HowTo: Compiz Fusion in Hardy on cards with "ati"/"radeon" open source drivers

[Rocket2DMn]

hardy_gnome, can you please post the output of these commands:

lspci | grep VGA
lsmod | grep fglrx

Did you ever attempt to install restricted drivers? If so, how? Restricted Drivers Manager? EnvyNG? Manually?
Can you also post the output of

compiz --replace &

You can revert back to no desktop effects with

metacity --replace &

[hardy_gnome]

lspic | grep VGA
01:00.o VGA compatible controller: ATI tech inc mob radeon x2300

lsmod | grep flgrx

fglrx 1555468 23
agpgart 34760 1 fglrx
------------------------------------------------

i havent installed restricted drivers... at least i think so...
if i enter replace command it activates compiz, but everything is so slow.. especial burning effect ( abut 1 frame per 3 seconds)..

now i uninstalled compiz config because it had to many problems... i will install it tomorow...

if i wanna compiz to work i have to run compiz --replace and then it will run, but.. very slow burining efect (if it shows, sometimes it wont) and other (yesterday worked just fine, with no 2 frames per minute, just very good effects)...

the real thing that bothers me is that that compiz worked yesterday, and all days before when i installed it.. i was a lil bit slower... (for example: burn effect was running at 20fps instead of 30fps).. nothin big...
but today... literaly 3 fckinfps.... :S

[Rocket2DMn]

OK, you have a card that is using (and should be using) restricted drivers, but this thread is for helping people with cards that need the open source drivers. I don't have enough experience with restricted ati drivers to support you on this (restricted ati drivers = fglrx). I suggest starting a new thread for your problem here in the Desktop Effects & Customization forum - http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=330

Good luck with your problem, there are plenty of others here that should be able to help you with your card. And welcome to Ubuntu!

[japhyr]

One of the things I've enjoyed most about using Linux is the stability. I never notice my system slowing down, and I have never had it freeze up. I was playing with compiz yesterday, however, and it froze up. I knew that was a possibility, so I'm just wondering if there are certain combinations of effects to avoid as problematic. I had used the shift switcher and ring switcher for a couple days with no problem. I enabled the cube, with rotation, reflection, and 3d windows. I opened a few applications, spread them over a couple desktops, and while rotating the cube with the mouse pointer the system froze.

Are there certain things I should avoid in compiz? I have an ati radeon rv250 mobility firegl 9000 card on a dell 600m laptop, running HH.

[Rocket2DMn]

I've run into that problem with freezing during cube rotate, and it appears we are using the same laptop. Could be a glitch in the open source drivers, which is why compiz stopped support, but that's just a thought. I guess you could avoid the cube rotate and use the desktop wall instead.

[japhyr]

Here's one more glitch I'm finding: fringing at the edge of some windows. I've attached a screenshot of the fringing. The fringing appears around most windows, and around most dialogs that pop up. It goes away if I restart. I'm not sure if it's related to using the cube or not. Anyone else seeing this?

[Rocket2DMn]

I think that is probably a bug in the open source driver as well, though I've typically seen that behavior with people using the fglrx drivers when they shouldn't. Intrepid is supposed to have a newer version of the open source ati driver which is supposed to be a lot better, so we'll see. Maybe you'd like to take the Alpha 4 LiveCD for a spin.

[fade79]

Hi I tried following the step in your 1st post and it turns on compiz but about 1/6 of the right side of my screen does not seem to work. It just displays artifacts of whatever window i drag through it but it dosen't display the wallpaper or the panel at the top that shows the time, date, and logoff button. It is as if my screen is just cut off on the right side.

Here is the terminal output I get when I tried to activate compiz:

Checking for Xgl: [2] 7163
shyh-jeun@shyh-jeun-laptop:~$ not present.
Found laptop using ati driver.
SKIP_CHECKS is yes, so continuing despite problems.
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: not present.
Trying again with indirect rendering:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present.
Checking for non power of two support: present.
Checking for Composite extension: present.
Comparing resolution (1280x800) to maximum 3D texture size (1024): Failed.
SKIP_CHECKS is yes, so continuing despite problems.
Checking for nVidia: not present.
Checking for FBConfig: present.
Checking for Xgl: not present.
GConf backend: There is an unsupported value at path /apps/compiz/plugins/scale/allscreens/options/initiate_edge. Settings from this path won't be read. Try to remove that value so that operation can continue properly.


I'm using an ATI Radeon Mobility 9200 on an old Sony VAIO S series laptop and I'm using a clean installation of 8.04 with the default drivers. I would appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks

[jhamric]

I have an IBM T40 with the Radeon Mobility 7500 card. I too was experiencing slow window moves and Firefox scrolling after upgrading to Hardy from Gutsy. Everything had worked fine under Gutsy. I had tried modifying my xorg.conf six ways to Sunday with no improvement. I tried replacing xorg.conf with a minimalist file. Still no joy. Thought I would just have to live without the desktop effects due to the blacklisting of the video card. But I thought I would try a few of the suggestions in this forum anyhow. The "SKIP_CHECKS" did nothing. Removing the value for initiate_edge marginally improved the situation. But the trick that worked for me was cleaning up previous modules:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove linux-restricted-modules-*
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r`

After that I had speedy Compiz effects back again!

Hope this helps someone.

[notanerd]

I can enable compiz, but the desktop seriously screwed afterwards. I tried to attach a screenshot but was told its an invalid file. But basically the screen is randomly pixelated and unreadable. When I put in 'compiz --replace' this is the output
Checking for Xgl: not present.
Detected PCI ID for VGA:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: not present.
Trying again with indirect rendering:
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present.
Checking for non power of two support: present.
Checking for Composite extension: present.
Comparing resolution (1280x800) to maximum 3D texture size (2048): Passed.
Checking for Software Rasterizer: Not present.
Checking for nVidia: not present.
Checking for FBConfig: present.
Checking for Xgl: not present.
/usr/bin/compiz.real (video) - Warn: No 8 bit GLX pixmap format, disabling YV12 image format

and here is my xorg.conf

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously
# in this file, now are automatically configured by the server and settings
# here are ignored.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Device"
Identifier "Mobility Radeon 9600"
Driver "ati"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Mobility Radeon 9600"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection