Disappointed by Ubuntu's dual screen handling plus problems with resolution

[UeB]

If you are using the rt kernel there is some problems with installing the driver.

Is there a chance I am not using the rt kernel because I do not know what it is?

@tuxxy
One year ago when I chose this laptop I deliberately bought one with a ATI card because I read on IT-news sites that AMD had opened the specs and therefor soon there would be open source driver with full feature support. Now I am sitting here using the open source xorg-radeon-driver that still has now 3d support for my card HD 34XX because of some magic interference (or whatever) of the different catalyst drivers that realy should not be there if the guys that had written the install/uninstall scripts had done better jobs.

@topic
I will try to look at the installer of the catalyst 9.9 and try to find out in something that was installed by it is still there as I was suggested here. I will not try to make the 9.9 work. At leat not before the dist upgrade that will come soon. I now want the old catalyst that is in the Ubuntu 9.04 repository back working because at least I know it did work last week...

[markbuntu]

You are most likely not using the rt kernel, you would need to explicitly install it.

Is this a laptop????
If so then you have a Mobility 4850 which is not the same as the HD4850 and is not listed as supported before the 9.9 driver.

sudo apt-get purge may not remove the kernel modules and some other parts if the driver was misinstalled which can happen if you try to use it with a card it does not support. The uninstal script was also broken for a few of the drivers (9.3-9.4...) and if you installed manually or from the hardware manager it does seem to work completely.

sudo apt-get purge fglrx fglrx-kernel-source fglrx-amdcccle

You might also need to remove the directories usr/share/ati and /etc/ati

reboot into recovery and use the fix x option. This will give you a clean xorg.conf and the VESA driver. Then when you get back to your desktop you should download the latest driver from the ati site to your desktop

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

Then make the file executable (right click on it and change the properties/permissions..execute) and run it from a terminal

cd Desktop

sudo sh ./ati-driver-installer....(fill it in the rest of the way)

type your passoword when asked and just hit enter when the install screen comes up.

If there were any errors you will see a message in the terminal and they will be in /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log.

The installer builds the fglrx DKMS modules for the kernel and installs them so this is where errors usually occur.

You can also look in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old which will show errors from the previous boot (Xorg.0.log is from the current boot)

Then, in a terminal type

sudo aticonfig --initial

You should see a message about initializing the drive and replacing xorg.conf and renaming the old one or something like that.

reboot.

Do not use System/Preferences/Display or anything other than the Catalyst Control Center to adjust your display.


Make any changes in the Catalyst Control Center which will be in your menus somewhere. Make only one change at a time and reboot after each change. The driver is very touchy about this. If you are having trouble getting into Catalyst (super user) you can launch it from a terminal with

sudo amdcccle

[UeB]

Yes, as I wrote when I stated this thread it is a laptop. And yes it it a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 34XX (3450 I think) and not a 4850. And according to the AMD driver webpage the catalyst 9.9 does support this model.

[markbuntu]

Well did you try my suggestions???

[UeB]

Had no time today... Was in office until 20:15 and just drank a bottle of wine with my room mate... have to go to bed now... Maybe tomorrow...

kind regards

[markbuntu]

I hope it was good wine.

[UeB]

Ok I tried to follow your guide to install the latest ati driver from the official website but the result was the same that I discribed earlier in this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...0&postcount=10

Some details:


> sudo apt-get purge fglrx fglrx-kernel-source fglrx-amdcccle
I could not purge theses things because I already removed them before. In synaptec there were not listed as "non installed packages with remaining configurations" so I did not worry about it.


> You might also need to remove the directories usr/share/ati and /etc/ati
I deleted them.


> reboot into recovery and use the fix x option. This will give you a >clean xorg.conf and the VESA driver. Then when you get back to your >desktop you should download the latest driver from the ati site to your >desktop

did not see why this is nessecary because I was using the free radeon driver and not the fglrx for the last days so I skipt this part


The I stated the fglrx installer with sudo ./ati-driver-ETC... from a gnome terminal

When asked questions by the installer I always went with the defaut / automatic options.

The installer finished without printing any error msg. to the terminal. Then I ran sudo amdconfig --initial -f
The I rebooted and got the" Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode" mesg as said before.

Then I looked in the fglrx-install.log which does not seem to report any important errors last few lines are:

make[1]: Verlasse Verzeichnis '/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.28-15-generic'
build succeeded with return value 0
duplicating results into driver repository...
done.
You must change your working directory to /lib/modules/fglrx
and then call ./make_install.sh in order to install the built module.
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel modules
failed.
[Error] Kernel Module : Reboot required.

full file attached

[UeB]

Just to inform you: After I upgraded to 9.10 last weekend and installed the fglrx driver that is in the 9.10 repositories everything is fine.

Now both screens work in the right resolution, I can use the HDMI cable and even the behaviour of app windows is as it should be: maximising works separately for every monitor.