[CentOS] Intel i7-940, DX58S0 motherboard, Radeon X1950 Pro video card

[Frank Cox]

On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:34:01 -0600
Frank Cox wrote:

> This computer is my main desktop machine --- an Intel i7-940 CPU and DX58S0
> motherboard with a Radeon X1950 Pro video card. 

For anyone who's interested, the verdict is that Centos 5.4 works fine on this
computer.  I decided that the only way I was going to find out for sure would
be to proceed and see what happens.  The sound and the network connection work
fine.

The most "interesting" part of this was making the Radeon X1960 Pro video card
work. The Centos installer put 'Driver "r500"' in xorg.conf.  This setup showed
me the rghb bootup screen, but when it switched to show me the gdm login screen
the keyboard and mouse locked up and the video turned to garbage.

I could still login with ssh.

Setting the video card to "Radeon" in xorg.conf caused the machine to show me
the rghb bootup screen, then attempt to load gdm and fail, telling me that gdm
is now disabled.

Setting the video card to "vesa" in xorg.conf worked, but the maximum
resolution I could get was 1400x1050.  My monitor is an Acer AL2223W with a
native resolution of 1680x1050.   No matter what modelines or anything else I
could think of to add to xorg.conf, I couldn't get it to show me 1680x1050.

I (reluctantly) downloaded the ATI proprietary driver and installed that, and
while it now works at the proper resolution.  I still see this in Xorg.0.log:

(EE) fglrx(0): atiddxDriScreenInit failed, GPS not been initialized. 
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(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                *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *
(II) fglrx(0): FBADPhys: 0x0 FBMappedSize: 0x10000000
(==) fglrx(0): Write-combining range (0xe0000000,0x10000000)
(II) fglrx(0): FBMM initialized for area (0,0)-(1728,8191)
(II) fglrx(0): FBMM auto alloc for area (0,0)-(1728,1050) (front color buffer -
assumption) (II) fglrx(0): Largest offscreen area available: 1728 x 7141
(==) fglrx(0): Backing store disabled
(II) Loading extension FGLRXEXTENSION
(II) Loading extension ATITVOUT
(**) fglrx(0): DPMS enabled
(WW) fglrx(0): Textured Video not supported without DRI enabled.


-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com