Gloria and ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

[SALVE]

BTW, in /etc/X11 Gloria is piling up xorg.conf.xxxx files...

It's just a backup, which can be so useful someday...

If this is an old card, and it does not have to be very old, there is no support in the ATI drivers any more

No, it's not an old card.

I have the same one:
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics (built-in on a brand new ASUS M3A-H/HDMI motherboard)
4Gb RAM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+

My situation is very strange. I used Felicia and installed 'fglrx' by Envy successfully. But it had some troubles with video+composition (not only Compiz, Metacity as well) and I updated it to version 8.561 from ATI site. Just built a pile of *.deb files, installed and executed /usr/bin/aticonfig -initial. Some problems were fixed there, but not completely and than found some information praising RadeonHD driver and wanted to try it, but...

My Mint can't work with ANY OTHER driver excepting 'fglrx'. I've tried to reconfigure Xorg, apply a semi-empty xorg.conf with fail-safe settings. Nothing! The system hangs at a GDM loading stage (some coloured lines on the screen and no GDM).

Yesterday I successfully upgraded to Gloria (thousands of thanks to LinuxMint Team!!!!!!!), but that issue was not solved. For example:

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE for 'ati' driver:

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(EE) RADEON(0): [dri] RADEONDRIGetVersion failed to open the DRM 
[dri] Disabling DRI.
(EE) RADEON(0): Acceleration initialization failed

Xorg.0.log's ending:

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(--) RandR disabled 
(II) Initializing built-in extension Generic Event Extension 
(II) Initializing built-in extension SHAPE 
(II) Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM 
(II) Initializing built-in extension XInputExtension 
(II) Initializing built-in extension XTEST 
(II) Initializing built-in extension BIG-REQUESTS 
(II) Initializing built-in extension SYNC 
(II) Initializing built-in extension XKEYBOARD 
(II) Initializing built-in extension XC-MISC 
(II) Initializing built-in extension SECURITY 
(II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA 
(II) Initializing built-in extension XFIXES 
(II) Initializing built-in extension RENDER 
(II) Initializing built-in extension RANDR 
(II) Initializing built-in extension COMPOSITE 
(II) Initializing built-in extension DAMAGE

...and hang.

I'd be satisfied with 'fglrx' but the new version 8.60.40 (installed automatically in Gloria) works awfully! I have a pause (about a second) on every action with window: open, close, minimise, maximise, clicking on a panel, changing virtual desktop etc. 'htop' indicates a distinct increase of CPU usage (up to 60-70% for both processors) on those actions, and that "hungry" process is 'Xorg'. Full-screen video plays impossibly slowly, like a slideshow (in Totem, SMPlayer, VLC, GnomeMPlayer).

So I'd happyly abandon the ATI proprietary driver, but I don't know how! Every Linux_install_howto says that VESA should work at any case, also the new X server doesn't need xorg.conf now (for example, Fedora 10 doesn't have it by default), but my X can't live without 'fglrx'...

My current xorg.conf, the only working version:

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Section "ServerLayout" 
	Identifier     "aticonfig Layout" 
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0 
EndSection 

Section "Files" 
EndSection 

Section "ServerFlags" 
	Option	    "Xinerama" "off" 
	Option	    "DontZap" "False" 
EndSection 

Section "Monitor" 
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" 
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" 
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" 
	Option	    "DPMS" "true" 
EndSection 

Section "Device" 
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0" 
	Driver      "fglrx" 
	BusID       "PCI:1:5:0" 
EndSection 

Section "Screen" 
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0" 
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0" 
	DefaultDepth     24 
	SubSection "Display" 
		Viewport   0 0 
		Depth     24 
	EndSubSection 
EndSection

I have two questions:

1) How to turn back the possibility to use some of those free drivers: ati, radeon, radeonhd, mesa, vesa?
2) If there's no way, how to make fglrx to be reasonable?

I'll be very grateful for any help!

[Husse]

I split this from the topic it belonged to - it would soon have been difficult to follow the threads in the topic
Yes - I have also noticed a lag like

I have a pause (about a second) on every action with window: open, close, minimise, maximise, clicking on a panel, changing virtual desktop etc.

Only for me it's not quite that long
This would be a standard xorg.conf

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Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

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

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

I think Envy can uninstall fglrx for you - if not, I think it's called xorg-driver-fglrx and it should be possible to get rid of it in a tty
apt purge xorg-driver-fglrx
A bit risky and you have to closely monitor what will be removed so it does not remove half your system

[SALVE]

Husse, thank you very much for your answer!

This would be a standard xorg.conf

Yes, I tried this standard xorg.conf as well, but GDM fails on it.

I think Envy can uninstall fglrx for you - if not, I think it's called xorg-driver-fglrx and it should be possible to get rid of it in a tty
apt purge xorg-driver-fglrx
A bit risky and you have to closely monitor what will be removed so it does not remove half your system

I thought about an accurate manual removing, but one thing still makes me hesitating: fglrx is the only working driver now.

Logically, if a standard xorg.conf doesn't work, something prevents X Server from using any other driver than fglrx. May be it's a fglrx kernel module, and if I remove it, ati, radeon etc. will start working again.
But the problem can be somewhere else, and removing fglrx will just kill the last working configuration without fixing system defaults.

[Husse]

I'm on my desktop with a fairly new Radeon card now - before I was on my Intel almost only laptop
If you remove xorg-driver-fglrx this will also remove fglrx-amdcccle but nothing more
You can test that with a very useful command

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apt remove xorg-driver-fglrx --dry-run 

Oh - never use 'apt-get autoremove' in Gloria - there is a small bug in how some packages are marked
When ever in doubt use the --dry-run option

[Husse]

What?

[I_can_see_the_light]

May I suggest taking a look at this thread for a possible solution regarding the delay in window minimising and moving. Just make sure you know how to undo your changes.

[SALVE]

Solved!

This way:

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sudo envyng -t
4

i.e. option No.4 'remove ATI driver'

It removed all the parts of the driver with Control Centre and kernel modules. Just in case I made also

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modprobe -r fglrx

and got a message that there's no module with this name.

Than I changed xorg.conf to this:

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Section "Monitor"
   Identifier   "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

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

Section "Device"
   Identifier   "Configured Video Device"
   Driver        "ati"
EndSection

and restarted.

Everything is perfect! GNOME flies, like a bullet! Even HDTV videos are excellent now.

One more question.

If you remove xorg-driver-fglrx this will also remove fglrx-amdcccle but nothing more
You can test that with a very useful command

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apt remove xorg-driver-fglrx --dry-run 

I tested this command first, there were some messages about removing xorg-driver-fglrx & fglrx-amdcccle but finally everything seemed to be on it's place, so I moved to the next step with Envy.
What is the meaning and usage of this option? Google gave me nothing for --dry-run. Is it an option just to test the future result of 'apt remove'? Like 'simulate burning' in CD/DVD writing programs?
And also what's the differense between apt-get and apt? I noticed, that this command was in “How to upgrade Mint 6 Felicia to Mint 7 Gloria” instruction, and it didn't require sudo. For example:

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apt install mint-meta-main

but

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sudo rm -rf /boot/gfxmenu/default.message

Why? Is it possible to install/uninstall packages with this command without typing 'sudo' everytime?

Oh - never use 'apt-get autoremove' in Gloria - there is a small bug in how some packages are marked

Yeah! I've already had a very "nice" and didactic experience with apt-get autoremove... That's true, thank you!

[Husse]

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    apt remove xorg-driver-fglrx --dry-run 

The --dry-run option makes it do everything except remove (or install)
It is an option just to test the future result of 'apt remove' Like 'simulate burning' in CD/DVD writing programs
This way you can test what will be removed
We removed a program from the Software portal because it removed half of KDE which I tested with that option - very useful

And also what's the differense between apt-get and apt?

None really. This is a Mint special - if you write apt install something you will be asked for your password
So in Mint apt replaces sudo apt-get, but you can (of course) still use sudo apt-get - the result is exactly the same, but with fewer keystrokes
So for everything else you need to type sudo - it would be nice though if we could manage to do it like in apt for everything