Radeon 4350 graphics card under LMDE: want Wobbly Windows

[dman]

Under LMDE (and, currently, Cinnamon), I have a Radeon 4350 graphics card on an AMD-x64 system and am trying to get Wobbly Windows to work in compiz. The driver that the LMDE installer enabled is called Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV710. When I look under System Info, it says "Experience: Standard." (I don't see any way to change the driver settings. If I've missed something, I'd love to learn about it.)

I am assuming I need to switch drivers, and I am assuming further I will want to try what I see under the Synaptic Package Manager: FGLRX. It says there in the textual clarification:

This package provides display drivers and hardware accelerated OpenGL
for X.Org. For 3D acceleration to work, you will need to
compile the fglrx kernel module for your kernel: see the fglrx-modules-dkms
package. Note that the driver will work without the kernel module, but 3D
acceleration will be disabled.

I am somewhat hesitant because, when I first installed LMDE over the weekend, I tried to compile and run a driver I downloaded from the AMD Radeon site, but I ended up trashing my system badly enough that it seemed far easier to reinstall LMDE from scratch than to try to rescue a mess with a panicked kernel. :-)

But the above notwithstanding, I will try the compile if someone would be kind enough to sell me a clue on how to get started doing that. :-)

By the way (probably unrelated), when I open a Terminal and type "compiz", my session resets abruptly and I am back at the login prompt. Even typing "compiz --help" does that!

[Honest Mistake]

I don't think you can run Compiz with Cinnamon at all. If you really want wobbly windows, you can try Compiz with MATE instead (unless wobbly windows have already been implemented in Cinnamon - but I don't think so).

[zerozero]

cinnamon is not compatible with compiz, if you want compiz use mate.

[eanfrid]

Moreover future versions of fglrx won't support Radeon HD4xxx and older GPU anymore (only the open-source driver will). But if you can run Cinnamon then you already have 3D acceleration enabled, yet not necessarily the best.

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ ... 99777.html

Edit: some "good" news at last... maybe http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTExMzU

[dman]

Moreover future versions of fglrx won't support Radeon HD4xxx and older GPU anymore (only the open-source driver will). But if you can run Cinnamon then you already have 3D acceleration enabled, yet not necessarily the best.

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ ... 99777.html

Edit: some "good" news at last... maybe http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTExMzU

Much appreciation to all three who answered. I am back in the system now. At the time I posted, I also installed fglrx and rebooted. Could not start Cinammon. It exited with errors and said 3D wasn't running. I could get into MATE, but it, too, said there was no 3D.

I tried to back out of what I had installed, but ended up with a bit of a mess. I didn't feel like re-installing LMDE from scratch again, so I jiggled things some more. Ultimately I got things working with this --
http://wiki.debian.org/ATIProprietary
and this --
http://wiki.debian.org/Mesa#Testingperformance
-- but there were some anomalies. Things didn't quite look the way they said in all cases.

Anyway, I now have 3D again and can use Cinnamon (and MATE) again, and I'm using a different driver: VESA: RV710.

My screen flickers badly ever 30 or 40 seconds, by the way (in Cinnamon, anyway). The rest of the time it looks as good as it did before I started mucking. :-) [Edit: the flickering is becoming annoying. Sheesh. I might just re-install rather than screw around more still with the video driver, but that feel like a dumb way to proceed.]

I understand the bit above about wobbly windows not being supported in Cinnamon. Too bad, as it is the coolest feature. But sadder still: I cannot get it to work in MATE, either. It works on my hardware with Ubuntu going back at least five versions, and it works with Zorin. It also works in 64-bit VMs of Mint Lisa and Oneiric (and did with previous Ubuntu VMs, as well).

So I'm bummed I can't get it to work even in MATE, with either the OEM driver or the one I switched to.

I apprecaite eanfrid's heads-up on the AMD decision to drop support for my card. Both links provided were helpful and informative. Thanks! It's another bummer, natch.

Well, my next question was going to be about my WLAN stick: Netgear WN111v2. I can't get it to work. But I will start a new thread later for that.

[dman]

Now in MATE. The flickering is not here. The Catalyst Control Center is installed. My driver here is:

Code: Select all

dman@nomotek-lmde ~ $ lspci -v | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV710 [Radeon HD 4350] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

I still have no wobbly windows. But there is a more annoying problem, too:
Metacity works fine, but if I try to switch to compiz, I can't move any windows! I can click on the menus, but dragging windows via the title bar does nothing.

[franute]

In my experience: don't use gnome shell with catalyst drivers, the performance is pretty bad. If you want desktop effects use compiz with mate or xfce, or kde.

I use xfce+compiz without any problem, but you need to configure it a little. Install compizconfig-settings-manager and enable some effects. For example, I have enabled (sorry if the names don't match, I'm translating them from Spanish):

• Category
[list]
• plugin-name

[/list]

• General
[list]
• commands

[*]Accessibility[/*]

• improved desktop zoom

[*]Desktop[/*]

• window decoration

[*]Image compatibility (all)[/*]
[*]Utilities[/*]

• dbus
• session management
• mouse position polling
• workarounds ?
• regex _____ ?
• video playing
• scale addons

[*]windows administrator[/*]

• static applications changer
• change window size
• place windows
• scale
• move window (I guess you probably don't have this one enabled)
• snapping windows

[/list]

Hope it can be helpful

[dman]

In my experience: don't use gnome shell with catalyst drivers, the performance is pretty bad. If you want desktop effects use compiz with mate or xfce, or kde.

I use xfce+compiz without any problem, but you need to configure it a little. Install compizconfig-settings-manager and enable some effects. For example, I have enabled (sorry if the names don't match, I'm translating them from Spanish):

[snipped here]

Hope it can be helpful ;)

Oh, indeed, that was great help! Thank you very much.

Just before seeing your answer, I found this:
http://www.itlure.com/2010/09/distro-ho ... ition.html

He gives another version of how to do the same. I had tried compiz earlier, as you read, but didn't know I could turn on a switch to, you know, move the window. :-)

I was about to give up. I see that site I found was made almost two years ago. It's too bad we haven't gotten any further with getting the 3D graphics set up for capable hardware on distro installation.

Anyway, with this setup I can't use Cinnamon, unfortunately, as I can't get the jumping every 20-40 seconds to stop and I want wobbly windows, at any rate. (Cinnamon didn't jump before I changed video drivers, but now I'm afraid to change back -- I already had to reinstall fresh once after messing with the driver.)

[Edit: Rotate Cube under Desktop is nearly unusable for me. It spins so fast it's pointless. I wonder if I can tune it.]

Mucho gusto, amigo. I'm brushing up on my Spanish, and we plan to visit Andalusia in September.

[franute]

Oh, indeed, that was great help! Thank you very much.

You're welcome

Anyway, with this setup I can't use Cinnamon, unfortunately, as I can't get the jumping every 20-40 seconds to stop and I want wobbly windows, at any rate. (Cinnamon didn't jump before I changed video drivers, but now I'm afraid to change back -- I already had to reinstall fresh once after messing with the driver.)

AFAIK Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3, so with the catalyst drivers the performance is probably going to be very poor (and probably some glitches like the ones you are experiencing). Hopefully they will be solved when catalyst 12.6 goes stable, but they dropped support for older than radeon 5xxx series cards.

[Edit: Rotate Cube under Desktop is nearly unusable for me. It spins so fast it's pointless. I wonder if I can tune it.]

Of course, click on the "rotating cube" plugin icon and you should have a speed property (the higher the value, the faster the animation)


Offtopic

Mucho gusto, amigo. I'm brushing up on my Spanish, and we plan to visit Andalusia in September.

¡Encantado de poder ayudar!
I hope you enjoy your visit to Andalusia, there are a lot of beautiful places to go.

[dman]

Anyway, with this setup I can't use Cinnamon, unfortunately, as I can't get the jumping every 20-40 seconds to stop and I want wobbly windows, at any rate. (Cinnamon didn't jump before I changed video drivers, but now I'm afraid to change back -- I already had to reinstall fresh once after messing with the driver.)

AFAIK Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3, so with the catalyst drivers the performance is probably going to be very poor (and probably some glitches like the ones you are experiencing). Hopefully they will be solved when catalyst 12.6 goes stable, but they dropped support for older than radeon 5xxx series cards.

Thanks, yeah, I saw that up above in the thread. :-( Okay, I'll try to revert, but I'm loathe to try before I get my WLAN stick working. (I have a thread about it.) If I can't, I may have to give up on this build altogether, as I don't want to string my 20' cable across the room every time I want to try out Mint. :-)

[Edit: Rotate Cube under Desktop is nearly unusable for me. It spins so fast it's pointless. I wonder if I can tune it.]

Of course, click on the "rotating cube" plugin icon and you should have a speed property ;) (the higher the value, the faster the animation)

Urm. Duh! :-) Thanks again.