Does AMD/ATI 790GX IGP work in Jaunty 64 w/ 2 monitors/xinerama? display overlap bug

[JavaGeek_Boston]

Hello All,
I am trying to run 64-bit Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope with 2 monitors in xinerama and my embedded 790GX IGP. I am running a phenom 2 955 and trying to get the embedded graphics working.

I installed the latest catalyst drivers from ATI's website. When I boot up, it appears normal.

My left/primary monitor (with toolbars) works great. When I move a window to the secondary/right monitor, I can't move the window all the way to the right.

When I maximize a window on the left/primary display, everything works as expected.
When I maximize a window on the right/secondary display, it maximizes, but the window is shifted to the left by about 400 pixels or so. I see desktop to the right in the monitor and the window overlaps into the left by the same number of pixels.

Here's what I did:

1. fresh install of Jaunty 64
2. update everything
3. enable proprietary AMD driver from Driver Manager in Ubuntu
4. display bug

I noticed the bug above, so I tried downloading the latest drivers from AMD's website and noticed the exact same behavior. I also tried installing a Radeon 3450 graphics card in the PCIe slot and had the same result.

On Windows, dual monitors works (as does hybrid crossfire), so I know it's not the hardware.

1. Is there a name for this bug? I'm having a hard time researching it as I don't know how to describe it. Surely I'm not the first person to experience this and there's got to be a term I can google to find advice.
2. Does the 790GX work in Jaunty 64-bit for anyone? If so, did you do anything special to get it working?
3. Has anyone gotten a Radeon 3xxx card working in Jaunty 64? If so, did you do anything special to get it working?
4. Has anyone gotten any Radeon card working in Jaunty 64? If so, did you do anything special to get it working?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Steven

[bridgman]

Did you use aticonfig to set up the driver after installation ? If not you're probably going to have problems.

There is a specific set of aticonfig parameters required for dual-screen and xinerama. Going from memory here, but I think you want to start with a standard xorg.conf then run something like :

sudo aticonfig --initial=dual-head --xinerama=on

I believe there are examples at the end of the aticonfig --help output.

[JavaGeek_Boston]

Did you use aticonfig to set up the driver after installation ? If not you're probably going to have problems.

Thank you so much for responding.
I used amdcccle and it produced:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
	Screen         "amdcccle-Screen[1]-1" 1600 0
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load  "glx"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
	Option	    "Xinerama" "on"
	Option	    "DontZap" "False"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "amdcccle-Monitor[1]-1"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "amdcccle-Device[1]-1"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "amdcccle-Screen[1]-1"
	Device     "amdcccle-Device[1]-1"
	Monitor    "amdcccle-Monitor[1]-1"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Does catalyst control center not work correctly? I'll give the aticonfig a try now.

[bridgman]

I believe ccc assumes that your system has already been initialized using aticonfig. The installation instructions say that aticonfig should be run right after installing the driver (before starting X) and do not mention any other approaches.

What I have seen is that running aticonfig with the right parameters in the beginning seems to make a lot of multihead problems go away.

[JavaGeek_Boston]

I believe ccc assumes that your system has already been initialized using aticonfig. The installation instructions say that aticonfig should be run right after installing the driver (before starting X) and do not mention any other approaches.

What I have seen is that running aticonfig with the right parameters in the beginning seems to make a lot of multihead problems go away.

Thanks again for responding. I really appreciate your help. I tried aticonfig, restarted, and didn't notice any difference. When I get home, I'll try reverting the xconfig to the default and then running aticonfig.

Does it make a difference that the left monitor has a different resolution than the right monitor? The left/primary monitor is 1600x1200 and the right/secondary one (the one that's not working correctly) is 1920x1200.

Are you running a 790GX with xinerama? If so, can I please see your xorg.conf? I assume that if the drivers + Jaunty work as expected, all I have to do is get a correct xorg.conf, somehow, and the display will work correctly.

Thanks again,
Steven

[bridgman]

Did you use aticonfig with the parameters I suggested above ? There's also a -f option which might help when running aticonf at this point, will check.

I have seen more success when the big monitor is primary, but don't know if that's a requirement or just the way most users configure things. Worth a try anyways.

I'm running a nine-year-old R100 with a single 17" CRT display. You don't want my xorg.conf

Remember that most of the driver configuration is from amdpcsdb, not xorg.conf. The xorg.conf file configures the X server, amdpcsdb configures the driver, with a bit of overlap. The amdpcsdb file is initialized by aticonfig, and can be modified by CCC.

[JavaGeek_Boston]

Hello All,
I love AMD CPUs but will never buy a graphics card from them anytime soon.

Hoping that the horrible experience was something unique with 3000 series GPUs, I bought an HIS H467PS1GP Radeon HD 4670 to see if I'd have more luck with the 4000 series. I had the exact same result.

I reformatted my OS, installed the native driver and it worked for exactly one session. After rebooting, I had the exact same error.

At that point, I returned the card and bought an nVidia card. Everything is working perfect with the Gigabyte GV-N98TSL-1GI (passive 9800GT) and I couldn't be happier with the card now.

As a going away present, the AMD driver prevented me from installing the nVidia driver by not allowing me to uninstall the AMD driver.

I had to reformat the machine and wipe away the bad memories of the AMD experience.

Simply put, AMD doesn't work with dual monitors. Also, AMD doesn't support Linux in any form. If you write their tech support, they politely tell you to go f*ck yourself.

The Radeon cards were great in Windows, but just don't work in Linux if you run more than 1 monitor. It's a shame because I like the design of their cards much more as they seem to have a lot more passively cooled models at better price points.

bridgman, thank you for helping me. I truly appreciate it. You're a real class act.

[nanonyme]

Simply put, AMD doesn't work with dual monitors. Also, AMD doesn't support Linux in any form. If you write their tech support, they politely tell you to go f*ck yourself.

There's support and then there's support. They do have a bug tracker you can send stuff into, they do help open drivers with specs and coders but no, they do not run a helpdesk for puzzled users.
Then again, no one usually does unless you count in enterprise consumers who pay monthly or yearly fees just to have a helpdesk available if the some user happens to have a problem, like have a loose display cable or whatever... :3

[JavaGeek_Boston]

There's support and then there's support. They do have a bug tracker you can send stuff into, they do help open drivers with specs and coders but no, they do not run a helpdesk for puzzled users.
Then again, no one usually does unless you count in enterprise consumers who pay monthly or yearly fees just to have a helpdesk available if the some user happens to have a problem, like have a loose display cable or whatever... :3

While I don't expect AMD to hold my hand because I don't know how to insert a cable, I do expect them to have:

1. A product with feature parity, compared to Windows, on Linux....at least for the basic 10+ year old features, like 2 monitors
2. The product to actually work reliably....for someone.
3. Clearly written instructions on how to get the product working.

nVidia did it. I don't know why we shouldn't expect the same from AMD. Find an nVidia system and an AMD system and open Catalyst Control Center vs nVidia Control panel and you'll see one that looks it was professionally produced and another that looks like it was done by grad students, in their free time, back in 1996.

It would neither be hard, nor costly for AMD to polish CCC & their driver so it will be as functional as the nVidia offerings. I think if AMD/ATI wants to sell to Linux users, they need to do better...and we as Linux users need to support nVidia until ATI/AMD gets their act together.