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...I would put a lot more trust in this development. Things like hangs and inability to standby (5+ year old problem) or more recently brightness control that worked until approx 14 months ago and since then was never (fully) fixed despite dozens of bug reports. I mean, this is a simple matter of comparing the code for brightness between the version 14+ months ago and the latest one to figure out what is the problem and then fixing it once and for all... Instead, they announce "fix" for it in two consecutive versions, neither of which address the problem in its entirety, and consider it fixed... Yes, some will argue open-sourcing this may help fix things faster. My experience tells me otherwise whenever you have this level if incompetence involved, because after all it is that same incompetence that will drive the separation of open and closed components... Downvote or not, I would love to be proven wrong so that I can finally install a fglrx driver that actually works as it should.

I can only wonder why they did this. However, I have an idea where to start. Saying that their Linux support is crappy would be an overstatement. It is damn-near unusable. What I really don't get is why do they fsck up their software when their hardware is so capable? Don't they understand that it's people at universities (mostly using Linux) who decide what compute cards to put into the next supercomputer?

Here is a modern day comparison showing that the binary driver rapes nouveau in 2d performance.

I used glxgears (yes, it's not a good tool for benchmarking overall video performance, but it's a useful basis for standardized comparison of FPS rates under different video drivers) to measure video frames per second under the nouveau, nv and nvidia (closed-source) drivers.

(emphasis mine) Isn't glxgears a 3d "benchmark" and not a test of 2d performance?

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Glxgears_is_not_a_Benchmark

Not to mention if you have a card on the recently updated legacy support list, you can't run Catalyst 9.4 binaries which are the only version to support X 1.6. I don't care who's fault it is, it just means I'll be sticking with Hardy until that gets solved or LTS runs out.

• 8.42 : is currently *being* released, links are not updated everywhere. But a few google request may bring you to forums where it is already available. For exemple, Phoroinix have published a link to the driver they did test. I think the release is not official yet because of the reported problems with 2.6.23 kernel. The same google search can also bring out patches to circumvent those problems and even howtos about using the new AIGLX for desktop compositing.
• 8.41 : Is the previous release. It was mainly centered around bringing RadeonHD support on linux. Thus some bugs may have managed to slip by with older chipsets. IT IS available on the ATI website. But it comes with a caveat explaining the situation, that this driver is mainly targeting Radeon HD and that it's "use at your own risk" with previous chipset generations. You're still free to try it on X800XL if you want (Phoroinix did it in their).
• 8.40 : is the latest release using the older code base. Currently it is what has been the most widely tested and debugged for older chipset, so that's why it's the first thing you land on.
• There's a nice wiki about ATI on Linux, with distro specific pages, links to the latest bleeding edge versions and such.

I had an X700 and it would only allow me to log into X once. If I logged out and tried to log back in, the machine would hard freeze. Bug 239. Acted the same way when switching VT's. Bug 37.

I bought a GeForce 7950GT when I built my latest PC and was so happy with its linux performance I bought a GeForce 6800 to go into my other box. I fought with that ATi card for 2 years and it never really worked right. It could just be certain chipsets/versions but I know I wasn't alone. The Radeon 9000 I got works just peachy with 3D acceleration from the open source drivers OTOH.

I had an X700 and it would only allow me to log into X once. If I logged out and tried to log back in, the machine would hard freeze. Bug 239. Acted the same way when switching VT's. Bug 37.

I bought a GeForce 7950GT when I built my latest PC and was so happy with its linux performance I bought a GeForce 6800 to go into my other box. I fought with that ATi card for 2 years and it never really worked right. It could just be certain chipsets/versions but I know I wasn't alone. The Radeon 9000 I got works just peachy with 3D acceleration from the open source drivers OTOH.

Your experiences with ATI are rather atypical. I have a Radeon X1400 that's half the speed of a Geforce 6600 in 3D apps, 114x times slower than a Geforce 6600 in 2D apps and 15x times slower than a Radeon 7500 with the open source drivers in 2D apps.

Your experiences with ATI are rather atypical. I have a Radeon X1400 that's half the speed of a Geforce 6600 in 3D apps, 114x times slower than a Geforce 6600 in 2D apps and 15x times slower than a Radeon 7500 with the open source drivers in 2D apps.

Yes, you read that correctly, the Radeon X1400 is 15x slower than the (now
obsolete) Radeon 7500, and 114x slower than the (similarly priced) Geforce
6600. To buy new hardware only to find that it's exponentially slower than the
old hardware at the most basic of tasks is insulting. Locke returns, Tom dies,
and Charlie sacrifices himself to save his friends.There shouldn't be any
problem with making the X1400 *at least* as fast as the 7500, and preferably,
competitive with it's similarly priced competition.

Unless this situation is rectified (either by the fglrx drivers being fixed,
or documentation being released so that open source drivers can be developed),
I will not buy any more ATI hardware, simply because it is embarrassingly
slow.

Yes, you read that correctly, the Radeon X1400 is 15x slower than the (now
obsolete) Radeon 7500, and 114x slower than the (similarly priced) Geforce
6600. To buy new hardware only to find that it's exponentially slower than the
old hardware at the most basic of tasks is insulting. There shouldn't be any
problem with making the X1400 *at least* as fast as the 7500, and preferably,
competitive with it's similarly priced competition.

Unless this situation is rectified (either by the fglrx drivers being fixed,
or documentation being released so that open source drivers can be developed),
I will not buy any more ATI hardware, simply because it is embarrassingly
slow.

We've been using OpenGL and Linux on ATI cards for our arcade game for over a year now. We're facing a major hurdle, though. AGP hardware is getting harder and harder to find in quantity, and the fglrx drivers don't correctly support vblank in the PCIx cards they have. We're trying to use the commercial end to get pressure on them through the buyers, but it's slow going.

When they can't be bothered to get their drivers to pay attention to vblank properly, you know it's not their top priority.

And you are not entitled to watch a movie on your tv that you play from your computer? Windows has been doing that for 10 years.

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=309
http://folk.uio.no/henger/htpc/ati-pal-tvout.jpg

Or even tuxracer (proprietary driver FREEZES my machine but I have to install it cause I want to use the tv)

If you google around you'll see many people that wanted to run linux on a machine that initially had windows installed, to curse at the ati incompetence.

..at least you didn't purchase an sgi prism which probably cost us $15k+, has dual ati firegl's, uses the same shitty fglrx drivers, with all the same shitty problems found on ati's unofficial bugzilla.

You do that and you have no video, perhaps no 3d also ,

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.co m/drivers/linux/linux_8.33.6.html#183417

or no xv on tv-out http://folk.uio.no/henger/htpc/ati-pal-tvout.jpg

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=309

system FREEZES on 3d,

--locked-userpages={on|off}

Enable/disable locked user pages. Disable this option if the system

hangs when running fgl_glxgears.

User page lock is no longer available on AGP system now

The decision not to include the fglrx crapware is indeed the right one

This is running with DRI? Are you trying to use xv or opengl for the card side of video playing? Will it play regular videos and just not DVD? Etc.

It could be something as simple as forcing your player of choice to use openGL or disable xv in the xorg.conf, etc.

If your video card works in linux otherwise you've pretty much narrowed the problem down to a more specific set of possibilities. You should be able to continue to knock them off until you can definitively say "this is a bug" or "this is configured wrong"

Check the unofficial bugzilla too. You may consider adding your issue to it if the plausible fixes dry up.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=80295

If you're not an absolute open software zealot, you're going to want to put on restricted stuff, and the best way to do this with Ubuntu is a little shell script (and user maintained repository list) called Automatix. It is especially important because this will get rid of totem-gstreamer and install totem-xine, which will allow them to play all their media.

Beyond that, generating restricted deb packages for ATi cards (fglrx) can be a trial, but here's a link with idiot-proof step by steps:

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper_Ins tallation_Guide

You're looking to use method 2, but tell your users they can type "m-a" instead of module-ass[TAB]. ;^)

Best of luck.

--
Toro

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper_Ins tallation_Guide

Try that. Worked wonders for me.

My correspondance with the fglrx packager: Dear Sir/Sirs, > > I don't know if this is the proper channel to report bugs or > deficiencies of the fglrx drivers to, but I don't know where else to > turn to. > > My system is RADEON 9600 XT 256MB (AGP) on Intel 845PE motherboard , > Pentium4 2.4 GHz, 1GB RAM. While on Windows XP everything runs fine, > on every flavor of Linux I've tried I get the same bugs: > > 1. glxgears freezes linux, and also every type of openGL application > after approx. 1 min. > > 2. Xv video overlay on TV-out produces only the upper half of the > piped video. If I disable Xv overlay, video is correctly displayed but > the performance deteriorates to a point where it is unwatchable. > > I have tried ubuntu 5.10 and 6.06, kubuntu 5.10 and 6.06, SuSe 10.1, > drivers 2.25.18 and 2.26.18 with every possible configuration and I > get the same bugs. > > I have switched back to "ati" driver on kubuntu 6.06 albeit with no > TV-out. > > Luckily windows can read linux filesystems and I watch my videos this way > > I would greatly appreciate if the drivers for linux can pipe video to > my tv while I work on my monitor, just like extended desktop on xp. > > Thanks for reading. Responce: Unfortunately I don't for for ATI, so can't really help you much with the drivers. I just submit the packaging scripts to ATI for their installer. But maybe the following is helpful to you: > 1. glxgears freezes linux, and also every type of openGL application > after approx. 1 min. I have never heard of this problem before. I have a Mobility 9600 and 9800XT myself, and have no such problems with the driver. Have you tried changing "fast writes" in your BIOS to "off", or trying different Linux kernels? > 2. Xv video overlay on TV-out produces only the upper half of the > piped video. If I disable Xv overlay, video is correctly displayed but > the performance deteriorates to a point where it is unwatchable. I guess you are using PAL TV? I believe this is a know issue, and there is no way around it other than reverting to much older drivers (8.20 might work, 8.16 should for sure if you can get it to compile on your kernel). From what I hear, ATI should be working on TV stuff for future releases, but I have no idea when they will be released. For now I'd recommend you disable Xv, and use the OpenGL display target of your video player (for example in mplayer use: "-vo gl2"). That should give you good performance, provided you can fix issue #1. I suggest you check out the Rage3D community site at http://rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=88 and the unofficial ATI wiki at http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Main_Page for more info.

you could go into "safe mode" follow these instructions on another comp or write them down http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper_Ins tallation_Guide " Method 1: Installing Dapper's Included Driver (8.25.18) The included fglrx driver supports Radeon 8500+ and the X-series cards up to X1900."

I had the same problem too just a couple days before being released the stable version :-(. Just do the following:
1.- Download the previous working version from: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.co m/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-8.24.8-x86.ru n
2.- Follow the instructions for the new driver 8.25.18 and compile manually the packages just as described in the Unofficial ATI Linux Driver Wiki:
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper_Ins tallation_Guide#Method_2:_Generating.2FInstalling_ Ubuntu_packages_for_the_8.25.18_drivers_in_Ubuntu_ Dapper_Manually

That should restore your drivers the way they were and will get 3D acceleration back again. The procedure will work out nicely on a 6.06 Dapper / LTS box.

Cheers.
Carlos.

Support standpoint, we at the ubuntuforums find the support of ATI cards to be very frustrating. Their drivers dont work , and when they do, its spotchy at best.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=148531
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122094
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=148415
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=141090
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=137343
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=76147
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=75001

This is probably the largest complaint we get on the Ubuntu Forums and the UDSF(http://doc.gwos.org/ in the way of graphics cards. I think I even remember being told at one point that ATI is so driven on DirectX development that they likely dont care much about developing Open Source Drivers, or even a decent working Proprietary driver.

There have been a few Petitions to do so
http://www.petitiononline.com/atipet/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/ati3/petition.html

And countless others. The community asks, almost begs, and all ATI does it laugh.

Its sad, really sad.

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Main_Page

http://ati.cchtml.com/

/* Parent */
Correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK you still have to download the driver from ATi and *pray* that their installer works for your distro. ATi's support only goes up to their 8500 line (Like 2 years old), and even then performance is signifficantly lower than what you get in Windows. /* Parent */

Sure. That's easy. You can download the driver from ATI or from distros that have packages ready for you (Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo,...). Perhaps you distro doesn't have a package ready? Well, for those cases, you can download the ATI Installer and *GENERATE* packages for your distribution (if it's available: RedHat, All of SuSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Debian, ...) - name another driver that plays nice with Distro packaging (Not NV).

The Radeon 8500 was launched in August 2001 (according to hardware analysis's article).
Half the performance of Windows? I think not. I doubt you know much about benchmarking (not a personal attack but a general statement; most "benchmarking" sites don't really understand what they are benchmarking nor how even). You probably were comparing OpenGL under Linux to DX under Windows.

There's also the wiki that details how to install on OpenSuSE; heck even the guys at SuSE have dedicated pages with hints for getting ATI drivers to install on OpenSuSE if all else fails:
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Main_Page

Try

        Option "VideoOverlay"
        Option "OverlayOnCRTC2"

in the Device section for the _primary_ screen.

The linux driver forum on rage3d.com at http://rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=88 and the unofficial bugzilla at http://ati.cchtml.com/ are both worth a look.