# ATI AIW Radeon X1900 - advice please!

## gr0x0rd

Hey hey...

I'm starting to plan my transition from running Gentoo in a vmware console to running Gentoo with windows in a vmware console  :Very Happy: 

Of course, by using vmware, I'm unable to preview what will happen with some of my system hardware, and in particular, the AIW X1900. I purchased the card at a great price given the GPU and features it has, as shortly before AMD announced the phase-out of the AIW line. So I knew what I was getting into here; support from ATI/AMD has been minimal at best. But when I make the move to Gentoo I'm hoping to eventually use the card's multimedia features. So if you have this card and run Gentoo with it, please feel free to say hello.  :Smile: 

I'm a total n00b so I've been going over the Gentoo ATI guide and other guides to figure out what I can expect when I try to get up an running in a pure Gentoo environment. I'm concerned about the fact that my card is only supported by the proprietary ati driver and not in x.org natively - ATI have been notoriously bad for driver and software support and even worse since AMD took over. Does anyone have anything to add along these lines regarding ATI driver support in linux in general? Will ATI eventually open-source these drivers and include them in xorg as has been done with previous GPU generations? Have these ATI drivers been a nightmare for anyone else as is the case with most builds of the windoze drivers?

I was also pleased to see the GATOS project, and while I've only had a glance at it so far, it shows some light at the end of the tunnel for my capture, dual display and other hardware multimedia features. However, ATI/AMD as yet have no support for these features under Vista with no intention of ever doing so... I'm curious, does anyone with this card use capture/tv/tv out under Gentoo?

Cheers...

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## gr0x0rd

Okay... so I've bitten the bullet, blasted windows, installed Gentoo, and I'm up and running. No responses to this thread, too bad for me, was hoping someone else in the community had this card   :Confused: 

After emerging X, I couldn't get it to run. I messed around with the config for ages trying to get the server to run, since the "radeon" driver didnt agree with my card:

lspci 

...

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc. R580 [Radeon X1900 XT] (Primary)

01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc. R580 [Radeon X1900 XT] (Secondary)

...

But when I went to run X with "radeon" as my driver in my xorg.conf, I'd get 

(WW) RADEON: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found

(EE) No devices detected.

I went to the ATI website to have a look at the info for the linux driver and had a look at the wiki here:

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Gentoo_Installation_Guide

Which of course assumed that xorg was already up and running. I did make a few changes to my kernel, which leads me to my first question: My card is PCIe. I have enabled [*] PCI Express support in my kernel: what affect, if any, does this have on the operation of the driver? Do I still need the <*> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support) and <*> ATI Chipset Support in this case?

Since I've found the gentoo docs far better than the wikis out there, I went back to the Gentoo ATI guide and thought I'd have a go at emerging the driver. From what I can gather this installed succesfully: 

emerge --search ati-drivers

* x11-drivers/ati-drivers

    Latest version available: 8.40.4

    Latest version installed: 8.40.4

Ok, so got that. But this guide also says I should have X up and running before going ahead with this. Back to the Gentoo Xorg guide, which tells me to use fglrx as the driver for ATI Radeon cards. After changing this setting, X now starts- great! But on exit, I see the following:

(WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found

..

(EE) AIGLX error: dlsym for __driCreateNewScreen_20050727 failed (blah blah)

(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering

..

So it doesnt look like I'm getting any sort of hardware acceleration from the driver. Bummer. Back to the guide, so I try to update the opengl interface..

eselect opengl set ati

Switching to ati OpenGL interface... done

Ok, back to X, and into a terminal...

fglrxinfo

display: :0.0 screen: 0

OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.

OpenGL renderer string: Radeon X1900 Series

OpenGL version string: 2.0.6747 (8.40.4)

By the unofficial ATI Gentoo wiki, this says I've done my job. But I'm worried about the above error when exiting X... Is there something I should change or fix before moving forward to correct this error message?

And, last but not least, the hardware acceleration guide is for AGP cards. Is the Gentoo hardware acceleration guide for AGP cards only? Where should I look for hardware acceleration for my PCIe card?

My next step is to emerge gnome, but before I go ahead with that, I'd like to make sure I'm on the right track here and that my card is correctly configured. Thanks in advance for your input!

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## Roman_Gruber

New postPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 10:59 pm    Post subject: 	Report this post Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post

hi,

Do you want a short answer?

Yes

I assume you need: emerge -av --update --deep -N world; emerge -av ati-drivers

emerge -av gnome-light

eselect opengl set ati

revdep-rebuild

For your /etc/X11/xorg.conf

set up a basic configuration with xorgconfig; use vesa and correct setting for your mouse and keyboards. The vga card is overwritten later in this procedure.

Then

aticonfig --initial /etc/X11/xorg.conf

So this should be a basic command flow to get your system up and running. Check for typos, Thank you.

Roman

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## Roman_Gruber

 *gr0x0rd wrote:*   

> Okay... so I've bitten the bullet, blasted windows, installed Gentoo, and I'm up and running. No responses to this thread, too bad for me, was hoping someone else in the community had this card  
> 
> After emerging X, I couldn't get it to run. I messed around with the config for ages trying to get the server to run, since the "radeon" driver didnt agree with my card:
> 
> lspci 
> ...

 

You should use fglrx as radeon is the opensource-driver and fglrx should support your new hardware as best.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> I went to the ATI website to have a look at the info for the linux driver and had a look at the wiki here:
> 
> http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Gentoo_Installation_Guide
> ...

 

This is a failsafe setting. Make a new kernel, boot into it and emerge ati-driver. Then you will have the appropriate module and if you reboot your system you should have DRI (=accelaration) with correct settings in your xorg.conf. IF you update your kernel you will have to rebuild any package like ati-drivers and dirvers for your wireless-cards, ettc.. which builds a module for your kernel

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Since I've found the gentoo docs far better than the wikis out there, I went back to the Gentoo ATI guide and thought I'd have a go at emerging the driver. 
> 
> 

 

The wiki is not official supported by gentoo. The docs have gentoo support.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> From what I can gather this installed succesfully: 
> 
> emerge --search ati-drivers
> ...

 

```

notebook roman # glxinfo |grep direct

direct rendering: Yes

notebook roman # 

```

If you see yes then you have acceleration. I prefer to check it in a gnome-terminal.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> So it doesnt look like I'm getting any sort of hardware acceleration from the driver. Bummer. Back to the guide, so I try to update the opengl interface..
> 
> eselect opengl set ati
> ...

 

Good. Very Good. Do this and reboot with the same kernel as the ati-driver was last compiled. Then log in and use startx to get a x-session up and running. Check then again for Direct rendering.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Ok, back to X, and into a terminal...
> 
> fglrxinfo
> ...

  8.40.4 doesnt support AIGLX but a recent released ati-driver supports AIGLX. I assume that you will have AIGLX support in the next versions of ATI-drivers. So be patient please and wait for the next version to get AIGLX support.   *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> And, last but not least, the hardware acceleration guide is for AGP cards. Is the Gentoo hardware acceleration guide for AGP cards only? Where should I look for hardware acceleration for my PCIe card?
> 
> 

  The settings should be similar. I have a X700 mobile pcie card from ati 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> My next step is to emerge gnome, but before I go ahead with that, I'd like to make sure I'm on the right track here and that my card is correctly configured. Thanks in advance for your input!

 

Hi,

A tip from me: emerge gnome-light. You will get a lighter gnome-package with less installed software.

Last tip: emerge eix

Useful commands then, try the out:

eix package_you_want_to_search_in_portage

eix-sync        this command syncs your system and gives you a list

```
notebook roman # eix-sync 

 * Removing old portage-cache in /var/cache/edb/dep ...                                                     [ ok ]

 * Running emerge --sync ...                                                                                [ ok ]

 * Copying old /var/cache/eix cache to /var/cache/eix.previous ...                                          [ ok ]

 * Running update-eix ...                                                                                   [ ok ]

Diffing databases (12545 - 12546 packages)

[*>]  == app-emacs/regress (~1.5.1 -> 1.5.1): Regression test harness for Emacs Lisp code

[U]   == dev-libs/glib (1.2.10-r5(1)@05/29/2007 2.14.2(2)@10/21/2007; 1.2.10-r5(1) (~)2.14.2(2) -> 1.2.10-r5(1) (~)2.14.3(2)): The GLib library of C routines

[U]   == dev-libs/openssl (0.9.8f@10/21/2007; 0.9.8f -> 0.9.8g): Toolkit for SSL v2/v3 and TLS v1

[U]   == gnome-extra/gnome-power-manager (2.20.0["gnome" /usr/portage/local/layman/gnome-experimental]@09/20/2007; (~)2.20.0 -> (~)2.20.0-r1): Gnome Power Manager

[U]   == gnome-extra/libgda (1.2.3(1)@07/04/2007; 1.2.3(1) -> 1.2.4(1)): Gnome Database Access Library

      << mail-client/sylpheed-claws ({M}2.6.1): Sylpheed-Claws is an email client (and news reader) based on GTK+

[U]   == media-libs/libpng (1.2.22(1.2)@10/20/2007; 1.2.22(1.2) -> (~)1.2.23(1.2)): Portable Network Graphics library

[>]   == net-p2p/transmission (0.72 -> 0.82): Simple BitTorrent client

[U]   == net-print/cups (1.2.12-r1@10/25/2007; 1.2.12-r1 -> 1.2.12-r2): The Common Unix Printing System

[U]   == sys-apps/portage (2.1.3.16@10/27/2007; 2.1.3.16 -> 2.1.3.19): The Portage Package Management System. The primary package management and distribution system for Gentoo.

[U]   == x11-base/xorg-server (1.3.0.0-r1@10/22/2007; 1.3.0.0-r1 -> 1.3.0.0-r2): X.Org X servers

[>]   == xfce-base/xfce4-panel (4.4.1 -> 4.4.1-r1): Panel

[N]   >> gnome-extra/avant-window-navigator (~0.2.1): Fully customisable dock-like window navigator for GNOME.

[N]   >> sys-kernel/thinkpad-sources ([M]~2.6.23-r1) [1]: Software Suspend 2 + Gentoo patchset sources + SCO Flowcontrol + Latest THINKPAD-Acpi

notebook roman # 

```

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## Roman_Gruber

Maybe you read this

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-604241-start-100.html

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## gr0x0rd

Thanks for all the help and input Roman. 

In a gnome terminal...

glxinfo |grep direct

direct rendering: Yes

Sweet. I also took your advice and emerged eix, sure it will come in handy. Thanks for the link as well, doubt I would have found it. I'm still learning the terminology, which is crucial for search terms...

Looks like all that's left is to wait for the new ATI driver with AIGLX support  :Very Happy:  That, and start exploring my AIW features...

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## Roman_Gruber

I am glad, that you have DRI now.

Roman

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