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#1 2012-10-14 19:43:37

oniichan
Member
Registered: 2012-08-08
Posts: 31

AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

Decided to install arch again after a HDD failure. Since I'm not that good with drivers (and xorg) I came this far.. I'm running an AMD HD6850.

What I've done:
Installed the basic (vesa) driver
Installed the libre (xf86-video-ati) driver
Installed the proprietary (catalyst-dkms & catalyst-utils & lib32-catalyst-utils) drivers
Installed mesa-demos

What that did:
With the libre driver, I was able to start xorg, with my WM (awesome) and it "Just Werked (tm)", however, I was unable to set up side-by-side monitors, and after some thinking I decided to go for the proprietary driver, since I shower regurarly and only wears a tinfoilhat sometimes.
After installing the proprietary driver, I got the same thing. Started just fine (after a reboot), and "JustWerks (tm)" except for side-by-side monitors.
I remembered running "glxgears" to test if it was working the last time I used this computer with GNU/Linux, however the command was not found.
Some guy on a IRC channel told me to run "glxinfo" (and grep direct) , which was not found, but after installing "mesa-demos" it was, and it returned this error:

 
[cat@loli ~]$ glxinfo | grep  direct
X Error of failed request:  BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  153 (GLX)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  19 (X_GLXQueryServerString)
  Serial number of failed request:  12
  Current serial number in output stream:  12

The same error appears when I try to run glxgears aswell.

So, I'm grateful for all help. and I would really appreciate it.

Last edited by oniichan (2012-10-14 19:58:43)

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#2 2012-10-15 02:15:58

bsilbaugh
Member
From: Maryland, USA
Registered: 2011-11-15
Posts: 141

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

oniichan wrote:

I was unable to set up side-by-side monitors

Could you clarify what you mean by this. For example, are you trying to run two monitors with independent workspaces (or whatever they're called in Awesome), but instead are seeing a single workspace mirrored on both monitors?

When you execute

~$ xrandr

what is the output?

If you're trying to setup dual monitors with independent displays, usually this can be easily done using xrandr. For example

# ~/.xinitrc

# Setup dual display...
xrandr --output DVI-0 --auto --output DVI-1 --auto --right-of

# Start window manager...
exec awesome

Your arguments to xrandr will most likely differ, but hopefully you get the idea.


- Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement. -- Mark Twain
- There's a remedy for everything but death. -- The wise fool, Sancho Panza
- The purpose of a system is what it does. -- Anthony Stafford Beer

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#3 2012-10-15 18:22:00

oniichan
Member
Registered: 2012-08-08
Posts: 31

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

bsilbaugh wrote:

Could you clarify what you mean by this.

I mean that I want two "side-by-side" workspaces, which I can move my mouse inbetween. At the moment it's mirrored.

bsilbaugh wrote:

When you execute

~$ xrandr

what is the output?

[cat@loli ~]$ xrandr
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 400, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
default connected 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x1024       0.0* 
   1280x960        0.0  
   1152x864        0.0  
   1024x768        0.0  
   800x600         0.0  
   640x480         0.0  
   720x400         0.0  

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#4 2012-10-15 19:15:44

Mektub
Member
From: Lisbon /Portugal
Registered: 2008-01-02
Posts: 647

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg


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#5 2012-10-15 19:35:07

bsilbaugh
Member
From: Maryland, USA
Registered: 2011-11-15
Posts: 141

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

I assume you ran xrandr with both monitors connected and turned on? It's odd that it's not showing a second monitor.

How are your monitors connected to your machine? Are you using display port? DVI? VGA? Remember, if you want true multi-monitor behavior, ATI's eyefinity usually requires at least one monitor to be plugged into the display port. Also, if you're using display port with, say, a DVI monitor, then you must use an active display port to DVI adapter; using a passive adapter will only mirror displays.

For what it's worth, I'm currently running an Radeon 5450 with the open source driver (xf86-video-ati), and setting up triple head (3 monitors) was a simple matter of executing xrandr in my xinitrc script prior to launching the window manager. (I'm using the i3 window manager.) Prior to this, I was running a Radeon 4650 with dual head display, xrandr, and i3 window manager, and did not experience any configuration issues.

That said, I'm surprised the xf86-video-ati driver isn't working for you. The only explanation I can think of, which has occurred in the past with other users of ATI's eyefinity, is failure to correctly use the display port--which is necessary for true multi-monitor experience.

Last edited by bsilbaugh (2012-10-15 19:36:31)


- Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement. -- Mark Twain
- There's a remedy for everything but death. -- The wise fool, Sancho Panza
- The purpose of a system is what it does. -- Anthony Stafford Beer

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#6 2012-10-16 16:34:21

oniichan
Member
Registered: 2012-08-08
Posts: 31

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

bsilbaugh wrote:

I assume you ran xrandr with both monitors connected and turned on?

Yes.

bsilbaugh wrote:

How are your monitors connected to your machine? Are you using display port? DVI? VGA? Remember, if you want true multi-monitor behavior, ATI's eyefinity usually requires at least one monitor to be plugged into the display port. Also, if you're using display port with, say, a DVI monitor, then you must use an active display port to DVI adapter; using a passive adapter will only mirror displays.

Main monitor, 1680*1050, is connected to the first DVI port, converted to VGA,
The second monitor, unknown resolution, is connected directly to DVI.
Monitor 2 physically stands directly to the right of monitor 1.

bsilbaugh wrote:

For what it's worth, I'm currently running an Radeon 5450 with the open source driver (xf86-video-ati), and setting up triple head (3 monitors) was a simple matter of executing xrandr in my xinitrc script prior to launching the window manager. (I'm using the i3 window manager.) Prior to this, I was running a Radeon 4650 with dual head display, xrandr, and i3 window manager, and did not experience any configuration issues.

Seing as I'll need the features only the proprietary driver has to offer, I can't use the libre one. I need the best possible performance in 3d!

Do you think I should start with the libre one, trying to get that to work, then emerge to the proprietary one?

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#7 2012-10-16 17:27:28

bsilbaugh
Member
From: Maryland, USA
Registered: 2011-11-15
Posts: 141

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

oniichan wrote:

Do you think I should start with the libre one, trying to get that to work, then emerge to the proprietary one?

Absolutely. Even if using the open source driver isn't the ideal long term solution, if it works, it would (1) provide you with a working short term solution, and (2) would confirm that the other elements of your graphics system are (most likely) functioning properly.

Some additional remarks:
1. The open source driver is known to provide better dual head support than the proprietary driver (cf ATI - ArchWiki).
2. My previous comment that Display Port is necessary for use of ATI eyefinity was true; however, running dual head displays generally does not require eyefinity. In fact, my old Radeon 4650 did not provide a Display Port (nor eyefinity). I was able to directly plug my monitors into the DVI and VGA ports of the 4650 card. For true dual head display, the important hardware criteria is that your card provides at least two controllers--which I believe your card does.


- Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement. -- Mark Twain
- There's a remedy for everything but death. -- The wise fool, Sancho Panza
- The purpose of a system is what it does. -- Anthony Stafford Beer

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#8 2012-10-16 17:47:38

oniichan
Member
Registered: 2012-08-08
Posts: 31

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

bsilbaugh wrote:

Absolutely. Even if using the open source driver isn't the ideal long term solution, if it works, it would (1) provide you with a working short term solution, and (2) would confirm that the other elements of your graphics system are (most likely) functioning properly.

I'll try that one first now, however:
I recently got the advice to install the catalyst-total driver from the AUR. I did that, but I can't start Catalyst Control Centre, which would be a nice and easy way to do it...
when I try to run 'amdcccle' which is the control centre, i get an error saying ''There was a problem initializing Catalyst Control Centre Linux Edition. It could be caused by the following.

No AMD graphics driver is installed, or the AMD driver is not functioning properly.
Please install the AMD driver appropriate for you AMD hardware, or configure using aticonfig. ''
When I try to run '' aticonfig '' i get this:

[cat@loli ~]$ sudo aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=left-of
[sudo] password for cat: 
Found fglrx primary device section
Found fglrx secondary device section
Using /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Saving back-up to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.fglrx-0

But nothing appears to be happening.

bsilbaugh wrote:

My previous comment that Display Port is necessary for use of ATI eyefinity was true; however, running dual head displays generally does not require eyefinity. In fact, my old Radeon 4650 did not provide a Display Port (nor eyefinity). I was able to directly plug my monitors into the DVI and VGA ports of the 4650 card. For true dual head display, the important hardware criteria is that your card provides at least two controllers--which I believe your card does.

My card is perfectly capable of running it the way I want it, since it does under Fedora 17.

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#9 2013-01-30 13:41:53

gary_tuxhat
Banned
From: New Brunswick, Canada
Registered: 2013-01-30
Posts: 8
Website

Re: AMD Drivers - Dual monitor - xorg

Your GPU is simular to mine.  I have the AMD Radeon HD 6450,  what I used is the catalyst-hook in the AUR (keep in mind to have multilib uncomment), and just do sudo aticonfig --initial (to make the xorg.conf), and sudo aticonfig --xinerama=on.   startx and you can go in a terminal or run command like dmenu or gmrun and << (gksu) or in terminal (sudo) amdcccle.  That should work good, and just setup your display to your liking, it will ask you to restart x so you exit back to console, startx and everything should be fine.  I hope this help you.

Cheers --Tux Hat

Last edited by gary_tuxhat (2013-01-30 14:29:44)


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