Urgent: Squeeze upgrade problem!

[KamikazeUnicorn]

Hi All,

I've just been trying to upgrade from debian lenny to squeeze. I did the upgrade on another computer without issue. However, on the second computer when I now try to boot up it stops at the console login without booting any graphical interface.
There don't seem to be any error messages or explanations of why it stops here, and I don't know where to start looking for the problem.

Please help!
Kami

[KamikazeUnicorn]

I have looked through the boot log and found the following error:

[ 23.757482] platform radeon_cp.0: firmware: requesting radeon/R520_cp.bin
[ 23.827331] radeon_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/R520_cp.bin"
[ 23.827394] [drm:r100_cp_init] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!

I will look into getting this firmware tomorrow. If there are any suggestions or tips that might help, they are most welcome.
Kami.

[KamikazeUnicorn]

Okay, I am slowly making some kind of progress with this, I think.

The graphics card installed is: ATI FireGL V7350. I've found the drivers that were used under Lenny, however when I try to install the drivers again under Squeeze I get the following error message:

./default_policy.sh does not support version
default:v286_64:lib32::none:2.6.32-5-amd64; make sure that the version is being correctly set by --iscurrentdistro

My kernel release is 2.6.32-5-amd64

using ./ati-driver-installer-8.583-x86.x86_64.run --listpkg
the packages listed go up to Debian/lenny, Debian/testing, Debian/experimental

Are there any alternative open source drivers that I can use that will get around this problem? If I tell it to use the lenny version will that work? Am I supposed to be uninstalling any drivers before attempting to reinstall this one?
Thanks,
Kami.

[fanderal]

It might be the non-free firmware that's needed for the proprietary ATI driver... the "firmware-linux" package pulls in the free and non-free firmware packages.

[KamikazeUnicorn]

There is an error about virtualbox not working, which I previously had installed, could this be causing the problem?
modprobe vboxdrv failed

don't know how to go about fixing this one.

[fanderal]

The non-free firmware suggestion was because of the log in your second post: "*ERROR* Failed to load firmware!" but nothing's posted about it being installed.

Is the non-free firmware pkg installed?

Is the graphical desktop still an issue (not working)?

[KamikazeUnicorn]

sorry, I installed the non-free firmware pkg after your suggestion, along with a fpglx package that I found reference to elsewhere. The error message has disappeared from the boot log, but the graphical desktop still isn't loading.

[fanderal]

Check this out to see if these steps are done:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/deb...ce-issues.html

Also, if the open source pkgs (xserver-xorg-video-radeon and/or xserver-xorg-video-ati) were ever installed, check to make sure they're uninstalled. 'Completely remove' in synaptic or 'purge' in apt or aptitude, uninstalls a pkg including its dependency pkgs and conf files. Note: if, when uninstalling the open source driver, the pkg mgr wants to uninstall xorg and the entire desktop environment, just uninstall 'xserver-xorg-video-all' - its a meta pkg for all video drivers. Once its uninstalled, you can keep or uninstall any individual video driver pkg.

[KamikazeUnicorn]

I've now removed the xserver-xorg-video-radeon, -all and -ati packages. The -radeonhd package is still there though, do I need to remove that one as well?

When I tried to run the command from the other thread:

sudo aticonfig --initial

I got the message "No supported adapters detected". Guess I am still missing something somewhere. Looking through the output from lsmod, there doens't seem to be anything related to the graphics in the kernel. Do I have to use something like modprobe to add something there, if so, what should it be?
Thanks!

[fanderal]

I got the message "No supported adapters detected".

I should have read your third post more carefully... Lenny's fglrx driver is 8.12, Squeeze is 10.9, but the last proprietary driver to support your hardware is 9.3. The choices seem to be: 1) use the open source driver from the Squeeze repo, 2) install Catalyst 9.3 from the AMD site or 3) downgrade to Lenny. It may be possible to run Squeeze with the fglrx driver from Lenny, but I wouldn't recommend it. It'd be a very mixed system and not easily maintained... the kernel, its dependencies and much of xorg would still be Lenny.

Is the proprietary video driver a have-to for you? I ask because the open source driver in Squeeze is quite good for most desktop use.

Is running Squeeze a have-to? Nothing wrong with keeping Lenny unless upgrading to Squeeze is required for specific apps you use.