[GRLUG] Arch and ATI

[Michael Mol]

Marissa Hogue wrote:
> Anyone here an Arch user?
> 
> I did an install on my desktop machine at work, and it went great. I'm
> something of a minimalist, so Arch really appeals to me, and I also
> like the idea of rolling releases. I'm just having a bit of trouble
> configuring the video drivers. I have an ATI Radeon HD 3200 card. I'm
> trying to get the Catalyst 9.10 proprietary drivers, and according to
> the support forums, I need to revert back to Xorg 1.6 because Catalyst
> has no support for 1.7. I went through all the steps, and I still get
> a blank screen when I start X. My Xorg log file has this:
> 
> (EE) [drm] drmOpen failed.
> (EE) fglrx(0): DRIScreenInit failed!
> (WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed!
> (WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad)
> (WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO)
> (WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available
> 
> I have an inquiry posted in the forums, and I'm still waiting on that,
> but I thought here would be a good place to check, and see if anyone
> has any advice on configuring proprietary ATI drivers in Arch Linux.
> Or any other Arch tips and tricks for that matter, since I'm
> brand-spanking new to this distro.

I can't help on the subject of Arch specifically, but I would like to 
share some of my experiences with the HD3200 set.  My motherboard has 
HD3200 onboard, with DVI, HDMI and VGA outputs. (At the very least, I 
can use the VGA and HDMI at the same time, which was a major benefit of 
the board.)

I've discovered that on Ubuntu 9.10, I can use both the HDMI and VGA 
outputs in a multimon setup using non-accelerated drivers, but I can't 
with the Catalyst drivers; With the catalyst drivers, I seem to be stuck 
using only the VGA. (Or possibly only one display at a time, but I 
didn't try enabling just the HDMI output, then switching to Catalyst.)

In short, I also got stuck with a black screen on both displays, but 
only if I tried to use multimon.

I also discovered that I hit impedance mismatch (due to a 10m HDMI 
cable) *continually* with the HD3200 output, as opposed to only every 
few minutes with the HDMI output of my PS3.

For my purposes (HTPC), I ordered one of these from Newegg.  Hopefully 
it'll clear up the driver issues. (I also ordered an impedance 
equalizer, but that's to solve a more common problem.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127454