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List:       opensuse
Subject:    Re: [opensuse] ATI question
From:       "David C. Rankin" <drankinatty () suddenlinkmail ! com>
Date:       2009-05-07 0:11:37
Message-ID: 4A022739.3030806 () suddenlinkmail ! com
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Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> 
> I'm running 11.1. According to http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware
> my chipset lost support as of the 8.40.4 release of the driver. So I
> guess I would need one from before that. Any suggestions about a good
> release?
> 

Uuhh -- your screwed... Also, What is you card again?? You have to be careful
with what you are calling the driver version and driver release. ATI Driver
Releases are named by [ 1 digit year ]-[2 digit months]. Example 8-12 Release
is the December 2008 release, but the 'version' was 8.561. The mostly track the
following:

Rel.    Vers.
8-8     8.522
8-9     8.532
8-10    8.542
....
9-3     8.593

	I remember the 8.40.4 driver and I think that was the Jan or Feb 08 release
and it was one of the first drivers that worked with 10.3. You can check
details at:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/previous/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx

Just check the Release notes for the driver to see what xorg version is supported.

	None of the ATI drivers pre 8-11 release (November 2008) support xorg 7.4 so
you are out of luck. That's the basis for the whole hubub over the state of the
ATI driver up through the 9.3 release (When ATI dropped all support for most of
it cards) because there were still a whole lot of cards out there that the 9.3
driver doesn't even work for and now ATI has abandoned its entire customer base
that bought its video cards in all but the past two years (even some of those
have been abandoned).

	That's why, at least for my hardware, there is no upgrade path to 11.1 for my
laptop with an ATI card -- no driver support. I'm working with the radeon
driver on my Arch install on the box, but so far other than simple 2D (which it
is fine for) nothing else works. That means no compiz, etc....

> 
> I have just installed Linux on the box in question, so I have not
> fiddled a lot. But I am surprised that even things like Xvideo do not
> seem to work. The module is loaded. The X log file makes no complaint.
> xdpyinfo lists:
> 
> 	XVideo
> 
> But xvinfo tells:
> 
> 	X-Video Extension version 2.2
> 	screen #0
> 	 no adaptors present
> 
> Also, one of the tests for indirect rendering seems to be that glxinfo
> does not list:
> 
> 	OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
> 
> which mine does. This is from
> http://en.opensuse.org/Ati#Installation_-_Get_and_Install_ATI_Drivers in
> the section called Testing.
> 

	Sheesh! I hope we don't have to start building X/dri/mesa by hand again just
to get hardware to work. I haven't done that since 10.3 and I don't want to do
it again. It wasn't that bad. The most painful part was just learning how to do
it for the first time. (Wait a minute... is this really 2009! or did we somehow
go back a decade in time?, wait.. reality check..., fatter, 3 kids, no vacation
in 4 years..., nope it is definitely 2009 all right!)

	The ATI middle-finger to its older card holders will probably be looked at as
one of the biggest setbacks for Linux's migration to a mainstream desktop
alternative for the next several years. Just stop and think for a moment of the
sheer number of users that are left without a realistic migration path to an X
desktop now. This is especially acute since the new desktops like KDE4, etc.
rely on advanced card capabilities....

	What on earth could cause ATI to just drop all support for a majority of its
cardholders??... I wonder... Ah, screw it, I don't care anymore, I've already
made the change to buying NVidia exclusively and my ATI cards will filter their
way out of my systems once and for all in the near future ;-)

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com
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