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wingless
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Mandrake 2007 x64 and Catalyst 7.12 problem

Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:21 pm

I'm having a helluva time getting Catalyst 7.12 to load the driver in Mandrake. The drivers install and I run the "aticonfig --initial" command and reboot. After I reboot my 2D scrolling is slow and OpenGL games still don't work. Also I cannot open the Catalyst Control Center which usually means the proper ATI driver itself isn't loaded. I checked under Harddrake (the hardware config program) and my graphics driver is still the VESA default driver and the ATI driver for my 2900XT is not in the list.

What step am I missing to get these drivers to finally work?

Relevant System Info: I have Mandrake 2007 x86_64bit patched to the latest Linux kernel. Opteron 185, DFI nF4-SLI DR Expert, and a 2900XT 512mb, X-Fi 64mb (another driver mess for another post).
Intel Core i7 2600K | 16GB DDR3-2133 | ASUS P8Z77-V Pro | Silverstone 750W | ASUS Strix GTX 980 OC | ASUS Xonar DSX/S.M.S.L. M2 USB DAC | Samsung 840 Pro | A bunch of HDDs and a lot of TBs.
 
bitvector
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Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:15 am

How did you install the ATI drivers? Did you use the versions from the Mandriva repository or just do it manually yourself? What is in fglrx-install.log (could be in /usr/share/ati/)? Any errors, warnings, etc.?

As a test, you can just edit your xorg.conf to just use the "fglrx" driver, but it's possible aticonfig didn't enable it because something went wrong (like the kernel module wouldn't compile properly) and that would just cause Xorg to not start properly. If that's the case you'll have to revert your change and look at what might be the problem.

In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf you'll have a place like this:
Section "Device"
        Identifier      ...something...
        Driver          "vesa"
   ...
EndSection

If you change the driver from vesa to fglrx, that'll force it to use the ATI driver. Then kill X (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace) and restart it. If it fails to start, you'll need to change the driver back to vesa and figure out why it's not working.
 
wingless
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Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:24 am

I just followed the ATI instructions and typed "sh ./ati-installer-etc....." and used the Automatic selection to install the drivers. It installed and I can run OpenGL games but my 2D scrolling is extremely slow and I cannot open Catalyst Control Center.
Intel Core i7 2600K | 16GB DDR3-2133 | ASUS P8Z77-V Pro | Silverstone 750W | ASUS Strix GTX 980 OC | ASUS Xonar DSX/S.M.S.L. M2 USB DAC | Samsung 840 Pro | A bunch of HDDs and a lot of TBs.
 
bitvector
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Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:58 pm

In the future, you should probably use Mandriva's packages for the ATI binary drivers instead of installing them by hand. That way, every time your kernel is upgraded, you won't have to re-do the installation to rebuild the binary kernel driver. It will also generally integrate better with your distro's config tools.

The packages are in the official non-free Mandriva repository and are the following: dkms-fglrx, x11-driver-video-fglrx, fglrx-devel, fglrx-control-center. You may have to run rpmdrake first to add the official non-free Mandriva packages to the list of available sources.
 
wingless
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Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:33 pm

bitvector wrote:
In the future, you should probably use Mandriva's packages for the ATI binary drivers instead of installing them by hand. That way, every time your kernel is upgraded, you won't have to re-do the installation to rebuild the binary kernel driver. It will also generally integrate better with your distro's config tools.

The packages are in the official non-free Mandriva repository and are the following: dkms-fglrx, x11-driver-video-fglrx, fglrx-devel, fglrx-control-center. You may have to run rpmdrake first to add the official non-free Mandriva packages to the list of available sources.
]

By "non-free" does that mean I have to have a bought version of Mandrake Linux to download and use that? Also I'm having a helluva time finding a mirror that has the Mandriva 2007.1 Catalyst 7.12 drivers. None of them have the "dkms-fglrx" drivers at all. Is there no way to install ATI's driver release on this distro? Hell, I may as well give SuSE a try...
Intel Core i7 2600K | 16GB DDR3-2133 | ASUS P8Z77-V Pro | Silverstone 750W | ASUS Strix GTX 980 OC | ASUS Xonar DSX/S.M.S.L. M2 USB DAC | Samsung 840 Pro | A bunch of HDDs and a lot of TBs.
 
bitvector
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Location: San Francisco, CA

Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:38 pm

wingless wrote:
By "non-free" does that mean I have to have a bought version of Mandrake Linux to download and use that?

No, I mean you need to enable the "non-free" software section (software that isn't compatible with the GNU Public License is classified as "non-free" even though it may be free of charge). Since ATI doesn't release the source code for their drivers, it is considered non-free.

To do this, in RPMDrake, you go to the "Media Manager" menu option under the "Options" menu. Then you check the Enabled box next to "Non-free" and "Non-free Updates." Also check the Updates box next to "Non-free Updates."

wingless wrote:
Also I'm having a helluva time finding a mirror that has the Mandriva 2007.1 Catalyst 7.12 drivers.

In 2007.1 the package seems to be called dkms-ati. I don't have much experience with Mandriva, so I didn't realize they'd renamed it between 2008.0 and 2007.1 when I found the info. It also looks like they're stuck at driver version 8.34.8 which probably doesn't support your card. The problem is 2007.1 is old and not getting functionality updates anymore, just security. 2008.0 has the dkms-fglrx-hd2000 driver package which could support your card.

You've run into the bad combination of trying to use an old version of a distribution with a brand new piece of hardware.

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