[CentOS] ATI video driver problems

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Ned Slider wrote:
> On 15/04/13 17:57, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>> Ned Slider wrote:
>>> On 15/04/13 16:57, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>>>> User got upgraded to 6.4. Graphical mode video fails.
>>>>
>>>> It's an AMD (nee ATI) RV620 (FirePro 2260).
>>>>
>>>> So I finished upgrading everything, including kmod-fglrx. Based on the
>>>> xorg.conf's on there, it's been using the fglrx. Now, in Xorg.0.log,
>>>> it tells me "no supported AMD display adapters were found". I've been
>>>> on-and-off googling for hours, and can't figure out if the "legacy"
>>>> kmod-nvidia from elrepo will work: their info *ONLY* lists Radeon
>>>> cards,
>>>> and I can't figure out what this damn thing is. Oh, lspci -v tells me
>>>> it's "ATI device 2343".
>>>>
> "FirePro 2260" leads me to believe it's a 2000 series card. Having the
> Vendor:Device ID pairing would help clarify, but looking at the pci id's
> database I'm guessing it's either 1002:95ce or 1002:95cf.

Not sure how to get that - lspci -vvv | grep 1002 gets me nothing.
>
>> Also, it appears that you're saying I need to downgrade his X (all of
>> it?), and remove the kmod-fglrx, and install the legacy (is that the
>> kmod-fglrx93?
>
> You have a number of choices:
>
> 1. Use the v13.1 legacy driver from AMD and downgrade xorg\* to the last
> release that came with RHEL 6.3 and exclude future updates. If you wish
> to use the elrepo package it's called kmod-fglrx-legacy /
> fglrx-legacy-x11-drv (currently version 13.1-2) and is currently in the
> testing repo. Obviously downgrading xorg packages has potential security
> implications.

That's become a no-starter: I tried to downgrade, and yum tells me there
*is* no downgrade. If I understand correctly... I'd have to downgrade him
to 6.3.
>
> 2. Uninstall the AMD proprietary drivers and use the distro kernel driver.
>
> 3. Ask AMD when they will update the legacy driver to support Xorg ABI 13.

See the last sentence in my answer to 4.
>
> 4. Buy a new (supported) card.

That's try and get it through purchasing, or maybe I can try the unlikely
idea, since it's still under warranty (we just bought it in Nov!), to see
if Dell will replace the card.  I have a call into them, and am waiting
for the RH group there to get back to me, to see if they have a driver
(and maybe lean on them to lean on AMD - Dell leans a *lot* harder than I
do).
>
> A fifth option is to use el5 which uses an older supported version of
> Xorg (I do find it kind of ironic that RHEL6 ships with such a new
> version of Xorg that some proprietary drivers don't support it - more
> the kind of thing you expect to run into on Ubuntu or Fedora than
> Enterprise Linux).
>
I don't think I'm going to rebuild his entire system that way. 6.3 would
work, but I'm seeing what I can do to avoid that.

<several hours later>
I've got it working with radeon. What I've spent an hour or two on is
hand-crafting an xorg.conf. He's got two monitors, and rotates them
(*sigh*). Everything seems right, except for one detail: I can't drag the
mouse from one screen to the next. I have Option "Xinerama" "1", but no
joy.

Clues?

    mark "almost there"
I've been