ati graphic card

welcome to the ati graphic card users under linux. it's a long story/saga to discuss here. to make a long story short, at this time, the way I could see, there are available workable solutions as follows:

- if your card is BELOW x800 then the open source drivers work fine see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

- if your card is ABOVE x800 then the ati proprietary drivers must be used see
                                                                                                                                 https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI#head-26e8b0d4be861a6b7c545dc21c45232f909d8ca2
which may or may not work. THERE IS NO HELP FROM UBUNTU NOR FROM ATI! YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN!!

- it is OK to try http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

it will install fglrx driver but I couldn't get 3d acceleration. the fglrx module is installed in a questionable way -it does not list under installed modules and the author did not reply this concern.

- try also to use the restricted drivers manager that are under feisty-administration. I couldn't make this work for me.

so, all in all, it's up to you to make the best given the circumstances.

peter b

For what's it's worth, i had good luck with the "restricted driver manager" in feisty. It's in system -> admin -> restricted drivers manager. on a 2 year old dell laptop with ati card it installed the driver without a hitch. I was able to get beryl working for the first time ever on that laptop. I've also had good luck with envy a peter b suggests but mostly with nvidia. Graphics drivers are a sore spot in Linux but with some effort most people manage to get them working.

thanks peter and jim but still continue my problem. i tried your links. also i installed envy installer script but its not resolve my problem. i thing its a bug because i worked ati driver with my card but when i running ati driver desktop effects not working. i don t understand anythinhg. i still fighting :) i m read all of documents about ati driver and ubuntu feisty fawn. i will be a guru a few days later. i m feelling the force. if i resolve this problem i ll open a website for this solution :) may the forece be with you. yake care men and thanks for a lot your help.

Sorry to hear things are still not working. ATI seems to have more issues with linux than either nvidia or intell. I know that's not very comforting but at least you know it's not just you. About the best I can do is to point you to some possible solutions. Hope one of them is useful.

Have a look at this thread. Perhaps it will help.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=431321

You might also want to check this one but it's a bit out of date.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=143283

And for good measure, one more with lots of idea.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221320

a little more info re your last post karadam.

- what ati card are you using? is it BELOW x800 or ABOVE?

secondly, it does not matter what card you're trying to install the driver BUT

- BEFORE installing a new ati driver ALWAYS UNINSTALL the previous one if one was installed. failing this there is no way to get a new PROPERLY installed driver.

as far as my personal experience re ati drivers under linux goes

- ati for the past year made good progress in their monthly releases of new drivers. if before one couldn't even dream of an ati catalyst control center installed the last 2 driver releases install such; it is still far from what it is under win but at least it is there on the desktop under accessories.
- envy does a decent job installing the ati driver under ubuntu/cassandra mint but as I said, it is not listed as an installed module and I couldn't make it provide 3d accel. the xorg log tells me that it expects xorg 7.1 in order to detect/enable dri but as you probably know feisty/mint is compiled with xorg 7.2 so probably one would have to downgrade to 7.1 and hopefully it'll work. I didn't try it and I'm not going to recompile the kernel with 7.1, I feel that this is not a task that the averge or new user should be asked to perform in order to harness the full potential of his/her hware (in extremis probably one would like to undertake such provided that there is a good supported by the distro developer howto)
- I have a PC that still runs edgy with fglrx driver 8.28 version; there were no problems whatsoever in installing the ati driver and getting 3d accel, xgl and beryl installed without a hitch.
- on another PC I have a 9250 ati adapter and has installed the open source AIGLX driver and beryl works with no problems

so, if I may express an opinion, it looks that if there is a little coordination/understanding between the linux/xorg developers and amd/ati a lot of good things could come about in making linux better, more robust and more attractive to the people at large. in the meantime, I'll wait for the new ati driver release that will - hopefully - be compiled for the xorg7.2 and install 3d accel under feisty.

peter b

hi peter,

my graphic card is ati radeon 9550. i tried the many ways for the
installations. actually i have many problem. when i install install my
ati card drivers, my lcd monitor not resolution 1280x1024 if i resolve
this problem ati driver not working. if i resolve all of problem at this
time desktop effect not working. i tired fgiht this problem i thing this
is a bug and resolve with a update. thanks for your help.

On Tue, 2007-06-12 at 18:15 +0000, peter b wrote:
> Your question #7910 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7910
>
> peter b proposed the following answer:
>
> a little more info re your last post karadam.
>
> - what ati card are you using? is it BELOW x800 or ABOVE?
>
> secondly, it does not matter what card you're trying to install the
> driver BUT
>
> - BEFORE installing a new ati driver ALWAYS UNINSTALL the previous one
> if one was installed. failing this there is no way to get a new PROPERLY
> installed driver.
>
> as far as my personal experience re ati drivers under linux goes
>
> - ati for the past year made good progress in their monthly releases of new drivers. if before one couldn't even dream of an ati catalyst control center installed the last 2 driver releases install such; it is still far from what it is under win but at least it is there on the desktop under accessories.
> - envy does a decent job installing the ati driver under ubuntu/cassandra mint but as I said, it is not listed as an installed module and I couldn't make it provide 3d accel. the xorg log tells me that it expects xorg 7.1 in order to detect/enable dri but as you probably know feisty/mint is compiled with xorg 7.2 so probably one would have to downgrade to 7.1 and hopefully it'll work. I didn't try it and I'm not going to recompile the kernel with 7.1, I feel that this is not a task that the averge or new user should be asked to perform in order to harness the full potential of his/her hware (in extremis probably one would like to undertake such provided that there is a good supported by the distro developer howto)
> - I have a PC that still runs edgy with fglrx driver 8.28 version; there were no problems whatsoever in installing the ati driver and getting 3d accel, xgl and beryl installed without a hitch.
> - on another PC I have a 9250 ati adapter and has installed the open source AIGLX driver and beryl works with no problems
>
> so, if I may express an opinion, it looks that if there is a little
> coordination/understanding between the linux/xorg developers and amd/ati
> a lot of good things could come about in making linux better, more
> robust and more attractive to the people at large. in the meantime,
> I'll wait for the new ati driver release that will - hopefully - be
> compiled for the xorg7.2 and install 3d accel under feisty.
>
> peter b
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7910/+confirm?answer_id=4
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/7910

the ati 9550 (rv350) as you could see on one of ubuntu's howto's posted above is supported by the open source driver on experimental basis. so, this tells you that the open source driver may or may not work.

the ati proprietary fglrx driver would be probably a better choice.

the way I see it, with either the open source driver or the fglrx the results are going to be similar or, said it differently, the 3d acceleration MAY or MAY NOT work with the open source and the same results are going to be obtained with fglrx as it stands today.

I'm in the same situation, besides the 2 other PC's that I mentioned previously that I was lucky to have hardware -ati 9250 that is supported fully by the open source driver in one case - and the ubuntu edgy that worked very well with the ati fglrx 8.28 version in the second case - the best I could do in feisty with ati x1300 card and fglrx 8.36 was to get, at least, the best screen resolution of 1680x1050 and get the ati catalyst installed. the 3d acceleration is not working because of the reasons above mentioned.

so, you see now what I meant in my first post when I mentioned ...'story/saga' and ...'it's up to you to make the best given the circumstances.'

my approach to this problem is just wait and see how things develop in the future and hope for the best. there isn't much I can do -it's a free distro that comes as it is with the support it has. I can tell you, as Jim said, the video drivers under linux are what they are, a sore point. Personally, I tried to understand the dynamics of this situation; linux the great and probably the best os, because of this for years lost a lot of appeal and drove away people that sincerely wanted to use it. but again, that's how the world is. it's very hard on linux in this case, my logic tells me that since I made an investment in buying an ati product IT IS ATI'S DUTY TO SUPPLY AND SUPPORT THE DRIVERS THAT MAKE THAT PRODUCT WORK which, unfortunately, is what it is in linux's case. Then a big question, DID I BUY THE ATI PRODUCT THAT WILL FUNCTION AND GOOD ONLY FOR WINDOWS??? OR FOR A PC THAT USES AN OS OF MY CHOICE?.

peter b