AGP Radeon driver issues in Ubuntu 7.10

[Schadenfroh]

Hello,

I am trying to get 2D working properly and 3D to work in my install of Ubuntu 7.10. The operating system is fully updated (with all mandatory and recommended updates installed). This is on a fresh install of Ubuntu 7.10.

System:
AMD Athlon64 4000+
AMD / ATI Radeon x1950 Pro AGP 512mb
nvidia nForce 3 Ultra chipset
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS
old Seagate 7200 RPM drive
2gb Corsair XMS PC3200
Visual Effects set to none

Problems:

• 2D is laggy and choppy
• moving windows results in remnants / lag of window and splintering it into many copies before it stops and eventually merges back into a single window
• Text will heavily overlap and fall into several lines when scrolling (best that I can describe)
• No 3D
• Installing restricted driver will cause system to load to a black screen upon restart (once the GUI kicks in, I assume)

What I have tried:

• Enabling restricted software, then installing restricted driver. Results in booting to a black screen (no command line). Booting to recovery mode and using "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" will allow me to get back to the GUI, but the restricted driver is not loaded and the problems exist as stated above.
• I have completed the steps in this guide, results in the problem of a blank black screen as noted above
• Removed the splash and quiet boot options

ATI has had several driver issues since the mid 7.x days on the windows side of things for x1950 AGP cards, so I imagine that ATI might also be having problems with their drivers for the AGP x1950 in Linux.

thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Nothinman]

Whenever you get the black screen can you login via ssh to see if there's anything in /var/log/Xorg.0.log or dmesg that might give you a clue as to what's happening?

 

[Schadenfroh]

I managed to get past the black screen (by using the latest driver on ATI's website and not the one Ubuntu downloads from the default repositories) and the restricted ATI Driver is now in use (latest on ATI's website).

Odd thing is... now that I have the GUI working with the restricted driver, it is now even slower / choppier in 2D than before the restricted driver. As a matter of fact, it is extremely choppy when trying to scroll down a document (almost occurs in blocks with one sec pauses between movements, the scrolling occurs on a single horizontal line that moves down the page, best way to describe it). All desktop effects are off.

Here is the Xorg.0.log file:

Removed due to Nothinman finding the problematic section

 

[Nothinman]

(EE) fglrx(0): atiddxDriScreenInit failed, GPS not been initialized.
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed! *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *
...
(EE) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable

That's probably you're problem, whatever fall back mode their non-free driver has must be slower than the free Xorg driver.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Thanks for pointing that out and for the help Nothinman

I will do some searching to try and find work arounds. Any thoughts on how to correct it off the top of your head?


(I am not good with Linux, as you can tell)

 

[Nothinman]

Is the fglrx kernel module loaded?

 

[livingsacrifice]

I had lots and lots of problems with my ATI x850xt on Ubuntu 7.10 64bit and the radeon drivers. I remember lots of editing the xorg file. In the end I found out it just didn't like my DVI connection at all, I worked 100% in VGA so I just went with that. I haven't tried it since though, problem might have changed, not to mention I have a different ati card now and a different monitor.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Is the fglrx kernel module loaded?

The shipping version of fglrx seems to have been the culprit.

I installed it the manual way 3D is now working and 2D is now smooth!

Apparently:

As Ubuntu Gutsy's linux-restricted-modules package includes the fglrx module from an old driver version (8.37.6), we have to blacklist this module to make sure the new kernel module which is needed by the new driver will be used instead.

Now Linux is working properly on my Desktop and the latest alpha of Ubuntu 8.04 works on my notebook (the nvidia GPU in the notebook was far quicker to install drivers for). :thumbsup:



Thus begins my slow transition from Windows to Linux for nonGaming tasks.


Thanks again Nothinman!