Installation problems with Fedora and ATI Radeon 9800

[nicks 0]

I have installed Fedora on VMWare and I was so impressed that I decided to take the plunge and put it on it's own partition on my PC.

 

However - Fedora didn't install...... ;(

 

My setup is

 

Asus P4C800 (not the deluxe models)

P4 3ghz

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

1 x 15GB ATA IDE drive (which was entirely given over to Fedora) (setup as the first disk)

1 x 160GB SATA IDE with XP Pro on it.

1GB mem if that makes any difference.....

 

When I tried to install Fedora in graphical mode it went through the initial post messages then almost immediately froze with a mouse cursor stuck in the middle of a pure white screen when it had switched to X.

 

OK I thought - go to text mode - which I did. This seemed to go alot better and installed OK. However when it tries to boot it sticks on "Enabling Swap Space" but the PC has not hung as the numlock light is togglable and there is some disk activity periodically - but after 15 mins of waiting for it to get past this point I have given up.....

 

Any ideas?

 

Nick

[Admiral LSD 0]

It may be your 1Gb RAM. Linux can support this much RAM but needs a few options to be set (mainly to do with high memory support) in the kernel first which Fedora's kernel might not do. If that's the case then you're looking down the barrel of a rebuild, which isn't as hard as it sounds as there are plenty of tutorials on it floating around. If you can, try removing half your RAM and see if the machine boots. If it does, install the kernel source (as well as the development tools so you can actually compile it) and enable high memory support before recompiling and installing the new kernel. While you're at it, you might want to grab these as they'll give you much higher performance with that video card of yours than the stock DRI drivers do.

[nicks 0]

Thanks for this - but I may have trouble removing 512MB as they have to be installed in matched pairs I think - but I will RTFM on the motherboard.

 

Also - I assume that the Xfree86 version of the latest Fedora Core 1 is 4.3.0 yes?

 

Many thanks

 

Nick

[jontn_swift 0]

I sincerely doubt that it is the 1 GB memory. I have Fedora running on an Asus A7N8X Deluxe with 1 GB RAM, with no problems (other than not being able to get the big desktop with two monitors).

 

I have heard rumblings about problems with SATA however, and I have that disabled on my motherboard. You can do that in your bios, but not having your Windoze drive available would, I expect, be something of a bother.

 

I found a thread over on linuxquestions dot org regarding SATA problems with Linux. The support for SATA is in the 2.6 test kernel and will be in the 2.6 full release obviously. But Dual Booting becomes problematic if your Linux distro doesn't support the HD your Windoze is on.

 

I wish I had a good answer for you. The only thing I can suggest is dsabling SATA support in the bios, then re-install on your IDE disk and see if it works. Unfortunately that leaves you with a machine that is not truely dual boot unless you want to use changing bios settings as your boot-loader. (Ugly!)

 

Oh, and removing half your RAM is no longer a problem. Since we went from Simms to Dimms, they no longer need to be matched pairs. I just don't think it will help.

[nicks 0]

Well last night was interesting....

 

I tried everything from removing memory to disconnecting the SATA drive.

 

You are correct that it was nothing to do with the memory - tho I am grateful to Admiral for his suggestions.

 

In desperation I went onto Fedora's IRC channel and had a chat with the guys in there.

 

Someone called Goofball took pity on me and suggested that I do the following...

 

1) Boot with the Fedora disk and select "Linux Rescue"

2) Edit the /etc/inittab and change the default run level to 3 instead of 5 (which is obviously X)

3) Install the 3.2.8 ATI drivers with the force option

4) Bobs your uncle

 

I am happy to report that this sorted it.

 

The places where Fedora was sticking were actually the last messages before it was trying to start X.

 

All I need to do now is get the network and audio sorted.... and your right about having to use the BIOS to do the dual boot - Linux does not seem to able to write to the boot record of the SATA drive even tho it can read the partition table/use the disk as a second drive.

 

Many thanks for your suggestions/help.

 

Regards

 

Nick

[skaczor 0]

I installed Fedora Core 1 yesterday with a Radeon 9800 and had a similar issue.

 

The folks in Red Hat forgot that if you choose a text installation it is most likely because you don't have a compatible graphic card. If you reboot your system, it will restart in graphical mode (init 5) by default.

 

To solve the issue, I booted in rescue mode, mounted the file system (/mnt/sysimage) and changed etc/inittab to use level 3 instead of 5 (you may want to do that before rebooting after the installation).

 

Next, I installed the driver from ati, ran the fglxconfig and X is running just fine. I still have an issue with OpenGL support, which runs in software rendering mode. I contacted ATI about that issue though.

 

Good luck.

[nicks 0]

skaczor- I did all of this as you can see in my last post - and am very happy with it.

 

I am somewhat disappointed with the speed of OpenGL myself. I have tried to play Unreal Tournament 2003 on it and whilst it is just about playable it is not a patch on running it on Windows.

 

If you get anywhere optimising the 9800 ati drivers on Fedora or ATI get back to you on sorting the OpenGL issues please let me know....

 

Many thanks

 

Nick

 

Quote:

I installed Fedora Core 1 yesterday with a Radeon 9800 and had a similar issue.

 

The folks in Red Hat forgot that if you choose a text installation it is most likely because you don't have a compatible graphic card. If you reboot your system, it will restart in graphical mode (init 5) by default.

 

To solve the issue, I booted in rescue mode, mounted the file system (/mnt/sysimage) and changed etc/inittab to use level 3 instead of 5 (you may want to do that before rebooting after the installation).

 

Next, I installed the driver from ati, ran the fglxconfig and X is running just fine. I still have an issue with OpenGL support, which runs in software rendering mode. I contacted ATI about that issue though.

 

Good luck.

[keechinz 0]

hello, i'm noob please help me figured this out. So jontn_swift you mean that i need to download 2.6 full release only i can use SATA ? i had 1 single HDD only and it was Maxtor Sata.

 

when i started the installation, it tell me it cannot found any HDD devices.Please gave me some of Linux Guide url please. i'm realy a newbie. it was my first time trying to research linux.

 

million thanks

[MeSat 0]

Quote:

Next, I installed the driver from ati, ran the fglxconfig and X is running just fine. I still have an issue with OpenGL support, which runs in software rendering mode. I contacted ATI about that issue though.

Good luck.

Having purchased a new computer last month and the usage of ATI at work last month, I thought I would get an ATI card. I use a 7500 at work with Fedora core and it works great. I purchased a 9600.

Rule of thumb for me now is to tell people to avoid ATI and Linux like SARS and Mad cow in one.

After three weeks of hell, I finally found on the ATI site that they don't support 3d on most of their hi-end cards. I couldn't even get their driver to compile under my latest kernel. If you search their site, they even state that they won't support linux.

Going with Nvidia based card tomorrow.

I have a ASUS a7n8x-E Deluxe and the latest kernel (2.4.22-1.2140.nptl) for Fedora recognized the SATA drives on boot up as new hardware. I used MD instead of the on-board RAID due to more tools.

[forrie 0]

Hi there.

 

I was trying to install Fedora last night, and ran into some similar problems noted in this thread - though I am now worried about the video driver issue, since I have an ATI Radeon 9800XT - if it's not going to work, that won't be very cool (considering it's expensive).

 

My system is:

 

Here's a description of the system:

 

- Chassis: Thermaltake Damier 6000+

- Motherboard: SOYO Dragon Platinum, Intel 875P Chipset

- Intel 3.0ghz 800FSB

- 2 GB RAM

- 4 SATA drives (Silicon Image provides the onboard controller)

- Samsung CD-R(W)

 

 

Basically the installation chokes at the point where it says it can't locate an adequate driver for the disks in my system, and there's a selection list, etc. etc. This must be due to the SATA controller (Silicon Image).

 

Someone suggested I modify the AMI BIOS so the drives operate in "compatibility mode", which I'm about to try.

 

I wonder if the updates to Fedora (which are not included with the core ISO release) resolve this issue or what others might have found with this a work-a-around).

 

 

Thanks.

[MeSat 0]

Quote:

Hi there.

Basically the installation chokes at the point where it says it can't locate an adequate driver for the disks in my system, and there's a selection list, etc. etc. This must be due to the SATA controller (Silicon Image).

Someone suggested I modify the AMI BIOS so the drives operate in "compatibility mode", which I'm about to try.

I wonder if the updates to Fedora (which are not included with the core ISO release) resolve this issue or what others might have found with this a work-a-around).


Thanks.

Here is a link that will give you some help.
Serial ATA chipsets — Linux support status

I have sata (SiI3112) drives and they are working with Fedora core 1. I am not using the RAID feature of the motherboard though. Using md.

Drivers were part of a kernel upgrade as a module sata_sil.