[SOLVED]ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

[trintadosete]

Hi,

i just upgraded from 9.10 and after finish it, my video board (ati) is not recognized.
I was using the free driver, but now jockey even list my the possible drivers for my video board. Because of it, i am experiencing sme slowness on kde and lags on videos.

Any suggestion on how to solve it?

thanks

[trintadosete]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

Even when booting from a CD kubuntu cant recognize my ATI driver.

Is this a known issue?

[GreyGeek]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

Your netbook has the
ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 HyperMemoryTM
video chip.

It is NO LONGER SUPPORTED by ATI. It is now classified as a legacy chip and its driver was placed in the legacy archive (unsupported for either Linux or Windows). If you tried to install the 8.2 Catalyst driver you'll find it won't work with current kernels. If you tried the latest 10.2 Catalyst driver you'll be informed that your chip is no longer supported. Catch-22.

Equally unfortunate is the fact that Kubuntu does not include a friendly GUI tool for creating an xorg.conf file manually, like PCLinuxOS. Before Kubuntu switched from HAL to Upstart I booted a PCLinuxOS LiveCD and used its XFDrake tool to create an xorg.conf file for my GM45 chip. I'd then mount the Linux partition on my HD (Kubuntu) and copy the xorg.conf file to /etc/X11. Then I rebooted and manually tuned xorg.conf to suit me tastes.

[trintadosete]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

Hi, Greygeek

i am not using fglrx since 9.04, but the video was working fine in the past versions of kubuntu.
The problem started when i upgraded to 10.04

I tried "sudo Xorg -configure" to generated a xorg.conf but it not worked. I also tried the xorg.conf.failsafe file that was in my /etc/x11 but no results too

My next step is PCLinuxOS as you suggested.

thanks

[GreyGeek]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

Previous versions of Kubuntu used a kernel which included support for your chip. But, since ATI has retired your chip the newer kernels do not support it. One could revert back to the old Jaunty or Karmic kernel which last supported your chip, but that leaves you on a deserted island, so to speak.

I had to experiment with several Intel driver configurations before I got my GM45 chip to work, until Upstart detected and properly configured it. But, my notebook is only two years old. If a future kernel drops support for the GM45 I shall remain with the last version of Kubuntu kernel (pinning it so it won't get updated) and continue with other app upgrades as long as they don't require a newer kernel. I could, for example, continue to use Kubuntu 10.4 for another 3 years with upgrades and after that 5 or more years "as is". That would put me into 2018. I doubt this notebook will last that long. I have no guarantee that I will last that long. If I did that would put me over 76. MY dad lived to 93.

[Snowhog]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

I have no guarantee that I will last that long. If I did that would put me over 76. MY dad lived to 93.

I don't plan on dieing. I expect that I'll just throw an oob error and crash. If I'm lucky, someone will be around to reboot me.

[trintadosete]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

I tried many alternatives: use the Xorg.conf generated by Kubuntu 9.10, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS and other generated by myself. None of those worked...

But, when i tried to run my kubuntu 10.04 in a past version of the kernel (2.6.....-20 specifically) the video performance was OK, even jockey not recognizing my video board properly.

So, the problem is solved, but anyone has any idea about the reason?
Did new kernels introduce video board problems and limitations?

[GreyGeek]

Re: ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

....
So, the problem is solved, but anyone has any idea about the reason?
Did new kernels introduce video board problems and limitations?

Glad to hear you solved your problem.

The kernel didn't introduce problems, it removed support for an old video chip to make room for newer ones, which caused your problem. Reverting back to a kernel which supported your chip solved your problem. Be sure to pin that kernel so it is not upgraded to one which won't recognize your video chip. Open Synaptic, locate the kernel that supports your video chip, and select it. Click on the "Package" menu option, then click on "Lock Version". A padlock will appear on the check box for that kernel. Do the same for the video chip driver too.

[Melcar]

Re: [SOLVED]ati video board not recognized after upgrade (notebook dell vostro 1000)

Just to be clear, the kernel has always supported the chip (well, not always, but in recent times). The free driver radeon supports every ATI chip out there except Evergreen. Changing kernels should not cause driver problems for you if you're using the radeon driver.
The proprietary driver fglrx no longer supports that chip. This driver is not included in the kernel, though it depends on specific kernel versions for a certain release to work. The last fglrx release to support the chip in the OP is 9.3, which does not work with the newer kernels in the latest Ubuntu releases. If you were using this driver and upgraded to an unsupported kernel the driver will stop working.
Lucid will automatically load the radeon driver. If you experience problems check your logs for clues (Xorg.0.log and kernel.log are good places to start). It's also a good idea to use the xorg-edgers repo to get up to date builds of the driver and/or switch to Gallium3D which will give you extra 3D capabilities and extra speed in certain cases.