Hardy: Graphics driver "not in use"

[tmp]

I have upgraded my Lenovo T60 from Gutsy to Hardy and used the Hardware Drivers Manager to enable "ATI accelerated graphics driver". But even after reboot it writes "not in use". What is wrong?

[Jordi Riera (idjor1981)]

Thanks for reporting this bug.

To be more useful to us we'd need some extra information, such as the graphics card of your laptop. I assume you are using the last version of X.org and that you are trying to use the privative driver.

Thanks for all the information.

Jordi

[tmp (skrald)]

Graphics card: ATI Technologies Inc M52 [Mobility Radeon X1300]
I use the version of X.org that comes with Kubuntu/Hardy. What is a "privative" driver? In my first post I write how I try to install the driver by using the GUI. Precisely which driver the GUI attempt to install is, with good reason, hidden from the user (me). However, it should be fglrx.

(BTW: Why is the Hardware Drivers Manager not a part of System Settings? It is indeed pretty much settings for the system)

[Jordi Riera (idjor1981)]

There usually are two drivers available. The default one is the free driver which usually can't get the best of the card, however there is another driver in ubuntu which is not free code but available to use. The last driver is the one i referred as privative.

You can install your ATI driver using envy while we try to figure out why it doesn't get installed by hand using ubuntu's Hardware Drivers Manager.
The envy packages you need are: envyng-core envyng-gtk if you use gnome (Ubuntu)
                                                            envyng-core envyng-qt if you use KDE (Kubuntu)

Both packages are available using aptitude.

P.S: I have the drivers manager in System/Administration/Hardware Drivers Manager.

Thanks again, Jordi

[tmp (skrald)]

Some additional comments:

In System Settings > Monitor & Display > Hardware the "Graphics card" and "Driver" are both "fglrx". Doesn't this contradict the "not in use" text in Hardware Drivers Manager? However, the graphics are painfully slow and direct rendering is off so I guess the Hardware Drivers Manager is right.

> P.S: I have the drivers manager in System/Administration/Hardware Drivers Manager.

Yes, I have too. But for consistency I think both "Hardware Drivers Manager" and "Desktop Effects" should exist in the System Settings window as they both handle (important) settings for the system.

[tmp (skrald)]

I installed ebvyng-core and envyng-qt with aptitude but this didn't work either. Nothing apparently happens when I press the apply button, no "hold on..." popup or progress bar. However, after some time I get the following error message:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/apt/__init__.py:18: FutureWarning: apt API not stable yet
  warnings.warn("apt API not stable yet", FutureWarning)

[Andrew Melo (andrew-melo)]

I have a similar situation. Fresh install from the 8.04 dvd. My Device section in xorg.conf is blank (so I guess it's using the framebuffer?) Shouldn't the installer autodetect the proper video card?

amelo@amelo-laptop:/etc/X11$ lspci -v | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M6 LY (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 Flags: bus master, VGA palette snoop, stepping, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11

pertinent part of xorg.conf
Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor "Configured Monitor"
 Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

attached is my xorg.log

[Kolo Rahl (kolorahl)]

I had a similar issue after upgrading from Gutsy to Hardy. Everything rendered terribly slow, and although the "Enabled" checkbox for the ATI driver was checked off, it said "Not In Use" next to it. I looked at an unofficial wiki for ATI driver support on Ubuntu and here's what I suggest doing:

Check if you have the package "xserver-glx" installed. If so, Ubuntu may be using the GLX driver even though you told it to use the ATI driver. To double-check if that's what's really happening, type "glxinfo" (you may want to use " | less" afterwards since sometimes the output can be lengthy). If you don't see any "ATI" vender strings there, but see vendor strings with "MESA" in it, your Ubuntu is using the wrong driver. I personally was able to remedy this by simply uninstalling xserver-glx, logging out, rebooting X Server and then logging back in.

Hope this helps!

[tmp (skrald)]

I do not have xserver-glx installed:

  $ dpkg -l | grep xserver-glx
  $

and there is no ATI vendor string in glxinfo:

   $ glxinfo | grep -i vendor
   server glx vendor string: SGI
   client glx vendor string: SGI
   OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org

What to do now? The problem still persists. :-(

[Pablo Castellano (pablocastellano)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to New. Thanks again!.