Arch Linux

FedoraMan

Member

Registered: 2009-01-26

Posts: 3

Radeon 9200lx OSS Driver Issues

Hello all.
I recently cobbled together a new box out of my older unused computers.
The graphics card I am attempting to use is a Radeon 9200 lx, with 256 MB of memory. Oddly so, this is a PCI card.

After no luck with Windows XP, I tried Arch Linux out on this in hopes of it working. It does, but only with the vesa driver. Whenever I attempt to enable the 'radeon' driver and start X, I am greeted by a black screen with an unresponsive cursor. Unfortunately, the fglrx or Catalyst driver no longer supports this card either.

Try as I might, I am unable to get this card working, I have been trying for days. In the likely case that this is just stupidity on my end, I figured I'd post on the forums for once. I have used GNU/Linux based operating systems for a while now, but only recently have I tried to learn more about it's inner workings. This meaning I am relatively new to manually configuring the system, so bear this in mind.

I apologize if this is the wrong sub-forum.

Here's my xorg.conf. I generated it using "hwd -xg".

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load "freetype"
    # Load "xtt"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "Auto"
    Option        "Emulate3Buttons"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
    Option        "XkbModel" "pc101"
    Option        "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    HorizSync    60
    VertRefresh  50.0 - 70.0
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver      "radeon"
        VendorName  "Unknown"
        BoardName   "ATI Radeon 9200"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Xorg.0.log isn't changed when the 'radeon' driver is enabled and X is started.
Tell me if anything else is needed.

Thanks for reading.

Last edited by FedoraMan (2009-01-26 04:30:17)

neowolf

Member

From: North Carolina

Registered: 2008-01-27

Posts: 105

Re: Radeon 9200lx OSS Driver Issues

You're using the vesa driver for one, that's the generic driver. Check and see if xf86-video-ati is installed at all.

FedoraMan

Member

Registered: 2009-01-26

Posts: 3

Re: Radeon 9200lx OSS Driver Issues

I do have it installed. I am using the vesa driver now to type this. When I "vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and change 'vesa' to 'radeon' and start X, problems happen. I am sorry I did not make this more clear.

test1000

Member

Registered: 2005-04-03

Posts: 834

Re: Radeon 9200lx OSS Driver Issues

if you 'startx' not 'start X' in order to test your config changes then you need to put stuff in .xinitrc to run.. like

exec gnome-session &

_for example_, if you have gnome installed.. (pacman -S gnome)

xterm

would also work ofcourse...

this might have been the reason you 'just got a black screen'

also, with some recent version of xorg which archlinux use, you might not even need an xorg.conf. but atleast you shouldn't need the mouse and keyboard sections so just rip those out, see if you get any error msg, revise & repeat.

---

KISS = "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." - Albert Einstein

Roberth

Member

From: The Pale Blue Dot

Registered: 2007-01-12

Posts: 894

Re: Radeon 9200lx OSS Driver Issues

Radeon driver is the xf86-video-ati.

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Use the Source, Luke!

FedoraMan

Member

Registered: 2009-01-26

Posts: 3

Re: Radeon 9200lx OSS Driver Issues

As much as I appreciate the effort, I already have a fully working, nicely configured OpenBox3 WM using vesa. My problems are with the drivers. Please understand this, I know what I am doing, at least for the most part. I used Fedora and the like for around 4 years, Arch for around 6 months. My definition of new may not be quite equal to yours.

To use it in the X.org configuration file, it's 'radeon'. Believe it or not, I read the wiki.

Last edited by FedoraMan (2009-01-26 05:51:33)