Fix for old Ati cards under PCLinuxOS 2011 with the xorg 1.9.5

[AndrzejL]

Tex announced that He will put xorg 1.10.2 into the testing section. I am very anxious to see if my card will work well with this xorg version. If not - I will visit those guys in #radeon channel again .

Andy

[AndrzejL]

[andrzejl@wishmasbell ~]$ infobash -v3
Host/Kernel/OS  "wishmasbell.loc" running Linux 2.6.38.8-pclos1.a64 i386 [ PCLinuxOS release 2011 (PCLinuxOS) for i586 ]
CPU Info        Mobile AMD Sempron 3000+ 128 KB cache flags( sse3 nx ) clocked at [ 1800.000 MHz ]
Videocard       ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE)  X.Org 1.10.2  [ 1440x900@59.9hz ]
Network cards   ALi ULi 1689 1573 integrated ethernet., at port: e000
                Atheros AR5008 Wireless Network Adapter
Processes 154 | Uptime 12min | Memory 363.1/877.7MB | HDD ATA SAMSUNG HM160HC Size 160GB (78%used) | GLX Renderer Gallium 0.4 on ATI RS480 | GLX Version Yes | Client Shell | Infobash v3.05
[andrzejl@wishmasbell ~]$

My fix is still humming along after the upgrade to the xorg 1.10.2... . All 3D games are working. All the Desktop Effects are working fine. Once thing I noticed which is really tiny - sometimes I get tiny glitches when minimizing / maximizing thunderbird.

Andy

[cage47]

I was a little upset when this happened. At least the fix is working. I tried using the drakx11 option but that kept reverting to the ati driver. So I manually opened the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Changed ati to radeon, added the Load "dri" and Load "glx" to the options section. added radeon to the end of the /etc/modprobe.preload file and added the modeset=1 to the modprobe file. I got 3d back. I first noticed it when my opengl screensavers wouldn't work. But it's back. But It seems that with each update I seem to loose a little more performance. I used to get 3100fps with my Radeon9800pro and now I'm down to 1275fps.

And I don't want to hear anything about getting a new card. The whole idea is to keep what you have, working for as long as it can. If it borks on me I might have to do a clean install of PCLOS 2010.12 and only do a selective update. And keep the old xorg.

Oh, yeah, can you guys sticky this thread.

[AndrzejL]

I was a little upset when this happened. At least the fix is working. I tried using the drakx11 option but that kept reverting to the ati driver. So I manually opened the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Changed ati to radeon, added the Load "dri" and Load "glx" to the options section. added radeon to the end of the /etc/modprobe.preload file and added the modeset=1 to the modprobe file. I got 3d back. I first noticed it when my opengl screensavers wouldn't work. But it's back. But It seems that with each update I seem to loose a little more performance. I used to get 3100fps with my Radeon9800pro and now I'm down to 1275fps.

And I don't want to hear anything about getting a new card. The whole idea is to keep what you have, working for as long as it can. If it borks on me I might have to do a clean install of PCLOS 2010.12 and only do a selective update. And keep the old xorg.

Oh, yeah, can you guys sticky this thread.

The thread is already sticked somewhere else.

First. No need to be upset:

A) I found a solution that works very well.
B) You cannot blame PCLinuxOS for ATI decisions.
C) Stress is bad for Your bowel movements.

Second: Why don't You get a new card :].

Andy

[T6]

pclinux is a rolling release distro, selective updates will break your system eventually

when the manufacturer abandons the hardware and everybody wants new 3d stuff, old hardware like this one eventually must be put aside

this has been the case for video cards for enough time to accept the situation and don't be angry/upset for it

you should feel lucky because the fix works for you, in my case it brought terrible problems and i had to revert back to partial 3d support

[AndrzejL]

in my case it brought terrible problems and i had to revert back to partial 3d support

I am so sorry to hear this... You're the only person so far that I know of that it didn't worked for...

I know of at least 50 people who applied this fix and were more then satisfied... Yes. I am proud of myself .

Andy

[T6]

the problem can be a mix of the card itself and the chipset, this mainboard is a old msi with via chipset, i had problems in the past mixing via with ati

will try with the next 64 bit livecd to see how it goes, thanks for your effort

[cage47]

The thread is already sticked somewhere else.

First. No need to be upset:

A) I found a solution that works very well.
B) You cannot blame PCLinuxOS for ATI decisions.
C) Stress is bad for Your bowel movements.

Second: Why don't You get a new card :].

Andy

Ok good to know.

I was upset because I always liked how things worked here with no tweaking. Not that it's Tex's fault. I've been griping about how some dev's have been going with some packages. I mean I thought Xorg was made to work WITHOUT an xorg.conf. A couple years ago that was all the talk. NO?

Oh the solution works. But I'm not pleased how each time something gets changed (by the devs, not tex) it seems my performance seems to take a little more of a hit.

And as far as second, New house, new job, truck needs repairs, Rebel needs repairs, daughter needs to travel from NY to texas....And it JUST WORKS. I like keeping my stuff going until it craps out. I'm not one to upgrade my hardware to keep up with the software. I upgrade the hardware when it runs out. Hence Truck needs repairs, Rebel needs repairs...

[T6]

i'm doing the same with my ati radeon 9200

when it craps out, it will go proudly to the wall, without heatsink should look nice 

still, software advances and this type of hardware is abandoned faster and faster

don't know how this will be in the future with the new cpu/gpu solutions, that will be interesting

[cage47]

Well I find that I am having to turn my computer on and off a couple times now to get it to come up. When the system boots up and it gets to where KDM starts the system hangs and the caps and scroll lights on the keyboard blink on and off. Sometimes hitting reset gets it to come up. Today it took two tries. If this keeps up I'm going to do a clean install of 2011.6. That's what is annoying me. Should have pinned the older xorg.

[T6]

what you describe could be one of two things, a kernel panic or a hardware failure

the kernel is easy to diagnose, install another from synaptic

the second, open, clean and verify the mainboard, ram, cpu and video card

[cage47]

I can say without fear of contradiction it is NOT a hardware failure. Which brings back to a kernel panic which means clean install. Since it does not happen when xorg uses the ati module. Only when I change it to radeon.

[AndrzejL]

Since when kernel panic means clean install? Open synaptic and install latest kernel...

Andy

[T6]

i was thinking the same, a clean install means that all the files were copied correctly and the source of the files was working well, nothing more

the kernel is a 40+ mbs file now

when it fails it doesn't mean it is corrupted, it can also mean that a driver you are using is not cooperating and a kernel panic is the result

[cage47]

And here is the reason. I've tinkered with it. And tweaked it. But after a while it seems things get bogged down. Now my fps are down to 85. This is really bad. It used to do 3100fps in glxgears. So this weekend, fresh install. Also I want to make a second install cd of what I use to install on a second, non networked machine. I like how it works and looks. but it needs to be clean.