fglrx messes with xf86-video-(ati|radeonhd)

Message

VinzC · Post by **VinzC** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:46 pm

Hi.

I've installed fglrx to check the frame rate of my Radeon Mobility X1400 with AMD proprietary drivers. Strangely enough X locks up at start when I revert to the open source drivers radeon or radeonhd in xorg.conf. I've had to unmerge ati-drivers completely and recompile my whole kernel tree after make mrproper to get rid of the problem. (I didn't forget to eselect opengl set xorg-x11 in case you wonder.) The problem is back as soon as I re-install ati-drivers and try to start X with the Open Source drivers...

Does anyone else confirm?

MasterX · Post by **MasterX** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 5:33 pm

Yes I do confirm. Apparently the ebuild for the ati-drivers overrides the libraries that are used by the radeon(hd) driver. I do not know if there is a way to get around this problem.

VinzC · Post by **VinzC** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:02 pm

MasterX wrote:Yes I do confirm. Apparently the ebuild for the ati-drivers overrides the libraries that are used by the radeon(hd) driver. I do not know if there is a way to get around this problem.

Good news as I'm not the only one who noticed

. Do you have an idea on what libraries/files exactly? (Does it have something to do with DR[IM]?)

RealNC · Post by **RealNC** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 8:19 am

I don't think it overrides anything. The sandbox would complain otherwise. What's happening is that probably the fglrx.ko kernel module gets loaded. When that happens, xf86-video-radeon can't work.

You can check with "lsmod | grep fglrx".

VinzC · Post by **VinzC** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:04 am

RealNC wrote:I don't think it overrides anything. The sandbox would complain otherwise. What's happening is that probably the fglrx.ko kernel module gets loaded. When that happens, xf86-video-radeon can't work.

You can check with "lsmod | grep fglrx".

Yup, I knew both drivers are incompatible and cannot be loaded at the same time. But even after cleaning the module stack (i.e. removing fglrx and modprobing radeon and the like) the problem still occurs. Hence my initial post -- unclear, I admit.

schiotz · Post by **schiotz** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:09 am

VinzC wrote: Yup, I knew both drivers are incompatible and cannot be loaded at the same time. But even after cleaning the module stack (i.e. removing fglrx and modprobing radeon and the like) the problem still occurs. Hence my initial post -- unclear, I admit.

I read somewhere that the fglrx kermel module puts the graphics card in a state where the open source drivers do not work. You will need to remove the kernel module, and reboot as if it were a Windows box

/Jakob

VinzC · Post by **VinzC** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:10 am

schiotz wrote:I read somewhere that the fglrx kermel module puts the graphics card in a state where the open source drivers do not work. You will need to remove the kernel module, and reboot as if it were a Windows box

/Jakob

...

VoidMage · Post by **VoidMage** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:30 am

schiotz wrote:
VinzC wrote: Yup, I knew both drivers are incompatible and cannot be loaded at the same time. But even after cleaning the module stack (i.e. removing fglrx and modprobing radeon and the like) the problem still occurs. Hence my initial post -- unclear, I admit.
I read somewhere that the fglrx kermel module puts the graphics card in a state where the open source drivers do not work. You will need to remove the kernel module, and reboot as if it were a Windows box

/Jakob

IIRC, that's incorrect. As I switched to open several moths ago, I don't remember a lot,
but the most important part was kernel drm module. While it's loaded, fglrx can't be loaded,
but if it's loaded, radeon module load just fine (OK, it's the drm that depends on radeon,
but that doesn't matter). Just read the driver's manpage, when you are switching.

RealNC · Post by **RealNC** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:53 pm

The only way to be sure if to move fglrx.ko away from /lib/modules/VERSION/video/fglrx.ko, reboot, and try again. I'm also thinking that fglrx.ko puts the hardware in a state where xf86-video drivers won't work (I believe it was even mentioned by the developers of the driver on Phoronix.com.)