ATI gone missing

[Oceanwatcher]

I am installing Kubuntu on a friends laptop and everything is coming along nicely. I discovered a couple of strange things, though.

It was possible to enable desktop effects, but checking the hardware drivers, I could not find any mention of ATI drivers. In the info panel, it say that the graphics card is an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (RS482). Any thoughts?

Also, in the hardware drivers there are only two things listed. A software modem and a wireless driver. But as it is now, the wireless card already detected my wireless network, so I did not install that driver yet. The software modem has been installed. But I doubt that they will use it much :-)

[cristjc]

Re: ATI gone missing

ATI has declared video chips older than the R500 series to be obsolete and has dropped them from their update cycle. This happens right after the time that *buntu Jaunty made the switch to Xorg server 1.6, so even the current ATI drivers are not compatible. I have the same video system in my Acer laptop, and am a little disappointed in ATI. The Open Source drives work fine for 2D, but the accelerated 3D runs at about half the speed as the ATI drivers did. Rumors abound that the Open Source drivers will have better 3D sometime around summer....

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: ATI gone missing

I hope so :-) Thank you for the answer. I will look for it then.

[jlr]

Re: ATI gone missing

and am a little disappointed in ATI.

Seriously, thanks ATI. Didn't realize I was supposed to dump my perfectly functional laptop less than three years after I bought it new if I wanted to stay supported. I think it's safe to say I'm not going to touch an ATI product again, not even with a 10-foot donkey-poking pole.

[ssri]

Re: ATI gone missing

That is why I'm sticking with Intrepid (KDE 4.2.x) running ATI's Catalyst 9.3 drivers on my laptop (mobility radeon x2300). I'll upgrade once the devs implement 3D acceleration in the opensource radeon drivers hopefully in 6-12 months. A pity that 9.3 was the last version that supported R500 cards.

[Jonas]

Re: ATI gone missing

I have a question, when asked to upgrade to Jaunty I get a message that say that there's no fglrx drivers for Jaunty.
lspci say;
VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro] (rev 9a)

Could I safely upgrade and reinstall(?) the drivers or should I stick with Ibex? Seeing I got a 570 it should still be supported by ATI drivers right ?
I wouldn't want to ruin my system had so much trouble sorting drivers out when I installed Ibex the first time (though I was a complete noob at the time )

cheers for replies

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: ATI gone missing

Jonas,

I think the big question is if you have two monitors. It is probably correct that there are no closed source drivers for your card as xorg has been updated to a newer version in 9.04. So you will have to use the open source drivers. And they are not quite fully functional for all cards from what I understand.

If you are using two monitors, then do not upgrade. This is still a nightmare in Kubuntu and I have a couple of systems to sort out at my end. But keep an eye on this forum, and we will eventually find out what the problem is :-)

I am pretty new myself on Kubuntu, but I am sure that someone else will correct me if I am wrong here.

[Jonas]

Re: ATI gone missing

Jonas,

I think the big question is if you have two monitors. It is probably correct that there are no closed source drivers for your card as xorg has been updated to a newer version in 9.04. So you will have to use the open source drivers. And they are not quite fully functional for all cards from what I understand.

If you are using two monitors, then do not upgrade. This is still a nightmare in Kubuntu and I have a couple of systems to sort out at my end. But keep an eye on this forum, and we will eventually find out what the problem is :-)

I am pretty new myself on Kubuntu, but I am sure that someone else will correct me if I am wrong here.

Cheers for the reply mate.
I only use one monitor at the moment but would like to keep the 3D acc. for the desktop blingbling as there's still some friends to impress and convert
Think I'll wait and see what comes regarding drivers. I might remove my XP and use that partition for JJ, just need to get time to read up on how to remove XP in a proper manor. I must say from all I've read this far about JJ and KDE4.2 I'm really tempted to get it running asap

[dagfinn]

Re: ATI gone missing

and am a little disappointed in ATI.

Seriously, thanks ATI. Didn't realize I was supposed to dump my perfectly functional laptop less than three years after I bought it new if I wanted to stay supported. I think it's safe to say I'm not going to touch an ATI product again, not even with a 10-foot donkey-poking pole.

My laptop is less than two years old. I was reasonably satisfied with the progress on the ATI drivers and now this. ATI would have been better off not having Linux compatibility in the first place. It's better to have no customers than dissatisfied customers.

[Dmayner]

Re: ATI gone missing

Hey Guys,

I am new to Kubuntu but I have enjoyed it. I have used both ATI and Nvidia card with it. I prefer ATI. Anyway, I was disappointed not to find the drivers for ATI, but decided to go to ATI and see about the drivers (9.4) there. I downloaded them and installed then in JJ 9.04 with no problems. They seem to be working as I get all the eye candy now. I can't seem to find them in any of the system folders or setting tabs. Also when I run "Hardware Drivers" It now shows that i have proprietary drivers, but that they are not activated. It tries to update them but times out or something. Well I just thought I would pass this a long. If I have any issues I will let you know. Now to see if I can get my sound back.

[ssri]

Re: ATI gone missing

I might remove my XP and use that partition for JJ, just need to get time to read up on how to remove XP in a proper manor. I must say from all I've read this far about JJ and KDE4.2 I'm really tempted to get it running asap

You can always upgrade KDE 4.1.4 on Ibex to 4.2.x (http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2) and keep your functional proprietory ATI drivers. Mind you, the plasmoid packages in 4.1.4 will not work and will have to be removed prior to updating to 4.2.x. If the installation borks (like mine did), boot into your terminal and type "sudo apt-get install -f". So far, I've been very happy with 4.2.x compared with 4.1.x. Less bugs and more features!

[cristjc]

Re: ATI gone missing

My first post on this has a slight error. It is the r500 and older chips (pre Radeon 2000) that ATI has dropped driver support for. The Catalyst 9.3 driver is the last release that will support thse, however, it does not support Xorg server 1.6... The new Cat 9.4 does have support for Xorg 1.6, but not for the 'obsolete' chips. So if you have a newer chip, 9.4 will work in Jaunty.