Debian Lenny + 2.6.26 + FireGL 5200 + fglrx -> screen corruption

[Wolfgang]

Dear all

I just updated my TP60p with a FireGL 5200 to Debian/Lenny. Now I am trying to get the ATI driver to work (the ones supplied directly from ATI, not the Debian ones)... so far without the expected success.

The fglrx module of the older drivers either doesn't even compile or doesn't load under the 2.6.26 kernel. The module for the 8.10 drivers and above (including the 9.1beta) does compile and load, but when X is started, the screen shows only a garbled pattern -- the mouse curser shows fine, though (FYI: I use the VESA/VGA framebuffer for the text console). Without the fglrx kernel module, without HW acceleration, the server starts and works "fine".

The older drivers with in combination with an older kernel used to work quite acceptably with hardware acceleration.

«Progress is, when we move on. Never mind the direction...»

Regards, Wolfgang

[Kano]

it is no problem to use older drivers with 2.6.26 - this should be possible down to 8-5 with my script. You can specify the driver version you want to try just with -v option like:

sh install-fglrx-debian.sh -v 8-5

http://kanotix.com/files/install-fglrx-debian.sh

[Wolfgang]

Kano, thanks for the prompt reply. Unfortunately your script did not work. It failed to download the software packages from ATI ... and then left my system in a bit of a mess -- nothing tragic, but still I am somewhat loath to let a script mess with my kernel and system without knowing what is going on, what is supposed to happen.

It would be nice if ATI managed to fix the driver. It can not be that difficult a problem, since when I switch from the X console to the fb text console, I actually see the unscrambled screen flashing up for a fraction of a second. But I fear this is not going to happen anytime soon.


Regards, Wolfgang


Edit: Problem solved. ATI doesn't need to fix the driver. I needed to fix my xorg.conf (see below). Not that difficult a problem, indeed ...

[Kano]

Well when the driver package can not get extracted then the script deletes it. Did you use 64 bit? The script does mainly patch the driver for 32 bit - only newers get 64 bit patches too.

[Wolfgang]

Thanks again, Kano for your willingness to help.

The 8.12 driver works now with hardware acceleration.

The problem was in the xorg.conf file. In the [Device] section I still had the VideoOverlay and OpenGLOverlay options active -- which seemed to help with the ancient driver I was using before. Removing all options removed all problems. Happiness ensued.

Regards, Wolfgang