ATI Radeon 7500 gfx video disaster

[unkelmarkmark]

I didn't know KUBUNTU can't handle this video adapter.

If anyone has a fix out there, please post.

I can get to terminal, but cannot see most other tools that i select.


thanks

Mark

[Ji Ruo]

Could you expand a little on what you are getting. Is it just the command line, or are you getting a proper desktop (ie with windows) but the resolution is too low (can't see all of the desktop).

Also, was it like this when you first started up Kubuntu or did it happen after you installed the driver from ATi?

[unkelmarkmark]

It is loading the desktop, and loading the background but when you start using the mouse, often times, on all programs selected, it blanks out the display so you cannot see anything.
During installation i didn't explicitly load the ATI drivers myself, its my understanding they were detected and downloaded automatically.
Problem has been there since the installation was finished.


Mark

[almufadado]

You must install the ATI driver yourself.

Go to -> System -> Administration -> Hardware controller (jokey-kde).

Install one of the available drivers.

Restart session (logout-> login).

Open the ATI display manager. (May need to edit the laucher to add "gksu" before the command to get root rights)

[unkelmarkmark]

My options are system, administration, hardware drivers (not hardware controller)

and apparently its already been done (by the installer whom was not myself) as the only thing in the list is a broadcomm network controller)

but then it gets confusing, as the "ATI display manager" that you mention is nowhere to be found.

if the ATI drivers have been installed , where should i be seeing the "ATI display manager" ?

[Ji Ruo]

I suspected that the proprietary driver was already installed. There are 2 different drivers for ATi cards in Linux, the other one is the open driver (being developed by the community) and this one has less problems. It should load automatically when the proprietary driver is uninstalled and the computer rebooted.

The information on the open ATi driver is here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

You should need to just type in the code for removing the proprietary driver in the terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx

then reboot your computer (if you get dropped to a console, I think you just enter 'restart' or 'reboot' to get the computer to restart).

That's all you should need to do. When Kubuntu reloads, the kernel will use its own ATi driver, and hopefully your display will work properly.

I should note also that you shouldn't need to do any configuration etc like the link says. That will all happen automatically.

[unkelmarkmark]

message: package xorg-driver-fglrx is not installed, so not removed,

the following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
linux-headers-2.6.31-17 linux-headers-2.6.31-17-generic

Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them




I tried removing what they recommend above and that makes no difference in the video

[unkelmarkmark]

I also tried the following to check my graphic card and chipset

lspci -nn | grep VGA


ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [radeon mobility 7500] [1002:4c57]


and when i look in "hardware drivers" no proprietary drivers are installed

[Mark Phelps]

There are no ATI drivers that will work with your card and Ubuntu 9.10, so ignore any advice about trying to install them -- you'll only make the situation worse in the process.

Go to the link that Ji Ruo gave you for the open source driver and read ALL the instructions about removing/installing drivers.

You should end up with a working open source driver -- and that's all that is available for your card.

[unkelmarkmark]

All of this has come to a halt because the install doesn't have an xorg.conf file.

I used "locate" and was logged in as root, and don't find any xorg.conf file

I am using Ubuntu 9.10 released in October 2009.

in the x11 directory i have a file called: default-display-manager
and in this file there is simply the following:
/usr/bin/kdm


am i on the right track here? do i need to create a display file from scratch?