Okay so after a few hours of trying to figure out how to do this I decided it was time to seek help.
I’m running a hybrid graphics card (AMD Radeon HD 6630m) so naturally I’d like to have full functionality between the two.
Here’s what I’ve done so far:
Downloaded the .run file from AMD’s website
Built packages for both AMD and Intel side of the card
Unpackaged said packages
I used ATI Catalyst’s GUI to install (in hindsight terminal might have been better and more informative) and it is now saying
After installation of the generated package, it is important to save your X Window configuration file, and then run ‘aticonfig --initial’ (in a console window) to complete the basic configuration, please run aticonfig from a console window or AMD CCC:LE from the Desktop Manager Menu
So how and why do i save my X Window config and when I give the aticonfig command it says no adapters detected
You don’t need to worry about that, as the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf doesn’t even exist by default. aticonfig --initial will create one. However I’m afraid it might not help. See this post: Easy install of ATI proprietary driver in the console and the following. The user installed and configured the ATI driver properly and successfully, but this wasn’t enough to get X running.
I dont’ know anything about this ATI+Intel hybrid graphics, but you are the fourth poster looking for a solution in the past 2 and 3 days and I believe it’s going to become a popular topic.
The user installed and configured the ATI driver properly and successfully, but this wasn’t enough to get X running
… disheartening >:( but maybe all the ruckus these drivers are causing will give them a higher priority in future versions
I don’t know much about hybrid graphics, but for now, are you able to disable the intel graphics in the BIOS, so that the ATI chipset is enabled? Maybe that will be enough to get the configuration completed.
My understanding is there may be something called vga_switcheroo built into a recent kernel (possibly in the openSUSE kernel for 11.4 - but I am not certain) that can then be used to set this up.
What we REALLY NEED is someone with this hardware to write an openSUSE specific guide on this. I can point to a number of links on this subject, but I do not know enough to provide guidance, as my visualization skills are not enough , and I would need to play with real hardware to precisely figure this out.*
@Lee: AFAIU, vga_switcheroo can only be used with the open surce drivers. The Catalyst 11.4 Linux driver is finally suppoesd to be providing the switching support needed for thos using AMD PowerXpress hybrid graphics.
Further to this, in the interesting of helping, and with the hopeful understanding by those on this thread that I do not know how to do this myself (although I did read up on it a bit), here are some of the links I collected to try and see how this is done. Most of these links are NOT for openSUSE, but hopefully these links will provide some extra information to assist anyone who is trying this:
I’ve been collecting those links to help me figure this out conceptually, but unfortunately my visualization is lacking, so I offer the above in the hope that someone else can take that and run with it and produce a guide for openSUSE.*
Indeed interesting ! Its hard thou to separate the ‘wheat’ from the ‘chaff’ due to the low level of knowledge in some cases. I found this particular exchange of interest: Psihountakis Stelios:I have a toshiba A300 laptop with ATI radeon card. Ubuntu live cd cant boot so i cant use it
Haynes h: *the toshiba laptops have a problem with the powermanagement which causes this problem. Try the following boot parameter: pcie_aspm=off . This disables the Active State Power Management of the PCI Express Components and you will probably be able to boot and install everything
*
Of course that exchange is NOT relevant to our hybrid graphics driver thread (unless one is deliberately disabling power management for some reason and still want to use hybrid graphics).
I’ve read some laptops have a BIOS setting with a name that is not so obvious to be switching graphic drivers:
For Intel
, set graphics controller to “Switchable” in BIOS - For AMD
, set graphics controller to “Discrete” in BIOS
Of course if one has no ‘graphics controller’ BIOS entry then there is no way to make such a setting !
On the Fedora forums, one user noted a case where Fedora on their PC always would boot to the Radeon driver and they wanted to try the Intel driver. What purportedly worked for some users with Fedora was a Fedora kernel boot code (which may or may not be enabled for openSUSE, but I think it is with recent openSUSE kernels) :
radeon.modeset=0
where this applies the modesetting only to the Radeon driver. I assume, … no, … “speculate” is a better word, that in this case it is important one does NOT have the proprietary Catalyst fglrx driver loaded.
There is so little we know here and we really need a guide from a user who has been through all of this and flushed out what works and what does not work.
A lot of information is new here, and while I have seen that link before, the July 2010 date on it caused me to think it no longer active. I guess I need to revise that thinking of mine ?
I only see reference in that to vga_switcheroo when I scroll down in the blog comments. Its also only by scrolling down that one gleans more information with current dates ! But that is very difficult to filter.
We really do need a user who has this hardware, who has hashed through all of this already, to write a summary guide for openSUSE. Write or wrong, such a guide will give us a baseline to update/correct and provide input/improvements to.
@please_try_again. There are different HP Pavillion DV6 models unfortunately. FWIW, the blog (linked above) has a user post indicating some success with using the acpi_call.ko module and running a script ‘./test_off.sh’ (outlined in the blog):
On my HP Pavilion dv6-3322:
Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P1.VGA._OFF: failed
Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P2.VGA._OFF: failed
Trying \_SB_.PCI0.OVGA.ATPX: failed
Trying \_SB_.PCI0.OVGA.XTPX: failed
Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P3.PEGP._OFF: works!
There are several other posts I found searching that have not managed to get hybrid switching to work. It would be interesting if the user you referred to could try this (to switch the active graphics chipset).
infact they’ve been my bible today. The problem is they all end with aticonfig --initial which gives me
