Howto: ATI Mobility Beryl/XGL FGLRX in Edgy

[Paerez]

This Guide is Dead
I am no longer supporting this guide. I will leave it up for posterity but if you want compositing effects, please upgrade to feisty (and beyond) and use System->Preferences->Desktop Effects. This guide was a hack to get things running when this technology was new, and now the technology has been tested and made more official (and it works better than this guide).

That said, here is the original guide:


Howto: ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 + Edgy FGLRX ( 8.28 ) + Beryl
First I would like to thank Lennart Hansen and his guide, and also the Ubuntu Forums for helping me find the FGLRX solutions for suspend/hibernate.

Also I would like to thank my Computer Vision professor for having boring lectures, inspiring me to get beryl working instead of paying attention. Also my Computer Integrated surgery professor for being boring and giving me the motivation to write this guide instead of paying attention. Be cool stay in school!

This guide has 3 parts:
- FGLRX
- Beryl and XGL
- Tweaks & Optimizations

Just to clear things up, when I write:

$ echo hello

The "$" means to run this on the command line. You can open a terminal by going to Applications->Accessories->Terminal.

When I say Edit "file" I mean run: "$ sudo gedit file" or "$ sudo nano -w file", or any other way you want to edit it.

FGLRX
Update your packages:

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Install the driver and module:

$ sudo aptitude install xorg-driver-fglrx

For some reason, linux-restricted modules will install the modules, but when you reboot they disappear. So what we do is install them, copy the fglrx module to a safe folder, and then uninstall them. You will have to do this for every kernel update. When I figure out a better way to do this, I'll update the guide.

$ sudo aptitude install linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r`

Now copy the module (the first line creates the directory, so if it is already there and there is an error, it is not a problem):

$ sudo mkdir /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc
$ sudo cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/volatile/fglrx.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/fglrx.ko

Now uninstall the package:

$ sudo aptitude remove linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r`

Now update your module list:

$ sudo depmod -a

Now you've all seen this before if you've tried to use fglrx. If you know what you are doing, you can just edit xorg.conf manually to use fglrx, or just type this:

$ sudo aticonfig --initial 
$ sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv

Add this to the end of xorg.conf ("$ sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" to edit it):

Section "Extensions"
        Option      "Composite" "0"
EndSection

Now you have two choices to test fglrx.
1) The easy way: reboot
2) If you know what you are doing, log out, switch to a console, stop gdm, rmmod radeon and modprobe fglrx, then start gdm. Then you don't have to reboot.

Log in and make sure that fglrx is working:

$ fglrxinfo

Mine spits out:

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY/RADEON 9000 DDR Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.1091 (X4.3.0-8.28.8)

Make sure it says ATI and not Mesa.

Beryl and XGL
Big thanks to this guide:
http://lhansen.blogspot.com/2006/10/...untu-edgy.html

I pretty much copied what he did, but on the command line, because it is easier to do in a text-howto. You can also do things his way.

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add this:

# beryl
deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org edgy main
deb-src http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org edgy main

# beryl-svn
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb edgy beryl-svn
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb edgy beryl-svn

The second batch are for the svn releases. As of 2/7/2007 when I edited this, only the svn releases and old versions (<=1.4) are working, so naturally I want the svn because it has cool stuff.

So if you do not want to install the svn packages, you have to manually downgrade to 1.4 to get it to work.

Now update your repo:

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Now install XGL and Beryl:

$ sudo aptitude install beryl emerald-themes xserver-xgl

Now create the XGL script. Edit "/usr/bin/startxgl" and paste in this:

#!/bin/sh
Xgl :1 -fullscreen -ac -accel xv:pbuffer -accel glx:pbuffer &
DISPLAY=:1
exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session

Make it executable:

$ sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/startxgl

Now make a separate session for XGL. Edit "/usr/share/xsessions/xgl.desktop":

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Xgl
Comment=Start an Xgl Session
Exec=/usr/bin/startxgl
Icon=
Type=Application

Now log out, and log in with the XGL session (click Sessions and choose XGL). Once you log in, run "beryl-manager" to start beryl. You can add this to your session start up programs if you want, but its good to test it first.

If you try to move a window and it crashes, read the next section!!!

Tweaks & Optimizations
Read first
You can always log in to normal gnome and run "beryl-manager" to edit settings without beryl being loaded. This is very useful.

Start beryl-manager automatically
Click System->Preferences->Sessions
Go to the Startup Programs tab and click Add, then type "beryl-manager".

Crashes & Performance
I had trouble with wobbly windows, and also since the Mobility 9000 isnt that great a card, I tuned some stuff down for good responsiveness. Download the attached beryl-settings.Profile and click the beryl-manager icon and click Beryl Settings Manager and click import and import the attached file (after unzipping).

Also check out this post:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=276498

Dashing Good Looks
I opened the emerald theme manager (right click the beryl icon) and chose the human theme, because I like it. Also I clicked the Emerald Settings tab and made the Titlebar Doubleclick Action = Maximize/Restore.

Hey why don't my caps/skydome work?!
If your caps don't work, try converting to PNG. Also, for skydome, make sure your resolution of your image is a power of two by a power of two. Like any of these dimensions:
512x512, 2048x1024, 4096x512, etc... Any combo of a power of two will work.

FGLRX Suspend and Hibernate
Edit "/etc/default/acpi-support" and change the following lines:

MODULES_WHITELIST="fglrx"
SAVE_VBE_STATE=false
POST_VIDEO=false
DOUBLE_CONSOLE_SWITCH=true

Turn off the gnome-panel "launching box" that runs slow in xgl
Run gconf-editor and go to:
/apps/panel/global
and uncheck "enable animations"

[ethon]

Thanks for writing this guide, unfortunately I cannot get past the first half of installing the fglrx drivers.

fglrxinfo gives me:

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R200 20060602 AGP 4x NO-TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (1.3 Mesa 6.5.1)

Any help is appreciated

[nevin]

i get an error message that says:

XGL Absent, checking for NVIDIA
Nividia Absent, assuming AIGLX
beryl: No composite extension



i have an ati card and the fglrx installed. i have added:

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "0"
EndSection

to the bottom of my xorg.conf file. (i had to do this to get edgy to give me anything graphical after 6.04 -> 6.10

but i have xserver-xgl installed, i even installed xserver-xorg-video-ati.
im not sure what's going on, but i did have compiz working on 6.04 and so i know beryl should work on my 6.10...

is anyone else having a similar problem?

[horatiub]

I don't see any attachement. Can you please re-attach the profile?

[afffffff]

hi, thanks for the guide, it worked with me but I cant play 3dgames with wine after beryl installed and running, is it possible to run games under beryl?
thx

[Paerez]

Hey all:

1) I attached the file, my bad...
2) I can't get 3d working in any applicaion within beryl, it says that DRI is not found. My mplayer is really slow using Xv, and gl2 doesn't work.
3) For those of you who can't get it to work, can you post your video card?

[Anonii]

So you, even, cant make Direct Rendering work. Can you run Beryl/Compiz without it?

[Paerez]

I get direct rendering working, and thus beryl working too. What I can't get to work is any 3d application other than beryl. So it's like beryl hogs the 3d, and whenever another app tries to do 3d, it crashes X.

[ethon]

I have an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000

I've followed numerous guides on this forum to try and get Direct Rendering to work, but it always reverts back to Mesa

[Paerez]

ok, go to a terminal and type in the following commands, and paste me the output:

$ sudo modprobe fglrx
$ lsmod | grep fglrx
$ lsmod | grep radeon