[blackpage]

Good evening, folks

I have used Mandrake 9.1/2 with Nvidia-GFX-cards and varous mobos for quite some time, and no hardware-setup gave me any trouble.
Couple of weeks ago I upgraded my machine ... here are the current specs: ASUS A7N8X-X board (yeah, the doomed one :)/XP3200/1.5GB Ram/Radeon 9600Pro. To honor this setup I thought about checking out Mandrake 10. It's all quite fine - apart from 2 things:

A: Gfx-Issue
No matter how I twiddle the beast, the ATI drivers won't load and I'm stuck with Mesa 3D. The kernel sources are of course installed, the fglrx-rpm installs nicely, it also compiles nicely, it inserts the driver/necessary modules without any error message but still - fireglrxinfo states that Mesa's used. I even launched "make.sh" and "make_install.sh" as described (even though it seems to me the RPM handles all that in the first place anyway). The result is always the same: no errors, but also no fglrx (even though it is mentioned in XF86Config-4).

My questions therefore are:
-) Could it be related to some agpgart-thing, is there some other agp-module to insert (nvidia-agp? ati-agp?)? Cause lsmod doesn't list any of these, just the standard agpgart.

-) Could it be related with the version of Mandrake (leeched from the Internet for testing)? I think I saw something during the installation procedure that mentioned that only "commercial" version has support for newer hardware (including Radeons).

B: Sound thing/hisses and clicks
After installion the sound system hisses and clicks like crazy. Turning down the AC97-volume slider fixed this, still .. anybody had similar effects?

A great load of "thanx" in advance for taking the time read or even answer this

bp

p.s: the standard "radeon"-driver works nicely in 1600x1200@80 - nicely but slowly

[Dapper Dan]

I've been seeing where folks have been having this same problem, unfortunately I don't know how to help with it. Sorry.

[danleff]

Don't know either, but for the Mandrake 9 setup, did you install the nForce chipset drivers from NVIDIA? The sound is an issue, apparently related to what the distro picks up as the sound card. I think that I remember it should using the intel810 sound module.

If you are using Mandrake 10, I would be interested to see if the hardware detection is good for this chipset. If so, I will try it on my second box. Mandrake 10 has the 2.6.x kernel, so it should work.

[blackpage]

Evening again

@DapperDan: thanx a lot anyway for taking the time to post an answer. I'm still tracking the issue and will post some fix (in case I can find one

@danleff: thx to you too for the hints. Indeed, the sound issue was caused by not having tagged the i810 driver, as I have found out from various sources on the net.

According the hardware detection of MDK10: Well, the folks have hammered together a quite tasty bit of software there. Apart from the ATI frivers everything just goes peachy. Today I also installed MDK10 on a second box, same mobo but this time with a GF5200 TwinView card. And what can I say - all went super-well (still have to set up TwinView, but anyway). So all I can say is: MDK 10 eases (almost) any pain that might have come across with the cursed A7N8X-board.

IMPORTANT: I'm strictly into software-development, so I have no all too fancy hardware attached to my boxes apart from the inevitable USB-sticks/digicams etc. But still, no wireless thingies, no VidGrabbers etc.etc. But as far as it goes for server-stuff and hardcore-development purposes (CVS, apache and the usual suspects) MDK10 and this board perform a nicely balanced duette.

cu

[blackpage]

Success (at last)!!

Greetings comrades,
after intensive investigation and (almost neverending) trial-and-error sessions with MDK10 and the Radeon9600 my desktop crate is finally set up the way I intended it. I apoloigze for this posting in advance as it could get a bit lengthy, but I've spent quite some time to fix this issue, and I thought giving away a more detailled description including approaches that did not result in success might be helpful for other hardware-noobs like me. Also forgive my some occasional typos as it's late already here ... So here's a log of my activies (including "go's" and "no-go's").

======
NO_GO:
======
Kernel 2.6.4 with "everything built in but the kitchen-sink"
(phrase courtesy of J.Mullins - SOF II

I compiled and tried this kernel version with all ATI-relevant things built in - these were: nForce/2-, agpgart/nvidia-agp. This lead to a very compact kernel that limited "lsmod"-output to just 2 lines ... the codepage-modules. In this setup, running the ATI-rpm produces fatal errors upon final module insertion ("permission denied"). Consequently a manual "modprobe" <fglrx.ko> produced the same result. That lead me back to the kernel MDK-10 2.6.3mdk-kernel, as delivered "fresh out of the box".
>>>>
On a sidenote: If you are using USB-stuff you should stick with the MDK-kernel as it seems to be patched to supports "supermount" which 2.6.4 doesn't unless you apply the appropriate patch.
<<<

======
GO:
======
I booted into the standard MDK-installation as it has been installed in the first place by MDK10 and performed these tasks on the command line (so there, no "X") ...

STEP 1: Prepare the setup
root@machine ati_drv: rpm -Ui --force fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6.i386.rpm
(this extracts installs the sources into the proper locations)

STEP 2: Build the core-module
root@machine ati_drv: cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod
(change to dir. to build the driver-module)

(optional) ... perform a ...
root@machine build_mod: chmod a+x make.sh
(to make the script executable if necessary. For some peculiar reason the make-files here only had the "r"-attr. for owner set)

STEP 2.1: Built it
root@machine build_mod: ./make.sh
(this builds the core-driver-module)

STEP 3: Install the driver-module
root@machine build_mod: cd ..
(go up one directory, this should bring you to /lib/modules/fglrx)

(optional) ... perform the "chmod a+x"-command on "make_install.sh"-file if needed (see above)

STEP 3.1: Perform the installation
root@machine fglrx: ./make_install.sh
(this builds the core-driver-module)

If everything goes well up to this point, the fglrx-directory should contain a symbolic link like this ...
fglrx.ko -> /lib/modules/fglrx/fglrx.2.6.3-4mdk-SMP.ko

STEP 4: Checking the loaded AGP-modules
Type ...
root@machine fglrx: lsmod
to check if any AGP-relevant modules are loaded. In my case none was loaded so I inserted the one for my mobo (A7N8X-X, nForce2-chipset) ...
root@machine fglrx: modprobe nvidia-agp

A second "lsmod" should now list "agpgart" which is used by "nvidia-agp".

To make these settings permanent I added this line to "/etc/modprobe.conf" ...

install fglrx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install fglrx && { /sbin/modprobe nvidia-agp; /bin/true; }

To be honest, I have no idea if this is a cruical thing or not, but it worked here, so I thought I just mention it

Inserting the ATI-driver-module finally braught this result
[tt]
fglrx 204228 172
nvidia-agp 7388 1
agpgart 31016 2 nvidia-agp
[/tt]

STEP 5: Running fglrxconfig
Now it's time to run the ATI-XF86Config-tool ... type ...
root@machine fglrx: fglrxconfig
and follow the steps.
IMPORTANT:
When getting asked whether or not to use an external AGP-module, type Y. For me this was the cruical part as the fglrxconfig-tool has "[n]" preselected and the description is a fair bit misleading, insinuating that the "internal" AGP-module would be the right thing to do (which it wasn't here).

Well, before I get sued by the linuxcompatible-folks for being a forum-post-hog I call it quits at this point. Thanx again to all the folks here who replied and to the forum-crew for providing this platform.

evening

[Dapper Dan]

Thanks very much for posting your detailed description of what you did to get it working! The whole point of these forums is to help folks solve problems they're having with Linux. I'm sure your post will help a lot of folks who check in here!

[danleff]

Agreed. Nice work! This is why I thought having a "howto" section of the forum would be a good resource to refer users to.

[rjerick]

Help!
I've still got problems.
the mod build goes fine, but I get a fatal error trying to
do the install_make

[root@x1-6-00-03-47-d9-20-67 fglrx]# ./make_install.sh
- creating symlink
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel module
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.3-4mdk/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrx.ko): Operation not permitted
failed.


What did I do wrong?

[danleff]

Are you at a command line, logged in as root?

[rjerick]

yes

FWIW I read at the ATI site on thier FAQ for the driver that it requires kernel 2.4

Could this be part of the problem?

[rjerick]

NEVER MIND!
tried it again and got it working.

[klfd4]

[pamindic]

Blackpage's detailed instructions look to be just what I need.

Only I'm stuck at Step 1.

I do:

[root@localhost /]# rpm -Ui --force fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6.i386.rpm

but I get:

error: Failed dependencies:
libX11.so6 is needed by fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6
libXext.so6 is needed by fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6

Can anyone tell me why?

[matrix3000k]

Originally posted by pamindic:

Quote:

Blackpage's detailed instructions look to be just what I need.

Only I'm stuck at Step 1.

I do:

[root@localhost /]# rpm -Ui --force fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6.i386.rpm

but I get:

error: Failed dependencies:
libX11.so6 is needed by fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6
libXext.so6 is needed by fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6

Can anyone tell me why?

you need to install libX11.so6 is needed by fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6
libXext.so6 is needed by fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6 packages before you can install the fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6.i386.rpm packages. if those dependencies are not installed then you are going to keep getting the same error over and over. hope this helps you!!!!

[pamindic]

Thanks for the advice. It dawned on me overngight that these are source files that are needed for recompiling.