fglrx in saucy

[jfernyhough]

2:13.200~beta-0ubuntu1~xedgers~saucy2 is now available in the Edgers PPA.

https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+...-archive-extra

[cariboo]

Removed double post.

[jfernyhough]

There appear to be horrible memory leaks with both Catalyst 13.7 (fglrx 13.150) and 13.8 (13.200) manifesting when people run Source games (TF2, L4D2) and occasionally with XBMC. The driver is locking an increasing amount of memory (apparently trying to reserve the full system memory), leading to swapping and system unresponsiveness. Killing the process does not return the memory, so a reboot is needed.

For now, if you use any of these applications or have this issue, Catalyst 13.6 (fglrx 13.101) is the most recent "safe" driver. There are other issues with 13.6, but none quite so severe!

[jfernyhough]

Catalyst 13.8 beta 2 is available:

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/amd...x86.x86_64.zip

No changes to the release information.

On a related note, the memory leaks I found with Source games and 13.8beta1 (13.200) haven't occurred since I upgraded to mesa 9.3~git.

Edit: Packages install, DKMS builds the kernel modules and depmod completes, so this also seems to have kernel 3.11 support. Let's see if the fixes for the /proc/ati permissions errors are also included!

Edit 2: The /proc/ati permissions fix has not been included, so you'll have to run sudo chmod -R a+rX /proc/ati after each boot to get direct rendering. I imagine the same patch as before will work, but I'll wait to check.

[Espionage724]

Catalyst 13.8 beta 2 is available:

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/amd...x86.x86_64.zip

Edit 2: The /proc/ati permissions fix has not been included, so you'll have to run sudo chmod -R a+rX /proc/ati after each boot to get direct rendering. I imagine the same patch as before will work, but I'll wait to check.

Hmm, seems the fglrx installer on the xorg-edgers PPA is still on beta1 as of currently. Probably easy questions, but:

1. Is it really that simple to install the driver via 3 commands (unzip, build the debs, install the debs)? I recall the unofficial fglrx wiki mentioning you had to install a bunch of other packages like dkms and stuff.
Edit: To answer my own question, it seems so During the deb building, it prompts to install packages I don't have... never knew

2. Is there a way to automate the chmod command on /proc/ati? Possibly via a startup script?

[jfernyhough]

The patch for the previous version fixing the /proc/ati permissions problem works fine on beta 2 (it's one line). I was waiting for the new version to appear in Edgers but that doesn't seem to have happened yet - which is a bit odd!

DKMS and the other requirements will likely already be installed if you're a typical U+1 tester - otherwise there may be a few deps that will be identified when you try to build.

[Espionage724]

Ah, thanks for the response.

Seems I ran into a slight issue. Right now I'm using today's 3.11 kernel build, and when fglrx does its thing with DKMS, it fails. make.log mentions FATAL: modpost: GPL-incompatible module fglrx.ko uses GPL-only symbol 'acpi_bus_get_device'

Checking http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...urrent/CHANGES mentions:
"ACPI: Move acpi_bus_get_device() from bus.c to scan.c"

[jfernyhough]

Now that's an error I haven't seen before. Does it also happen with the standard repo kernel? (I'm assuming not, as this does seem like more of an idealistic error rather than any real problem!)

This change may also be the reason why the driver hasn't been updated in Edgers - if there are kernel configuration changes then the driver teams will have to deal with them. It's not ideal if this breaks third-party stuff, though. It might be worth reporting that as a regression.

The /proc/ati issue seems to be a driver issue - others have had the same problem e.g. on Arch. I'm really surprised AMD didn't fix it in beta 2.

[Espionage724]

Now that's an error I haven't seen before. Does it also happen with the standard repo kernel? (I'm assuming not, as this does seem like more of an idealistic error rather than any real problem!)

Works fine on the included 3.11 kernel on today's saucy build (3.11.0-6-generic)

[jfernyhough]

Worth keeping an eye on with future daily kernels, but those things are slippery. Last time I tried them I found strange issues appeared and disappeared with great regularity.