Question about radeon & radeonhd open drivers

English Hardware
1

HI all

I have mobility radeon x2300, and by manual, both radeon and radeonhd supports the card.


laptux:/home/ebeli # sax2 -p
Chip: 0  is -> ATI Mobility Radeon X2300        01:00:0 0x1002 0x718a AGP radeonhd

seems that it wants and that radeonhd is loaded.
However


laptux:/home/ebeli # modprobe -l rade*
kernel/drivers/video/aty/radeonfb.ko
kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon.ko

so I think that radeon driver is loaded, and by man, it should be radeonhd.
It works, all except 3d.

So, should I load radeonhd with modprobe and do:
sax2 -r -m 0=radeonhd

?

thanks.

2

I don’t think so. I think that only indicates those drivers are installed on your system. It does not mean they are loaded.

Typing “modprobe -l rade*” may indicate it is loaded. I’m not sure. I’m rusty on my modprobe commands.

The rpm xorg-x11-driver-video includes the radeon driver and the rpm xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd includes the radeonhd driver. Typing “man radeon” or “man radeonhd” only helps to prove those rpms are installed. Of course would could just type "rpm -qa ‘driver’ "

I typically look under my log files in /var/log/Xorg.0.log to figure out what driver is loaded, although maybe one can check loaded modules. On my laptop (my desktops are unfortunately out of action) if I type “lsmod | grep fglrx” I get:

oldcpu@dell:~> lsmod | grep fglrx
fglrx                2291768  28

which also indicates I have the fglrx driver loaded.

I have some general practical theory here on graphic drivers, but judging by your post, you know this already: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums
… it makes me think I need to improve that guide to explain a good way to tell what driver is loaded. This is more difficult in openSUSE-11.2 than it was in previous openSUSE versions (where one in previous openSUSE versions could look at the xorg.conf file), as in 11.2 an xorg.conf file is not always needed.

You could try, as you suggest:

sax2 -r -m 0=radeon

or

sax2 -r -m 0=radeonhd

after booting DIRECTLY to run level 3. Do not go there via X but rather boot directly there (the guide explains how to do that).

I do note a number of openSUSE-11.2 users have complained that the radeon and radeonhd drivers that come with openSUSE-11.2 (in rpms xorg-x11-driver-video and xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd) are lacking. (Note I tried to document some practical theory reference video drivers and their packaging for openSUSE here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums ). If you know noithing about video drivers for openSUSE, I recommend you look thru that link for the ATI. Its not too long.

If you are willing to take a chance, you could try the latest very cutting edge open source drivers unofficially packaged for openSUSE for ATI hardware. ie … some openSUSE-11.2 users with “legacy” ATI hardware have found they get better behaviour on openSUSE-11.2 from the open source radeon and radeonhd drivers if they use the updates from the X11 : XOrg repository. That repository is here:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2/

… and the rpms that some of us found gave better behaviour are these apps:

  • mesa
  • xorg-x11-driver-input
  • xorg-x11-driver-video
  • xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd
    and possibly ( ? ) others for a 64-bit openSUSE ? … (I tried them on a 32-bit PC). One caution - that tends to be a cutting edge repository, so there is always a risk it will make things worse when a cutting edge release has a bug.

Also, note, because that repository is so cutting edge, I recommend it be added, the rpms installed, and the repository removed. Do NOT leave that repository enabled 1 update longer than necessary.

Some users have added the repository, got a message the rpms were already installed (which they are, but older versions), and stopped saying they already had the rpms installed and hence they did not need to install them. That was a mistake on their part if they wanted the latest versions, and clearly they did not understand YaST software update functionality (I concur YaST can be misleading). So if you need any guidance on how to add repositories or installing and updating rpms via yast please advise.

3

I should have noted, my laptop has the ATI Radeon HD3450 graphics hardware, so I installed the proprietary graphic driver.

I edited the above post about 6 times after submitting, and I’m not certain if I did that in time before the NNTP users got it. So it might appear a bit disjointed by NNTP users.

I’m off tomorrow for two weeks on business/vacation and will have minimal to no access to the forum.

4

Thanks. I will try it and post results.
I hope I won’t get into big trouble :slight_smile: