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xserver-xorg-video-ati package

Ubuntu 10.04 not working with Radeon 7000

Asked by ermo

I I can no longer get full HD 1920*1080 screen resolution after upgrading from Ubuntu 9 to Ubuntu 10.

System: Ubuntu 10.04LTS
Video: 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE] [1002:5159]
Monitor: 24” Acer LCD connected via DVI port

Ubuntu 9 had no problems correctly detecting the monitor – both the login and desktop screen were set to full HD 1920*1080 by default. After upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 I have had nothing but problems – the splash screen looks awful, like it's in 16 colours – the login screen resolution is stupidly low, about 720*400 I think – this was also the default resolution of the desktop, the best I can get it to via System->Preferences->Monitors is 1440*900.

I tried removing a custom xorg.conf and that didn't make any difference. ATI don't support this video card any more so proprietary video drivers are not an option. I've tried searching online for solutions and not found anything conclusive. Upgrading the video card is not an option for this aged machine so it looks like I am going to have to reinstall Ubuntu 9, unless you guys can help me! What is the difference between the Radeon video drivers in Ubuntu 9 and 10? I would be very grateful for any help or suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

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ermo
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Can you give the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; echo; sudo lshw -C display

Thanks

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ermo (danielbigg) said : 		#2

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid
Linux daniel-desktop 2.6.32-27-generic #49-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 1 23:52:12 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]
       vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: agp agp-2.0 pm bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=32 mingnt=8
       resources: irq:19 memory:e0000000-e7ffffff(prefetchable) ioport:a000(size=256) memory:ed000000-ed00ffff memory:ec000000-ec01ffff(prefetchable)

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

ok it's using the open driver because ati don't support the card (sadly). You will need an Xorg.conf file as your monitor is not reporting EDID as it's supposed to.

You could try:

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Find:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
and change to;
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.modeset=0"

Save the new file and run:

sudo update-grub

Reboot to test.

Source:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10440981#post10440981

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ermo (danielbigg) said : 		#4

Thanks for your help, that fixed the splash screen.

If it is a problem with my monitor then why did the display work fine with Ubuntu 9?

I find xorg.conf files a little confusing to be honest but I have tried using xrandr and got nowhere with it:

http://superuser.com/questions/51248/where-is-the-xorg-conf-file-in-karmic-koala-ubuntu-9-10

Perhaps I should give it another try.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

Because version 9.04 / 9.10 (whichever you mean) use a lower version of xorg which obviously played well with your video chip. Sounds like the next xorg isn't nice with your monitor so you need to step in and manually configure.

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ermo (danielbigg) said : 		#6

I don't want to add mode lines to xorg.conf until I've tested them with xrandr but every time I try to add the new mode I get the following error:

xrandr --addmode DVI-0 1920x1080_60.00
X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request: 149 (RANDR)
  Minor opcode of failed request: 18 (RRAddOutputMode)
  Serial number of failed request: 25
  Current serial number in output stream: 26

I tried mode lines generated by both cvt and gtf with no joy. Finally I checked Xorg.0.log and noticed the following lines:

(II) RADEON(0): Panel infos found from DDC detailed: 1920x1080
(II) RADEON(0): EDID vendor "ACR", prod id 163
(II) RADEON(0): Not using mode "1920x1080" (mode clock too high)

So it looks like EDID is reporting the mode OK but for some reason the ATI driver is deciding it can't display it. When I scroll further down the log file to before I upgraded to Ubuntu 10 I can see it was using that mode without complaining. Strange because I'm pretty sure that Ubuntu 9 was also using the open source ATI driver. Do you think this could be a bug?

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#7

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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ermo (danielbigg) said : 		#9

Just trying to mark question as resolved.

Revision history for this message
ermo (danielbigg) said : 		#10

Just trying to mark question as resolved.

Revision history for this message
ermo (danielbigg) said : 		#11

Managed to get it to work! First of all, whatever you do DON'T add radeon.modeset=0 to your grub config as directed above. Yes it fixes the splash screen but it also reduces the maximum resolution supported by xrandr to 1680x1680!

After putting the grub config back to the way it was originally I eventually discovered that adding the mode line to /etc/gdm/Init/Default so that gdm goes straight into high resolution solved the problem. I added the following lines just below the path definition at the top of /etc/gdm/Init/Default:

xrandr --newmode "1920x1080" 172.80 1920 2040 2248 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -HSync +Vsync
xrandr --addmode DVI-0 1920x1080
xrandr --output DVI-0 --mode 1920x1080

I also found that kdm seems to be a lot more stable with this video driver than gdm. To get kdm to log in at the high resolution just add the above lines to /etc/kde4/kdm/Xstartup, again just below the path line. This works OK except you can no longer log out, to get to the login screen you have to reboot! You can also add the lines to /etc/kde4/kdm/Xsetup to get the login screen to appear in high resolution but the problem is it tiles the background image.