Arch Linux

sederek

Member

Registered: 2010-11-25

Posts: 10

Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

Hello everybody,
I'm a former ubuntu user & thinking about moving to Arch Linux. Great distro you got here.

I have one question: When I installed Arch Linux, I found it very fascinating.

I'm wondering if one can install Arch Linux to usb drive and,
- pacman -S xf86-video-(graphics driver of his/her choice) install all the graphics card drivers of choice and,
- make it work somehow so that, he/she boots on a machine which has, say an Nvidia graphics card, and use the Nvidia driver and he/she boots the system on another machine which has, say an Ati graphics card and use the Ati driver?
- further more, can he/she use the, say Vesa driver if the graphics card is neither Nvidia nor Ati?

Thanks a lot, keep up the good work.

xxxspuddy

Member

Registered: 2007-05-15

Posts: 57

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

Definitely can do that, just treat the usb drive as any other hd and install to that. There's a good wiki page with directions to install from existing linux.

If you are just installing the standard kernel and open source video drivers, then for the most part you can get away with no xorg.conf at all and it should be portable between most systems.

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A temporary file is just a pipe with an attitude and a will to live.

sederek

Member

Registered: 2010-11-25

Posts: 10

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

So am I supposed to backup the xorg.conf to something named xorg.conf.backup and do X -configure when I boot up on different computers?

BTW the hard one is the configuration of portability between different systems which has different graphics cards, not to install to usb

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

You don't need an xorg.conf anymore, it's all automated with udev/evdev as long as you use the open source drivers.

nouveau isn't fully integrated yet, but radeon (ati), intel and vesa will work fine.

Last edited by thestinger (2010-11-25 22:13:48)

dyscoria

Member

Registered: 2008-01-10

Posts: 1,007

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

See this awesome project: http://larch.berlios.de/

Last edited by dyscoria (2010-11-25 22:17:29)

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flack 2.0.6: menu-driven BASH script to easily tag FLAC files (AUR)
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sederek

Member

Registered: 2010-11-25

Posts: 10

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

What matters about opensource drivers is that nouveau doesn't have 3d acceleration support, so I have to install xf86-video-nvidia package. Does that interfere with the other drivers & proper work of udev/evdev? I'm currently running on my laptop which has Nvidia card, I couldn't test but want to ask about Ati's closed source drivers too.

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

nouveau does have experimental 3d support (it's enough for compositing, that's about it...). You wouldn't want to use nouveau on a laptop though (no powersaving yet).

Neither the ATI or Nvidia closed source driver will work without an xorg.conf afaik. xf86-video-ati is a lot more mature than nouveau though, and it has 3D support, powersaving support, etc - I don't see why you would want to use the closed source ATI driver.

Last edited by thestinger (2010-11-25 22:22:36)

sederek

Member

Registered: 2010-11-25

Posts: 10

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

I'm open to options, but since they're the manifacturer of this piece, the best option is to use their solution I think. I'm about to play some games & don't want to miss the party while I can join

So, if put simply, if there's an xorg.conf file existing, will the vesa driver use settings from it or just ignore it? BTW nouveau works for Ati cards? I thought it was meant for only Nvidia ones.

My laptop has the Nvidia card and my desktop has the Ati card

I don't know much about config files, such as xorg.conf but is it a sane action to put multiple device sections into one xorg.conf file?

thestinger

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2010-01-23

Posts: 478

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

BTW nouveau works for Ati cards? I thought it was meant for only Nvidia ones.

no, I was comparing nouveau to xf86-video-ati (aka radeon), which is the open source driver for radeon cards

Last edited by thestinger (2010-11-25 23:27:26)

xxxspuddy

Member

Registered: 2007-05-15

Posts: 57

Re: Multiple graphic card drivers & xorg.conf entries

If you are going with the catalyst or nvidia drivers, then that will make the setup much more difficult, other than xorg.conf being more complex - you will have conflicting libgl libraries to deal with.

If you can get both drivers installed and working with their own separate xorg.conf then it shouldn't be too difficult to write a script to run at startup which loads the right version of the xorg.conf file.

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A temporary file is just a pipe with an attitude and a will to live.