byronsky

i have spent the last 4 days trying to install ati drivers for my graphics card. no success. ive googled and posted and tryed every peice of advice i could find. followd the opensuse.org instructions to a "T". not to mention a few peoples own instructions from google search. now for some reason my onboard intel 865 G chip wont go above 800-600 res. i downloaded a ton of updates that i read were necessary for ati graphics including a kernel update. now at grub boot screen, it no longer says suse 10.2 and failsafe. it just says kernel 1.8???-default. there are not question marks i just cant remember the number.

if the ati graphics arent gonna work. i guess i can live with it. but not 800x600. im new to linux and wanted to give it a shot. but something as simple as installing a graphics card.... i dont know, it only took me 2 mins. with windows!!! sorry to say it. probably no one will want to help me now!!!

gogalthorp

What version of Suse?

Did you get the right version for your card? What card? Did you turn the onboard video off in the BIOS. Did you run sax2 ? Where did you get the driver? Did you do the install as root?

As to the onboard video. Did you run sax2 or Yast-hardware-graphics card to configure it?

Did you ATI card not run with the default drivers? Yes I know you need the ATI drivers for 3D.

There is no need to install a different kernel.
TMK there never was a kernel version 1.8, the current version for suse is Linux 2.6.16.27-0.9 . I don't know what you did to your kernel but I suggest the easiest way to fix it is to reinstall.

It took all of 10 minuets to install and configure my NVIDIA drivers. And I had no Linux expreince at the time. ATI has not had great Linux support in the past but their drivers should work. The problem is not in Linux but in the support hardware makers have given it. They keep their API's secret so OSS programmers can't write the drivers and maybe, if they are nice, give you a binary for Linux which they don't fully support and can't be debuged by the community.

byronsky

suse 10.2 with radeon 9250 128mb pci.

sax2 detects the card but when i enable it. xserver will not start. it says something about no screen detected. i checked xorg.conf and everything looks ok to me. my monitor is detcted correctly. i got the ati driver from ati.com., linux/radeon/9250. it is binary. i made an rpm that is now on my desktop. i ran both sax and yast to configure. the kernel update came from a source that was installed automatically during linux install.

gogalthorp

Did you disable the onboard Video in the BIOS?

The card works ok with the vesa driver,yes?

Did you try the automatic install instead of the Driver package option. I must admit that I have never install an ATI card I have always used NVIDIA or Intel on board (no 3d required POS application)

Maybe someone with ATI experience can help more...



You probably should post the boot problem in a seperate thread. There are several on this board that are very good at figuring those problems out.

byronsky

i just broke down and did a clean install. i completely removed the ati card. now it boots to a cannot display current configuration screen. this is the 4th time i have done an install on the same machine with suse 10.2 twice it went through, detcted the intel 865 g chip and worked perfectly. and twice it did this. i checked xorg.conf file and all the resolutions are there with the correct monitor. the driver for intel chip is vesa. when i call sax2 from root it goes to cannot display screen after about 3-4 minutes. when i call yast2 i do get the config(blue screen). thien i click on hardware and graphics and monitor and i just locks up for 2-3 mins when it comes up it says 1024x768 24 bit color.

i connot get Xserver to start. during install card was detected at proper resolution i let the install do its thing and didnt adjust any settings. i read everything and it all looked good during install. it seem that every other time i do install the same way it works fine. as for the ati card ive all but given up. id just like to get the desktop back at this point.

gogalthorp

When you reinstalled did you do a full install or an update?
It would be best to simply delete the partitions and start totaly fresh
You might try reinserting the Video card but be sure you trun off the video on the motherboard from the BIOS

Do a lspci
This should list the PCI devices. See what it says. See if anything is marked unknown bad etc.

What motherboard? A recent user here had a new ATI chiped mother board that was definitly not Linux friendly. He changed out the board and all was well. I recommend either intel or nivida chip sets. The newer ATI chip sets seem to be a problem on some boards.

byronsky

i did full install but i did not delete partitions. i just let the installer do the partitioning and install the way it wanted. the motherboard is intel i know that. its a dell B110 2.6 ghz 1 gb ram. dual booting with xp.

if i do sax2 -p i get this
chip 0 is intel 865 g
chip 1 is ati rv280

call sax2 in root
i get this:

please wait initializing
no xserver running
will start own server in needed

ups lost card during probing.....abort
something went wrong while X was called with -probeonly
try to call sax2 -p and select a single device
abort

then i call yast from root

control center comes up select hardware and graphics and monitor.
screen flashes grey then back to control center(blue screen) no config.

im lost and have no clue what to do. in cant get into any setting from sax or yast. and either ati or intel chip will work. the dell bios has a setting called legacy settings. under that is graphics card menu with 2 settings, auto and onboard with 1mb buffer or 8 mb buffer. it is set to auto with 1mb buffer. that is all that is in the bios for graphics.

gogalthorp

Nice of dell to provide such a wonderfull BIOS That is one of the many reasons I always build my own machines I always get what I want and I never buy a board with onboard video.

I don't know how to suppress the onboard video for this machine. I guess dell never expected anyone to add their own video card

info sax2

will give you all the command line options

sax2 -r -m 0=vesa

should put the vesa drive in association with the 0 (zero card)

maybe

sax2 -r -m 0=vesa, 1= the ATI driver here

In theory that should set things up right. But now you need to tell X to use 1 and not zero and I'm not sure where or how to do that.

byronsky

since i have no gui i have no idea of how to download and install the ati driver. i suppose i could download it in windows to a flash drive. but then i have no idea how to access and install it. could anyone help with this.

also i did another install. yes again. i deleted all suse partitions and did clean install with onboard graphics off and ati card hooked up. during the hardware config the graphics section showed an error that said "no proposal"

so the thing is not even detected. if i could get an idea of how to try the ati drivers directly from command line. i could give it one more shot before i toss this graphics card into the toilet. Probably wont but im pretty frustrated with it.

thanks alot for the advice. i may not be winning this battle but im learning alot from it.

gogalthorp

NO you must get the vesa driver working first before you install the 3D aceel driver!!!

(EDIT)
Had a thought maybe there is a switch or jumper on the mother board to disable the onboard video.

Also try
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa, 1=vesa

When on the command line what video card are you pluged into?