[hardy] visual effects require proprietary drivers don't needed in gutsy

[Marco Ferragina]

I have a toshiba m30x laptop with an ati 9600 video card
ferama@redbox:~$ lspci | grep ATI
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]

I use opensource ati driver since Gutsy and it worked very well with compiz

 Driver "ati"

Now I have updated to Hardy Alpha 6 and when I try to enable compiz from visual effects preferecces it want to install the ati proprietary driver (it say that I need it to enable visual effects) but I don't really need it. If I try to run compiz by hand on a terminal it work well as it did on gutsy.

If you need further info please let me know.

[Jonathon Conte (thesicktwist)]

Radeon 9500 owner here running up-to-date (as of 2008-03-09) Hardy Heron testing and I have the same problem.

lspci -vv:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc R300 AD [Radeon 9500 Pro] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 0002
 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
 Latency: 64 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
 Region 0: Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
 Region 1: I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
 Region 2: Memory at c7000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
 Expansion ROM at d7fe0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
 Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
  Status: RQ=80 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64bit- FW+ AGP3- Rate=x1,x2,x4
  Command: RQ=32 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ AGP+ GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=x4
 Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
  Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
  Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc R300 AD [Radeon 9500 Pro] (Secondary)
 Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 0003
 Control: I/O- Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
 Latency: 64 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
 Region 0: Memory at c8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [disabled] [size=128M]
 Region 1: Memory at c6800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=64K]
 Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
  Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
  Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

glxinfo:
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group

[Miguel Martinez (el-quark)]

Changed the affected package. Will try on my Mobility Radeon 9600, after purging fglrx 8.3.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I don't understand what the problem is.. Is it that the driver manager is suggesting fglrx, or is something not working? Reading the original bugreport suggests that -ati is working just fine?

[Marco Ferragina (ferama)]

The problem it that driver manager suggest the proprietary driver (fglrx) when the open one work well with compiz. Why I should use proprietary driver if the open source one work well?

[Miguel Martinez (el-quark)]

OK, I'll detail the procedure I followed yesterday evening:

1) Make sure compiz is deactivated and that metacity is working as it should
2) aptitude purge fglrx-whatever and amdcccle
3) Set up /etc/X11/xorg.conf for xserver-xorg-ati and my Mobility Radeon M10
4) Reboot (just in case...)
5) Log in and select desktop-effects

In none of these steps did any popup tell me to ditch the working FLOSS driver and to switch to the nightmarish world of fglrx. I might have skipped something though.

BTW: Marco, believe it or not, there are some times fglrx is a necessary evil. For example, when you want the most performance out of your card. Or when you need OpenGL2. Well, for the later one, instead of fglrx you can wait till Gallium3D and OGL2 support in the ati driver ;-). TV-out was also another fglrx-only feature until very recently.

[Paul Lambert (p-lambert)]

I can also confirm this. ATi 9800. I prefer to use the open drivers since video playback is better with them in comparison to the fglrx, and compiz worked very well with them in the past.

1. ensure compiz is disabled in Appearance.
2. Uninstall fglrx using the restricted drivers manager.
3. restart is needed.
4. open up visual effects and try to enable effects, it doesn't matter if you select normal/extra/custom
5. the password prompt pops up
6. once the password has been entered the fglrx driver is automatically downloaded and installed, with no prompt.
7. a notification appears with "Please run "Apperance/Desktop Effects" again after restarting the computer, when the new graphics driver is active."

i can post up my xorg.conf if needed, also note the misspelling of "Appearance"

although i see the point that compiz will work 'better' with the fglrx drivers, they should not be required.

[Marco Ferragina (ferama)]

well done Paul, you caught the point. Open source drivers should be preferred by default during visual effects abilitation. Miguel, here we are talking about visual effects and not about TV-Out. Maybe I will never use TV-out but always use compiz, so why I should prefer the proprietary drivers? Anyway If I want to enable compiz I don't want that ubuntu tell me that I need fglrx becouse it is simply not true!

[Miguel Martinez (el-quark)]

Hi again,

In my laptop, and I have checked a few times, activating any kind of dekstop effect will work without asking anything about proprietary drivers. And be sure I have fglrx absolutely purged. However, it's true that my gnome session doesn't start jockey (the new restricted-manager). In that case, maybe we should reassign the bug to jockey.

[oliver (oliver-schinagl)]

I've spent the last hour trying to find a bugreport I found earlier, I even commented on (but it won't show in 'bugs you commented on'.

The jist of it was, If you install fglrx driver (probably if you don't do that via the restricted driver manager which would uninstall the OSS ones) you get both fglrx and mesa-dri drivers installed.

The fglrx and r300 drivers however for example, use different libgl.so (ATi drivers don't seem to like the mesa libgl.so) and thusly the r300 driver refuses to load.

So having the restricted driver manage pull in fglrx isn't that fine, especially if you wish to use visual effects, which work just fine on the r300 nowadays.

BTW, I noticed the same thing, and using the pythoned jockey-gtk interface for managing restricted drivers. Jockey doesnt' get opened/called however when you change the visual effects (ergo enable compiz)

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

This is due to "ati" driver that has been blacklisted for freezes with compiz in some ati cards.
There is a Bug to enable a whitelist for well working card with "ati" driver and compiz.
See Bug #201330.

[edu jose (pepinmore)]

Hi, I have the same problem as Marco Ferragina, but using a desktop computer (not a laptop) with an ATI Radeon 9600 XT Mobility card.

Now using Hardy beta, after clean install it uses free radeon driver and Compiz by default, all work ok.

But Hardy tries to install fglrx propietary driver when I click "Extra" effects, which I cancel cause' it's not needed: Compiz worked well enough in Gutsy with radeon driver, both normal and extra effects. So no extra effects for me now :-(.

I added a post to bug #201330 for whitelisting this card, thanks Sergio for reminding that bug.