ATI grafics + nForce mobo = total confusion

[heffeque]

I have a Radeon 9600 Pro EZ and an nVidia motherboard (ASUS nForce 2 Deluxe) and I'm not sure why, but I have problems installing the drivers that ATi has on their web for Linux. I also freaked out when I read on nVidia's web page that it's GART driver didn't yet support other video card acceleration from other companies than theirs, and since my motherboard is nVidia... is intalling nVidia's motherboard, sound and Lan drivers, and then installing ATi's drivers on top (Gart drivers included) a safe thing to do?
I had Mandrake 9.1 installed but had to install it on text mode... it was hell because I'm a total noob. I tried to install Ati's driver (without installing nVidia's) and just made everything even more broken. I tried to uninstall Linux... I didn't find a way to do it and a friend of mine told me to do a fdisk/mbr. That totally f*cked my hard disk's partitions, so I lost ALL my stuff (windows stuff and linux's stuff). That s*cked a lot. Sorry for my vocab, but I'm realy pissed off.

[cybersmurf]

hello!
I don't really think the ati-problem has something to do with the nforce chipset at all. i have a radeon 9600pro too and i'm unable to install the drivers. there are problems with an open gl library, i think.
when trying to install, there is a problem with /usr/x11r6/lib/libgl.so.1.2 (trying to overwrite this package whici is in in package xlibmesa4-gl, too)
)

[rickenbacherus]

I would suggest trying out a version of Knoppix that has nvidia support such as Overclockix, Morphix or Kanotix. The nvidia audio driver is inteli810 and Kanotix has the GPL'd forcedeth driver. I haven't tried to use an ATI card w/ an nvidia mobo but have read both good and bad results- none of them catastrophic. ;)

BTW- fdisk /mbr does nothing to your hdd other than rewrite the master boot record so your data was most likely not lost but simply inaccessable.

[heffeque]

I know I know... just unaccesible... but same thing to mee... no acess, no data.

Do you know if kernel 2.6 will make things easier for me? Or maybe... in Suse's web page I saw that ATi had updated their Linux driver (the one I have) so maybe THEY have their Suse 9 updated with them (although I think it's highly unlikly). Do you know if there is going to be an updated version of XFree soon? because I know that the XFree has untill Radeon 8500 and 9000, but doesn't have 9500 and up. But i DO know too that Mandrake 9.2 has 9500/9700 but doesn't have 9600/9800 :roll: hm... so frustrating.

[cybersmurf]

this is the output I get when trying to install ATI graphic drivers:

> (Reading database ... 114134 files and directories currently installed.)
> Unpacking fglrx-glc22 (from .../fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb) ...
> dpkg: error processing //root/fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb (--install):
> trying to overwrite `/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2', which is also in package xlibmesa4-gl
> dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
> Errors were encountered while processing:
> //root/fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb
:evil:

[heffeque]

If Linux is such a great Operating System... why is it so dificul to make a new piece of harware work? Shouldn't it be easy for nVidia & ATi with all those great engenieres they have to just make a simple driver that actualy works? Why is it so dificult to include the new drivers that are comming out in the newest versions of Linux? :( I just don't get what's so difficult about inserting a new driver in a new compilation (shrug) :?

[heffeque]

Overclockix looks good... I saw it supports nForce2 nativly (yeiii... at last!), do you know if it supports my 9600 ATi card? I just can't find the information of the supported hardware... (why is it always so dificult to find?)

Edited: I just found this:

And a second is planned which will be based on Jollix, a gentoo live-CD with Knoppix technology that's geared for gaming (with gaming kernel and 3d-enabled nvidia and radeon drivers).

This was wrote on Decembre 2nd. Do you think that they will launch it soon?

[Stephen]

this is the output I get when trying to install ATI graphic drivers:

> (Reading database ... 114134 files and directories currently installed.)
> Unpacking fglrx-glc22 (from .../fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb) ...
> dpkg: error processing //root/fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb (--install):
> trying to overwrite `/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2', which is also in package xlibmesa4-gl
> dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
> Errors were encountered while processing:
> //root/fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb
:evil:

Try this:


cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2 /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2.backup
dpkg -i --force-overwrite /root/fglrx-glc22_4.3.0-4.7_i386.deb


If everything works ok then you can delete the .backup file.

[arkaine23]

I think they will put out that jollix-based Overclockix as soon as that Arkaine guy gets some free time from his 3 jobs and figures out how to remaster it... ;)

Of course, installing jollix to a hard drive is not nearly so simple as installing Knoppix, because there is no jollix installer script. I bet that Arkaine guy will try to get the install guide translated from german to english though and include it on the CD.

[heffeque]

pfff... this is so difficult... I think I'm never gonna learn how to use Linux correctly.

[rickenbacherus]

If Linux is such a great Operating System... why is it so dificul to make a new piece of harware work? Shouldn't it be easy for nVidia & ATi with all those great engenieres they have to just make a simple driver that actualy works? Why is it so dificult to include the new drivers that are comming out in the newest versions of Linux? :( I just don't get what's so difficult about inserting a new driver in a new compilation (shrug) :?

I think you are making an illogical comparison here. Whether or not Linux is a great OS isn't really relevant to how well it works with hardware 'X'. I agree that nvidia & ATI should be able to put out drivers for their hardware but there is more to this issue than meets the eye. First we have to realize that there is no single 'Linux' operating system Technically, Linux is the kernel and there are many OS'a that use the Linux kernel. With these differences come many variations on everything from drivers to desktop environments. Linux tends to work best on older hardware since there has been time for someone to develop a driver for example. I have had a great deal of hardware that simply doesn't work with windows or at least not without some concentrated effort and alot of searching. In fact, M$ can't seem to get their patches to their own OS installed correctly. ;) but that's another issue.

I built my last box with Linux in mind. It works flawlessly. I can install Knoppix or one of it's variants or even bootstrap Debian, get all the security updates, and have the desktop set up exactly as I like it in about an hour. It takes nearly an hour just to get through the reboots when you patch M$! :)

For many of the older machines I come across there is no M$ option since support for 95, 98 & NT is gone these OS's are IMO dead and worthless. Users of these OS's will come to rely on the same resources that we Linux users do- other users. I can however still use my old 200Mhz w 64M running Debian no problem. In fact it does some things faster than M$ ever did on faster hardware. Go figure......

I understand your frustration but I would encourage you to keep at it and hopefully you get it to work whether it be some configuration that you need to do or be it a new driver release that gets the job done. Keep in mind that your machine was built to run windows, not Linux. Maybe you'll be the one to get that hardware to work and you can write a nice how-to for others that have the same hardware.

[heffeque]

[quote=heffeque]I understand your frustration but I would encourage you to keep at it and hopefully you get it to work whether it be some configuration that you need to do or be it a new driver release that gets the job done. Keep in mind that your machine was built to run windows, not Linux. Maybe you'll be the one to get that hardware to work and you can write a nice how-to for others that have the same hardware.
Thanks for the encoragement. It's just that I'm so used to the "Next"->"Next"->"Next" process... it's not easy to change from M$ to Linux. Even if I hate M$, I have to admit that they did a great work doing software for dummies :wink: I'm starting classes in 5 hours and I still haven't gone to bed... oh well... programming for C isn't that difficult, so I don't need to be very awake :D hehe! Thanks! Ciao!

[cybersmurf]

Software installation on M$ systems is really easy, compared to Linux.

But this didn't change the problems with my radeon graphicsboard. I have installed my drivers which add four Radeon cards to the database, but not one of them works. Seems to be a little problem from ATI side. Perhaps it will never work :cry:

Before I forget: Thanks for everyone who helped me!