the matter is Microsoft put a lot of Money into making their GUI compatible with cards and not the other way around.

I love Linux and have stuck to Ubuntu for its hardware support until recently when I decided as I would be managing servers that I take on the most common equivalent Desktop OS “Fedora”.

This is always a problem with open source however as any hardcore linux user will admit We get over it because of the community drive to do better.

So rather than posting all of your negativity towards a company that cant possibly support all known GUI versions (bear in mind fedora has problems with NVidias cards also) Why not share your experience so Myself and others can learn from them.

By: Reloaded

Reloaded — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:40:17 +0000

I wouldn’t advise to use them, as they put untested drivers into their repository, people install them and are often left with unusable system (as it was with 9.10-10.2 drivers for F11). In some cases, there even are no ways to revert to the old and working driver due to it being unavailable. Downloading and installing driver from ati.amd.com is still the best and preferred way, in my opinion.

By: bony

bony — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:09:03 +0000

drivers from rpmfusion now available and here is an instruction:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=155503

when the X server will not start, disable SELinux (singleusermode)

vi /etc/selinux/config

but I did not have to make new initramfs files, only “aticonfig –initial”…

for suspend: add the kernel parameter “nomodeset” into the “grub.conf” file

have luck and fun with the new drivers