How to discover which video driver is in use

Hi – video newbie here.

I’ve got 64 bit openSUSE 11.2 KDE4 running. I have a Mobility Radeon HD 4300 video card.

I’ve downloaded the catalyst 9.11 driver to try it out (if I can). But first I want to discover exactly what video driver I’m currently using in case I have to reverse things. I notice the installation program for openSUSE automatically installed this RPM:
xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd-1.3.0_20091026_8b89b9-1.1.1.x86_64
so I suspect that’s the driver at the moment. How do I check which video driver is in use?

Thanks
swerdna

If you have /etc/X11/xorg.conf
check there

There is magic script that escapes me ATM
Lee might remember :-0

There is no xorg.conf. I don’t find any configurator for modifying the display at all. And if I run sax2, I find the video card options are disabled.

It should tell you in system information, mine says:
Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
Model: R600 [Radeon HD 2900 Series]
Driver: fglrx

The latest X dynamically checks the settings and no xorg.conf is needed.
Run the following command to generate xorg.conf file so that you can see the settings.

Xorg -configure

Thanks citizen247, this is what I see there:

Vendor:  ATI Technologies Inc
  Model:  M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]
  Driver:  Unknown

Which I suppose means that X is using fallback settings

Thanks syampillai

FWIW: before running that command, lsmod shows these two lines

radeon                386784  2
drm                   227808  3 radeon

OK, now to your suggestion: I boot to runlevel 1 and run the command: Xorg -configure
That stores a file in /root/xorg.con.new and the program invites me to run a command that will test it. So I do – and I get a black screen. I can only extricate myself by turning off the power, so I don’t think I’ll be using that config file. Here’s a link to a copy of the file xorg.conf.new

Try this:

/usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard
/usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard | grep Driver

Is that any different?

Copy the file xorg.conf.new to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and then, do “init 5”.


cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
init 5

[Please note that directly running X may not work sometimes. Instead, you have to try “init 5” only.]
If you see any blank screen for longer time, you can press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to abort.
The log file will be available and you can have a look at it for any errors/warnings.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log

@oldcpu:

john@suse112:~> /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard
26: PCI 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
  [Created at pci.318]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1002_9552
  Unique ID: VCu0.u_Zo3GB+OPF
  Parent ID: vSkL.KcfarPM+5y9
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "ATI M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]"
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"
  Device: pci 0x9552 "M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]"
  SubVendor: pci 0x103c "Hewlett-Packard Company"
  SubDevice: pci 0x3074
  Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff (rw,prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0x7000-0x7fff (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xd8400000-0xd840ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xd8420000-0xd843ffff (ro,prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 16 (138 events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001002d00009552sv0000103Csd00003074bc03sc00i00"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #8 (PCI bridge)

Primary display adapter: #26

FFI: Recalling that there was no xorg.conf in /etc/X11, I ran this command to generate one:

sax2 -m 0=radeon

tested, saved and rebooted. I got the display that I had when X was using its own intelligence.

@syampillai, I copied xorg.conf.new to replace /etc/X/xorg.conf nd rebooted. It works.

@caf4926

/usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard | grep Driver
No return (the word “Driver” is not there)

So now thanks to you all I’ve got three equivalent methods for displays using radeon, one from letting X do its own thing (no xorg.conf), one from “sax2 -r -m 0=radeon” and one from “Xorg -configre”. Thanks guys, I really know how to get the video back if I muck up the catalyst drivers, so I’ll try firsy radeonhd and then catalyst and report back.

strange !

Take a look at mine:

oldcpu@hal2009:~> /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard
34: PCI 200.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)             
  [Created at pci.318]                                          
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_10de_5e2                
  Unique ID: B35A.v7zhegtFlY2                                   
  Parent ID: 3hqH.2iCuEpJrHW5                                   
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/0000:02:00.0       
  SysFS BusID: 0000:02:00.0                                     
  Hardware Class: graphics card                                 
  Model: "nVidia GT200 [GeForce GTX 260]"                       
  Vendor: pci 0x10de "nVidia Corporation"                       
  Device: pci 0x05e2 "GT200 [GeForce GTX 260]"                  
  SubVendor: pci 0x1043 "ASUSTeK Computer Inc."                 
  SubDevice: pci 0x82cf
  Revision: 0xa1
  Driver: "nvidia"
  Driver Modules: "nvidia"
  Memory Range: 0xfa000000-0xfaffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (rw,prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xf8000000-0xf9ffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xac00-0xac7f (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xfba80000-0xfbafffff (ro,prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 24 (18455 events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v000010DEd000005E2sv00001043sd000082CFbc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: nvidiafb is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidiafb"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: nvidia is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #10 (PCI bridge)

Primary display adapter: #34

where it is clear I am using the nvidia driver (just after " Revision: 0xa1 " ).

It must be possible to tell what driver …

You may need to explore in /proc

For example, if I go in /proc/driver/nvidia and look at the contents of “version” I see:


NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  190.42  Tue Oct 20 20:25:42 PDT 2009
GCC version:  gcc version 4.4.1 [gcc-4_4-branch revision 150839] (SUSE Linux) 

Making it clear I am using the 190.42 64-bit proprietary nVidia driver. Possibly ATI put something similar under /proc ?

Maybe this command (or similar) will yield driver info:

lspci -kv |grep VGA -A 12

Nothing there for me.

Next I ran “sax2 -r -m 0=radeonhd” and got a good result, xorg.conf showing the driver as “radeonhd”. It does good 3d desktop effects so I suppose it’s working OK. Now I’ll try the catalyst 911 driver, building the RPM. I think folks are having problems doing that.

Spoke too soon. The machine froze and wouldn’t boot back into my user account until I booted in failsafe and disabled desktop effects.

[quote="“swerdna,post:15,topic:38139”]

Nothing there for me…[/QUOTE]
Now you have me curious.

I note on my openSUSE-11.1 PC with an ATI Radeon 3450HD (which is running a proprietary ATI driver) the information is under /proc/ati/name. It may be somewhere else for the vesa or openGL.

Maybe my Linux knowledge is rusty, but its always been my view that this sort of information is somewhere to be found under /proc … One just has to dig for it.

Got something there:

john@suse112:~> sudo /sbin/lspci -kv |grep VGA -A 12
root's password:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 3074
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256]
        I/O ports at 7000 [size=256]
        Memory at d8400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64]
        Expansion ROM at d8420000 [disabled] [size=128]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [58] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [a0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [100] Vendor Specific Information <?>

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I’ve tried “locate” with grep, “find /proc | grep” and an extensive visual search using Dolphin in /proc – no joy

I don’t think the grep will work, as most these files require root permissions to look at the content. But if a visual search does not find anything, then its not there. :slight_smile: … could be another characteristic of the move from 11.1 to 11.2 with the information no longer under /proc.