Installing ATI drivers on RH8.0

[V-man]

Hi,

My drivers aren't installing properly because I'm not getting hw acceleration.
This is a fresh install of RH 8.0
I have not updated the OS.
I downloaded the 60MB autoinstaller.

Also, I tried with the previous driver. Same issue.
I tried with a very old driver I had on my HDD that I know worked back in the day.
This doesn't do it either so I guess something is wrong on my part.
Maybe I'm not running glrxconfig properly?

This is what it says when I run glxinfo

[root@localhost root]# glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: No
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context
client glx vendor string: ATI
client glx version string: 1.3
client glx extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_ATI_pixel_format_float,
    GLX_ATI_render_texture
GLX extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context
OpenGL vendor string: VA Linux Systems, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 Mesa 3.4.2
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_blend_color,
    GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract
glu version: 1.3
glu extensions:
    GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator, GLU_EXT_object_space_tess
 
   visual  x  bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
 id dep cl sp sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------
0x25 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x26 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 None
0x27 24 dc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x28 24 dc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 None
0x29  8 pc  0 24  0 c  y  .  0  0  0  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x2a  8 gs  0 24  0 c  y  .  0  0  0  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None

[jide]

I'm still not knowing how to do that

But I found several inconsistencies in your glxinfo outputs:

1. your glx server version is 1.2 and is from SGI whereas your glx client v is 1.3 and from ATI

2. your Mesa version is very very very old: Mesa 3.4.2.
Maybe you should not use Mesa from your redhat but compile it yourself with the newer versions, this turns out. Then reinstall your latest driver ?
Also make sure there aren't any double GL libraries and headers.

3. DRI seems not enabled (direct rendering: No), check also for that. I just can advice you to see if it's declared in your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file (or xorg.conf).

Hope that helps.

[V-man]

These are the drivers from ATI, so I think
"OpenGL vendor string" should say ATI technologies
and so on, but it seems the installer is broken or I'm doing something wrong. Probably the later.

What is glx and why is there a client and server?

More importantly, is there anything I can do to understand the source of the problem of the installation?

"3. DRI seems not enabled (direct rendering: No), check also for that. I just can advice you to see if it's declared in your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file (or xorg.conf)."

I'll have a look later.

[jide]

They should say ATI technologies or something similar, right.

glx is the layer that goes between X and GL so that you can have an X window that has GL capabilities. It's directly related to hardware acceleration, gives rendering contexts, drawables, function to swap the buffers and so on. Any programs using GL under X must use glx (gtk and qt abilities to do GL are just layers over glx).
Why there is a server and client of glx is directly inherited from how X is architectured: there's an X server, and an X client. Also GL is done is the same way. Theoretically, this means that you can do GL on a computer that doesn't have those capabilities but that's on a network connected to an X server that provides those capabilities (this implicitly disable DRI); however I never tested that.
Maybe other people will be able to give more information (or even correct what I said), or you can find out information on the net I guess.

What you can do to understand the source of the problem is somewhat hard to say from my point of view. I just gave you hints from what I saw from your glxinfo output.
You might check if your kernel supports DRI, if not, recompile it with those functionalities. I also guess it must support agpgart. There's also the kernel and X logs that could help you (take a look in /var/log/***).
Also, did you make a research on previous posts about such kind of problems ?

Also (again), can you tell if the drivers come with a version of Mesa ?

It's just easy for the last point: just check that:

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep dri
or
cat /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 | grep dri
(I don't remember well the name of the XF86 config file).

If the line exists and it is not commented (there's not # at the beginning of the line), it's okay.

Hope that helps a bit.

[V-man]

Hi jide,

Thanks for explaining.

I'm sure DRI is supported. I don't know about agpgart. This is RH 8.0 and I'm not an expert on Linux.

As I said, I was able to have GL acceleration a long time ago by installing the drivers made available by ATI. It was easy enough to install. That installation of RH 8 is gone. I did a new install recently and tried the latest drivers made available by ATI. This time, they offer a special auto installer, the file size is 60 MB.
The problem is, it doesn't give GL acceleration.
I installed the old driver that I new worked over them, but these didn't work either.

I am enabling DRI and agpgart and something called dva. I also tried disabling dva.
I'm making GL available to all users.

Also (again), can you tell if the drivers come with a version of Mesa ?

I don't know. Maybe ATI's driver doesn't use MESA at all.

I have XF86Config-4 only.

This is stuff I copied and pasted

# **********************************************************************
# DRI Section
# **********************************************************************
Section "dri"
# Access to OpenGL ICD is allowed for all users:
    Mode 0666
# Access to OpenGL ICD is restricted to a specific user group:
#    Group 100    # users
#    Mode 0660
EndSection
 
# This loads the GLX module
    Load        "glx"   # libglx.a
    Load        "dri"   # libdri.a
 
# === disable/enable XAA/DRI ===
    Option "no_accel"                   "no"
    Option "no_dri"                     "no"

[jide]

What's strange to me is that it worked before but not now even with the same old driver.

Is it the same computer (motherboard chipset and graphic card) ?

Try to remove all GL rpms, then all GL libraries and headers (/usr, /usr/X11R6, /usr/local for all include/GL and lib/libGL* headers and libraries).
Then try to reinstall.

Also check that

lsmod | grep agp

gives results.

Finally, do you know that there are 2 versions of ATI drivers for Linux, one that's free and that uses Mesa and DRI (if I remember well) and another proprietary one (that seems not to use DRI and Mesa) ? I've also heard that one works on some cards whereas the other works on other cards, but cannot confirm that they all cover all the cards.

I'm sorry not to be able to help you more.

On my Suse 9.3 ATI's new installer dropped the OpenGL libraries in /usr/lib/firegl (or similar), and they are used only if LD_LIBRARY_PATH points to that directory. Otherwise, MESA software rendering is used. Put something like this in your .profile:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/firegl

(This is a problem with applications that access libGL.so with a hardcoded and not customizable path.)

[V-man]

What's strange to me is that it worked before but not now even with the same old driver.

Yes, the cpu, motherboard, ram, HDD have been changed.
AthlonXP2800+ (RH8 recognizes it)
Nforce2 400 chipset (I don't know. I asked people on another forum if I had to install chipset drivers but nobody answered)
Vid card is the same : R9500 128MB.
I think RH8 doesn't have it in it's list. I looked in Hat->System Settings->Display
then "Advanced" tab.
Next to
Video card type : Unknown video card
Memory size : 128 megabytes
Driver : fglrx

This was after I installed the new drivers.

Try to remove all GL rpms, then all GL libraries and headers (/usr, /usr/X11R6, /usr/local
for all include/GL and lib/libGL* headers and libraries).

Don't know how to uninstall rpms. I'm from a Windows background.

lsmod | grep agp doesn't say anything. It just returns to the prompt again

The drivers are closed source ATI drivers. The open source drivers are for R200 and below.

Hannes,
I have this file in etc called profile (it's not .profile)

# /etc/profile
 
# System wide environment and startup programs, for login setup
# Functions and aliases go in /etc/bashrc
 
pathmunge () {
	if ! echo $PATH | /bin/egrep -q "(^|:)$1($|:)" ; then
	   if [ "$2" = "after" ] ; then
	      PATH=$PATH:$1
	   else
	      PATH=$1:$PATH
	   fi
	fi
}
 
# Path manipulation
if [ `id -u` = 0 ]; then
	pathmunge /sbin
	pathmunge /usr/sbin
	pathmunge /usr/local/sbin
fi
 
pathmunge /usr/X11R6/bin after
 
unset pathmunge
 
# No core files by default
ulimit -S -c 0 > /dev/null 2>&1
 
USER="`id -un`"
LOGNAME=$USER
MAIL="/var/spool/mail/$USER"
 
HOSTNAME=`/bin/hostname`
HISTSIZE=1000
 
if [ -z "$INPUTRC" -a ! -f "$HOME/.inputrc" ]; then
    INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
fi
 
export PATH USER LOGNAME MAIL HOSTNAME HISTSIZE INPUTRC
 
for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh ; do
    if [ -r "$i" ]; then
    	. $i
    fi
done
 
unset i
### START ATI FGLRX ###
### Automatically modified by ATI Proprietary driver scripts
### Please do not modify between START ATI FGLRX and END ATI FGLRX
 
if [ $LD_LIBRARY_PATH ]
then
  if ! set | grep LD_LIBRARY_PATH | grep /usr/X11R6/lib > /dev/null
  then
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/X11R6/lib
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  fi
else
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
fi
 
if [ $LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH ]
then
  if ! set | grep LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH | grep /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/ > /dev/null
  then
    LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=$LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH:/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/
    export LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH
  fi
else
  LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/
  export LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH
fi
 
### END ATI FGLRX ###
 
if [ $LD_LIBRARY_PATH ]
then
  if ! set | grep LD_LIBRARY_PATH | grep /usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/X11R6/lib/modules > /dev/null
  then
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/X11R6/lib/modules
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  fi
else
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/X11R6/lib/modules
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
fi

After messing around a bit more and finally installing the new drivers, glxinfo says
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".

[root@localhost /]# glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: No
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context
client glx vendor string: ATI
client glx version string: 1.3
client glx extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_ATI_pixel_format_float,
    GLX_ATI_render_texture
GLX extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context
OpenGL vendor string: VA Linux Systems, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 Mesa 3.4.2
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_blend_color,
    GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract
glu version: 1.3
glu extensions:
    GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator, GLU_EXT_object_space_tess
 
   visual  x  bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
 id dep cl sp sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------
0x22 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 16  0  0  0  0  0  0 0 None
0x23 24 tc  0 24  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  0 16  8 16 16 16  0  0 0 None

And finally, I'll give nVidia a try sometime but I don't fell liek pulling out hw right now.

[Humus]

Are you sure that DRI is compiled into your kernel?
You may want to ask at the Linux forum at Rage3D. There's a lot of accumulated experience there with installation issues.

[jide]

Redhat is no more maintained but for companies and is not free or charge anymore. Now (and since at least 2 years) this is Fedora but looks more like a testing version for the companies product. If nothing works, try to use another distribution (like Debian). Also, try a newer kernel. But only do that if all the things I listed below don't change things at all.

Also, as agp is not a kernel module, it might (and must) be directly compiled inside the kernel.

Something like

cat /boot/config | grep AGP

where config is the file matching your kernel config (it might be /etc/config or /etc/config-2.x.y.z), should returns something. The command:

uname -a

will returns the full name of your kernel, with other things.

Can you show me them ? If there's no AGP, you won't have any accelerated things I guess. The fact that redhat 8 is quiete old might tell the kernel doesn't support your motherboard chipset. Nforce 2 is quiete old too, but I don't know when it has been supported inside kernels and if it has been updated.

Also, for the libraries, the file is /etc/ld.so.conf, try to put the directory at the first line of this file.

Well, also, I was able to easily found nforce 2 drivers for the linux kernel (so surely saying thing chipset is not supported or not very well supported by the free kernel):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.0-0306.html

Install it, I really advice it even if it's non free.

For uninstalling rpms, it should be (don't remember thought since I do not use rpm anymore) rpm -e package_name.rpm.

Hope that could help things getting better