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

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Originally Posted by Rocket2DMn

OK, that's pretty much what I expected would happen with those commands. Some people have been able to nail down their problems with FF, but others have not - there really isn't a one-solution-fits-all method of dealing with it. I suggest using the Search function on the forum to look for other people who have posted about FF being slow with scrolling, you will get a lot of hits. You can try some of the methods suggested, hopefully something will work. If not, I don't think you are alone.

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Thanks for the help.. much appreciated.
Appendix to this... since you know the card Im using (right?) would it be unusual that movements and effects in Hardy are kinda stilted and others are not? Example... jumping between workspaces as a cube is pretty smooth, but moving a window or maximizing or minimizing is again kinda stuttering and slow. I just noticed that scrolling within compiz is even slow.
Are my settings chosen all ones to really slow things down or what is going on??
Thanks again!

Some effects just require more processing power than others. You can try fiddling with settings like going to General Options, Display Settings tab and setting Texture Filter to Fast. I have the 64MB video card size, maybe you have the 32MB, but even mine is a little slow, so I don't actually use Compiz. IMHO, it looks nice, but gets old and I'd rather have a more responsive machine than a flashy one. That's not to say I don't show it off :)
You're not the first to complain about some effects being worse than others, it's just the way Compiz is - it really wasn't designed for older machines. Remember, we are using a workaround just to get Compiz to work at all!

thanks. worked like a charm.

Hi all,

Having a few issues with this.
I have a Radeon 9600 and the suggested method works ok but I couldn't enable it without the xserver-xgl drivers installed. So I installed them and now suffering from painfully slow rendering and persistent random hard lockups (no alt-ctrl-backspace or alt-ctl-Fkey)

After removing xgl and just using the fglrx ati drivers again everything is ok but I'm keen for the effects. Any other options or am I stuck without any chances here?

thanks
Aaron

The Radeon 9600 should be using the restricted fglrx drivers like you said you installed. How did you install them? You might benefit from running the compiz-check script - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=799070

Thanks Rocket.

I installed the drivers by:

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sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx

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after enabling the restricted drivers module.

Compiz-check is what led me to try the xgl driver in the first place but without xgl installed I get 'FAIL' on the first check and fifth check.

Funnily enough I upgraded to Hardy from Gutsy since posting here (yesterday) and now running compiz-check (without using xgl drivers) yields all 'OK' results:

Code:

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Gathering information about your system...

 Distribution:          Ubuntu 8.04
 Desktop environment:  GNOME
 Graphics chip:        ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600]
 Driver in use:        fglrx
 Rendering method:      AIGLX

Checking if it's possible to run Compiz on your system...

 Checking for texture_from_pixmap...              [ OK ]
 Checking for non power of two support...          [ OK ]
 Checking for composite extension...              [ OK ]
 Checking for FBConfig...                          [ OK ]
 Checking for hardware/setup problems...          [ OK ]

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However, I feel there is still something wrong - I am now able to enable the desktop effects without the xgl driver but if I do I am getting some weird misrendered triangles in the corner of my screen randomly upon opening applications and the occasional hard lock when trying to switch between desktops or super-tab between apps. Are there still some settings that I am not getting right?

This is not a deal-breaker because I love Ubuntu but it'a a bit of an annoyance that I can't get it to work even with a card that should allow me to.

thanks again
Aaron

aaronp, this is not the best place to seek help with your specific video card. This thread is for cards using the open source drivers, but fglrx is the restricted ati drivers. You should start a new thread in this forum so that users more experienced with fglrx can help you out (there should be plenty of them). Good luck.

That's fair enough - will do. Thanks Rocket.

Hi

i am new (very new) to linux and am having the compiz problem

i have tried everything in this thread and nothing has worked

the output from compiz --replace is...

Checking for Xgl: not present.
Detected PCI ID for VGA: 01:00.0 0300: 1002:9400 (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Checking for texture_from_pixmap: present.
Checking for non power of two support: present.
Checking for Composite extension: present.
Comparing resolution (1680x1050) to maximum 3D texture size (2048): Passed.
Checking for nVidia: not present.
Checking for FBConfig: present.
Checking for Xgl: not present.
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Fatal: No GLXFBConfig for default depth, this isn't going to work.
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Error: Failed to manage screen: 0
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0

incase it helps video card = ati 2900XT

output from compiz check is all OK
have tried ati binary X.org drivers, when visual effects activated screen turns all white
have done fresh install of compiz
have updated
have tried everything in this thread and no go

thanks in advance for help

RellikZephyr

tried installing xgl?

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-xgl


Aaron