Puppy 4.12 Ati-Catalyst 8.12 Graficsdriver

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MU
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Puppy 4.12 Ati-Catalyst 8.12 Graficsdriver

#1 Post by MU »

This is the Ati Catalyst driver for modern Ati cards.
It is for Puppy 4.12 with the standard Kernel 2.6.25.16.
3D works with my Ati 4850, you can check that with "antinspect" from the menu, it should show 30 fps or more.
Also for the 4870 success was reported:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=38505
That thread also discusses some problems/solutions like german keyboardlayout or the problem to create a savefile in a new system.


It replaces xorgwizard with a script, that allows to run the original xorgwizard, or to activate the driver.

The Catalyst Control Center crashes on my system, while it ran fine in Newyearspup (Xorg 7.4).
I however included it, maybe this depends on the card, or someone finds a fix. I packed it with upx.
Update: it should work now.

The pet installs a 26 MB archive to /usr/local/graficsdrivers/.
Then when xorgwizard runs, the archive there is extracted, what requires another 63 MB.
So alltogether you need around 90 MB free space.
Puppy refused to install the pet with a 128 MB savefile, so I had to increase it to 256 MB.
The pet has no uninstallation option, because of this "2 pass installation".
This way of installing files is required, to be able to switch between drivers, like catalyst or the free xorgdrivers.
So I recommend to create a backup of pup_save.2fs first, or test it by starting Puppy without savefile, using the startoption "pfix=ram".

Download:
http://dotpups.de/puppy4/dotpups/XServe ... .25.16.pet
mirror:
http://puppyfiles.ca/dotpupsde/puppy4/d ... .25.16.pet

release notes (supported cards):
http://puppyfiles.ca/dotpupsde/puppy4/d ... _linux.pdf

update: (2009, 04, 25)
added bugfixes mentioned lateron and here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 644#298644

If you have an old card (Radeon 8500 to 9250), then you need a patched Puppy:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=36567

Radeon 7000 cards work only with the free Xorg driver.


-------------------------
I used the Kernelmodule from this pet, that includes the catalyst and nvidia-drivers:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=37901

Mark
Last edited by MU on Sat 25 Apr 2009, 00:56, edited 3 times in total.
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innerbeat5
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no conrol center

#2 Post by innerbeat5 »

hi

it's been installed correctly in Puppy 4.12 and 4.2 all went welll until
i execute control center (which i need to set to get color for extended desktop on tv) which make appears a tiny blank window that automatically shutdown.

there is a new ATI Catalyst™ version 9.1 maybe better??


cheers
thxs for providing up to date applictations for puppy .

alex from flexxxpup
Last edited by innerbeat5 on Tue 10 Feb 2009, 06:53, edited 1 time in total.

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#3 Post by MU »

I did not try yet 9.1 in Puppy 4.12.
In Newyearspup (Kernel 2.6.27.5) the kernelmodule refused to load due to a new setting:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 551#270551

I don't know, if this option is set in Pupys Kernel (2.6.25.16).
Maybe the control center from an older pet might work?

You can extract such pets in a temporary folder with:
tar -xzvf name.pet

Here are some older pets from Puppy 3:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=23995
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29727

The control center is /usr/bin/amdcccle.
I must leave soon to go to my Java course, so cannot test it myself at moment.

A last fallback might be:
aticonfig --help
This is the console utility to modify settings.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

panzerpuppy
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#4 Post by panzerpuppy »

8.12 works,but the CCC in 8.12 segfaults - this is a known issue.
Use Catalyst 8.9 or older.It has better performance and less bugs. 8.10 and 8.12 are really slow. I use 8.7 at the moment.

Catalyst 8.11 and all releases after 8.12 (like 9.1 and 9.2 BETA) produce a black screen (I don't know why yet) Is there any fix for this? Maybe it has something to do with that 'MSI' kernel setting?

innerbeat5
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#5 Post by innerbeat5 »

thxs a lot.

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#6 Post by MU »

panzerpuppy wrote:8.12 works,but the CCC in 8.12 segfaults - this is a known issue.
Use Catalyst 8.9 or older.It has better performance and less bugs. 8.10 and 8.12 are really slow. I use 8.7 at the moment.

Catalyst 8.11 and all releases after 8.12 (like 9.1 and 9.2 BETA) produce a black screen (I don't know why yet) Is there any fix for this? Maybe it has something to do with that 'MSI' kernel setting?
to check 9.x, type:
modprobe fglrx

If you get an error here like "unresolved symbol msi_pci" or similar, it will not be loaded.
As the X libraries of Ati depend on the kernelmodule, you get the black screen.
You had to recompile the kernel with a new .config then.
You will get this eror even if the module compiled fine.
The reason is, that not the module itself is compiled, it is a closed source binary.
Just a "wrapper" is compiled, that enables the kernel to load the already existing binary.
So you get no errors during compilation, even if the module is incompatible.

I tested a recompiled kernel in newyearspup, but that kernel then was incompatible with the first one.
So I'd have to recompile all other packages, that use kernelmodules.
I prefered to stay with the old kernel then, as the new driver had not enough advantages.
Just videos now work without flicker in Compiz on my 4850, but others reported, it got even worse.
It also might be faster than the old one, but that is hard to say on my already very fast computer.

So I wait with 9.x in newyearspup until march or april, when we might switch to Kernel 2.6.29.
Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

panzerpuppy
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#7 Post by panzerpuppy »

Do you have an .ISO image of that recompiled Puppy with working 9.1 drivers included? I need it for (bug)testing to see if the issues with my video card are finally fixed with 9.1.

MUguest
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#8 Post by MUguest »

panzerpuppy wrote:Do you have an .ISO image of that recompiled Puppy with working 9.1 drivers included? I need it for (bug)testing to see if the issues with my video card are finally fixed with 9.1.
If I find time, I can create one this evening (in 10 hours or so).
Mark

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#9 Post by MU »

Here is a patched newyearspup-02-midi-rc1.

It includes a recompiled Kernel 2.6.27.5 (incompatible with wows unnamed puplet and other newyearspups).
It includes Catalyst 9.1, the Catalyst control center works here.
Activate the driver at startup by selecting "ATI catalyst" in the xorgwizard menu.

I removed the Nvidia drivers, as they also would have needed recompiled kernelmodules (some files of them remained, as I just have set this up quickly, this is not intended as "official" release).

Wine is 1.1.14 with a memory patch to run games like Bioshock, but Bioshock would not run with Catalyst, you just get a black screen.
This is, because there is no support for vertexshaders in the catalyst drivers, an old, known problem with wine.
But this patch might be helpfull for some other games.

The size is 400 MB, as it includes Compiz, Cairodock, Firefox, Gimp and so on.

Download:
http://puppyisos.org/isos/2009-01-to-06 ... alyst-9.1/

User: puppy
Password: linux

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

panzerpuppy
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#10 Post by panzerpuppy »

Thanks a lot,Mark. :D

I was asking for a bare-bones 'test disc' (just the ATI driver,Xorg/DRI/Mesa,ALSA and the standard Puppy apps) not a full-fledged mega-distro :) ,although this one should do the trick as well.

A true test disc should also include the latest cutting-edge snapshots of 'Radeon' and 'RadeonHD' open-source drivers (for newer ATI cards) and the latest snapshot of Mesa.

Here's the current progress table of the open-source 'Radeon(HD)' driver:

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature/
Last edited by panzerpuppy on Tue 10 Feb 2009, 18:22, edited 2 times in total.

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#11 Post by MU »

newyearspup is available in 4 sizes.
Only the large ones (midi and maxi) contain the propriatary drivers, as they blow up the iso substancially (they usually have 2-3 different nvidia drivers).

So I used midi to compile the catalyst 9.1, and for this special release, I just merged the pup_411 with the new kernelmodules and ati driver from my savefile.
This was less work than adding the drivers to the smaller versions.

Concerning the free drivers, I actually don't have enough time, to check out the whole installation requirements.

For example, wow just compiled a new intel driver, and that required to solve several dependencies, as the new drivers usually already are created to use features of the newer Xorg releases, like the "unstable" Xorg 7.5.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

panzerpuppy
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#12 Post by panzerpuppy »

Is there something wrong with the .ISO file you've uploaded @ puppyisos.org?

Looks like the uploaded file is incomplete. The bytesize is correct,but the checksum doesn't match.

Can you download the ISO from the puppyisos page and compare the hashes with the original .ISO file on your local drive?
Last edited by panzerpuppy on Wed 11 Feb 2009, 07:47, edited 1 time in total.

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#13 Post by MU »

yes, the upload was broken.
I'll upload it again, and inform you, when it finished.
Mark
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MUguest
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#14 Post by MUguest »

ok, uploaded the ISO again, now I verified the md5sum, it is ok :)
Mark

panzerpuppy
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#15 Post by panzerpuppy »

Nice MacOS inspired puplet.

The good news is Catalyst 9.1 works with this recompiled kernel :)
A huge improvement over Cat. 8.12. 3D performance has improved a lot,but 2D,especially resizing windows is still dog slow,even slower than before.

I can finally use Xv output for playing videos,but OpenGL and OpenGL2 (multitextured) outputs don't work.Does this mode work at all with your card?

gXine is there,but it's not working,because you've removed the xine libs.

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#16 Post by MU »

ok, must look at gxine for the next release.
You might be able to run it with petget.

To test gl, I must reboot, wait...
Last edited by MU on Thu 12 Feb 2009, 00:06, edited 1 time in total.
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#17 Post by MU »

Athlon 5050e (2x2.6 ghz), Ati HD4850, newyearspup fglrx 9.1:

video works with xv, opengl, opengl2 (using mplayer).

In compiz, only xv works without flicker, the opengl and opengl2 flickers.

You might try in xorg.conf:
Section "Device"
# ... other options , driver ...
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
EndSection
see:
http://wiki.spielen-unter-linux.de/inde ... n_(Ubuntu)
(sorry, german, but has examples of xorg.conf)
Cannot post it as clickable link because of the brackets.

Did not check myself, as I need sleep now.

Resizing windows in LXDE (using xcompmgr=shadows):
Slightly slow, but ok. Not embarrassing or so.
You just think, this was somewhat snappier with other cards on older computers.

Resizing windows in compiz:
rxvt: a bit slow, but ok
Opera: need to wait around 1 minute! until the window is resized :!: This alreay was slow with 8.12, but now might be slower.
I used no custom setting in xorg.conf for this quick test.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

panzerpuppy
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#18 Post by panzerpuppy »

Resizing windows in LXDE (using xcompmgr=shadows):
Slightly slow, but ok. Not embarrassing or so.
You just think, this was somewhat snappier with other cards on older computers.
LOL,just try to resize the file manager window and you'll see the true meaning of slow :D

Now try with shadow buffer (no acceleration) and see the difference.
video works with xv, opengl, opengl2 (using mplayer)
Did you start MPlayer from the commandline or from the menu shortcut?
You might try in xorg.conf:

Code: Select all

Section "Device" 
# ... other options , driver ... 
Option "VideoOverlay" "on" 
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off" 
EndSection

Hmmm..I thought the driver used all of that and

Code: Select all

"TexturedVideo" "on"
(or was that "Textured2D" ?)
by default
sorry, it's in German
No problem. I can read German as well ;)
Last edited by panzerpuppy on Thu 12 Feb 2009, 01:12, edited 1 time in total.

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#19 Post by MU »

I started mplayer from the menu.

The options I mentioned were just those I remembered from that wiki, but I did not try them myself.
I don't know, if they have any effect on the new driver.

Please report us the results you get with various settings, so that we know, what may be recommended :)

I can report some more results tomorrow, but really need sleep now...
Mark
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panzerpuppy
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#20 Post by panzerpuppy »

MPlayer works fine with OpenGL(2) output.No additional xorg.conf options are needed.

The problem was MPlayer - it has two really annoying bugs:

* Many videos don't play at all if you try to open them with the MPlayer "open" dialog or MPlayer's file browser. You must drag the video files from an external file manager (e.g. Rox,Muppy Filer,...) to the MPlayer video window to get proper playback.

* MPlayer's Master volume slider has a really bad bug that resets the slider to something like 91% after each played file if software audio mixing is enabled.
If software mixing is disabled (the default setting, uses hardware mixing),the volume slider goes crazy,constantly alternating between 0 and 100.
In compiz, only xv works without flicker, the opengl and opengl2 flickers.
No filcker here,only hiccups (stutters) at frequent intervals and some slight video tearing with OpenGL(2).

Xv looks much smoother.

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