ATI Driver + Dual Monitor?

[kasumi]

Hello.

I freshly installed OpenBSD 4.9 i386 on my Pentium4-machine. The things I miss are, as already said, dual head support and the ATI drivers.

$ uname -a
OpenBSD deneb.my.domain 4.9 GENERIC.MP#794 i386
$

How do I get ATI drivers? Is the source available somewhere which makes it possible to compile it myself? Can I use my two 19" monitors without the drivers? Currently, both show the same picture, using a ATI HD3650.

Please help, I couldn't find anything.

Thanks in advance.

[rocket357]

My setup. Works like a charm with two Dell 22" LCD's. (Edit - Note: this is running OpenBSD-CURRENT. There has been a lot of work going into radeon lately, so I'm not sure if 4.9 has everything you need for this to work).

$ dmesg | grep ATI
vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "ATI Radeon HD 3450" rev 0x00

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver      "radeonhd"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option     "LVDSProbePLL"    "true"
        Option     "monitor-DVI-0" "Monitor0"
        Option     "monitor-DVI-1" "Monitor1"
        Option     "Int10"    "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Card0"
        DefaultDepth 24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth 24
                Modes "1680x1050"
                Virtual 3840 3840
        EndSubSection
EndSection

$ cat .xinitrc
xrandr --output DVI-I_1/digital --right-of DVI-I_2/digital

[kasumi]

Thank you very much. I haven't done anything (except for fetching ports and installing gimp, feh and wget) important so far, I actually don't have any Xorg.conf.

# dmesg | grep ATI                                                             
vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 "ATI Radeon HD 3650" rev 0x00
azalia0 at pci1 dev 0 function 1 "ATI Radeon HD 3600 HD Audio" rev 0x00: apic 2 int 17 (irq 3)
#

This output pretty looks the same like yours. Is it possible, that open source drivers are already included?

# pwd
/etc/X11
# ls -a
.            app-defaults twm          xinit        xsm
..           fs           xdm          xkb
#

And here's my home directory:

$ pwd
/home/kasumi
$ ls -a
.                                       .mailrc
..                                      .profile
.Xauthority-n                           .ssh
.Xdefaults                              .xsession-errors
.cshrc                                  openbsd_by_nicolasvergoz-d3b9hrr.jpg
.login
$

I used wget for downloading this .jpg file, which is going to be my wallpaper.

How do I generate an xorg.conf file?
How do I have to configure it in order to use both screens?

Thanks again.

[jggimi]

FAQ 11 is all about the X Windows system on OpenBSD; you should probably take the time to read through it.

You can create an xorg.conf with # X -configure -- See FAQ 11.3 on the recommended process.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by kasumi

How do I get ATI drivers? Is the source available somewhere which makes it possible to compile it myself?

Clearing up a few misconceptions:

• The OpenBSD project does not allow third-party drivers to be integrated into its system. To ensure both security & stability concerns, the developers have to see the code & be able to correct it as needed. Drivers from other operating systems such as Windows or Linux drivers thus cannot be directly integrated into OpenBSD.
• Source for all available OpenBSD drivers can be found in the project's CVS repository. Information on building can be found in Section 5 of the project's FAQ. "xenocara" is the name of OpenBSD's flavor of X11.

As other responders have already pointed out, generating & tweaking xorg.conf is the first thing you should pursue.

[kasumi]

That's the information I've expected. So I'll read it.

And, I like to read it. I want to Use OpenBSD, not Ubuntu.

[kasumi]

Here I am again. I read the whole Guide now, and it seems that I have to enable the driver.

# X -configure 

X.Org X Server 1.9.3
Release Date: 2010-12-13
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: OpenBSD 4.9 i386 
Current Operating System: OpenBSD deneb.my.domain 4.9 GENERIC.MP#794 i386
Build Date: 01 March 2011  10:38:27AM
 
Current version of pixman: 0.20.2
        Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
        to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
        (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Sep 15 21:40:51 2011
List of video drivers:
        apm
        ark
        ati
        chips
        cirrus
        dummy
        geode
        glint
        i128
        i740
        intel
        mach64
        mga
        neomagic
        nv
        openchrome
        r128
        radeon
        radeonhd
        rendition
        s3
        s3virge
        savage
        siliconmotion
        sis
        tdfx
        trident
        tseng
        wsudl
        vmware
        vmwlegacy
        voodoo
        vesa
X:/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/radeonhd_drv.so: /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so : WARNING: symbol(AtomBiosRequestList) size mismatch, relink your program
(EE) Failed to load module "vmwgfx" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) vmware: Please ignore the above warnings about not being able to to load module/driver vmwgfx
(++) Using config file: "/root/xorg.conf.new"


Xorg detected your mouse at device /dev/wsmouse.
Please check your config if the mouse is still not
operational, as by default Xorg tries to autodetect
the protocol.

Your xorg.conf file is /root/xorg.conf.new

To test the server, run 'X -config /root/xorg.conf.new'

#

This is what "X -configure" gave me. The module vmwgfx does not exist so .. where do I get it? How can I install and use it?

EDIT: When testing X, I've the same results, just like before.

[adamk]

Ignore the error about vmwgfx. You don't need it. Once you have generated an xorg.conf file with 'Xorg -configure' you still have to modify it to enable both monitors. I suggest taking a look at:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2
http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12

Basically, you'll edit your xorg.conf file to have two monitor sections, give them the identifiers that 'xrandr' uses, and set one of them to be to the left or right of the other.

Something like so:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "DVI-0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "DVI-1"	
	Option "RightOf" "DVI-0"
EndSection

Your Identifiers may be different, depending on the driver you are using (radeon vs. radeonhd) and the types of monitors involved.

[adamk]

Oh, and for further reference, here is my xorg.conf that I use to drive 1600x900 and 1680x1050 monitors with the 'radeon' driver:

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "DVI-0"      
        Option "RightOf" "DVI-1"        
        Option "PreferredMode" "1680x1050"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "DVI-1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Radeon"
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24    
                Virtual 3600 3600
        EndSubSection
EndSection

If I don't use the PreferredMode option, the DVI-0 defaults to 1440x900 for some reason.

Adam

[kasumi]

Hey, it's me again. I'm still using OpenBSD; but replaced the two monitors by one FullHD-screen with 1920x1080.

Thank you very much for help so far, but I still don't get how to use the radeon drivers. And, what's the difference between radeon and radeonhd? Are there any included by default? Which one is the easier to configure and use?

[adamk]

I'm not sure what you mean by not knowing how to use the radeon drivers. If you're using a single monitor, there's not much to know. Are you having a specific problem now?

The radeon driver will be used by default. It's also the only driver you should really use. radeonhd is no longer developed or supported by anyone.

[jggimi]

The key difference between the drivers is the underlying video bus architecture. The man pages provide details.

[BSDfan666]

As adamk said, the radeonhd driver is no longer developed.. but OpenBSD contains both an older radeon driver along with radeonhd, at one point the radeonhd driver supported newer GPU chipsets but that is no longer the case.

There are some problems preventing the upgrade of the radeon driver in OpenBSD, so both drivers are kept.. but eventually when the radeon driver gets updated, I suspect the radeonhd driver will be removed.

[jggimi]

Heh. Tha abandonment is not noted in the source code (other than no updates in a couple of years), nor in the man page, but it is noted ... sort of ... on the official X.Org radeonhd wiki. Sorry I missed it.

Status 09/2010: Linux distributions, including Novell's openSUSE, have now abandoned radeonhd as the default driver, instead using the radeon driver. radeon has more features, including Kernel Mode-Setting support and more 3D support, and it supports all Radeon generation from original R100 Radeons to R800 Radeons (HD 5000 series). Radeonhd can be continued to be updated as long as there are people find it useful.

[BSDfan666]

There was a commit by one of the radeonhd developers that was made months after any activity which was humourous.

TerryP posted it here for me, I figured it was common knowledge now that Novell's radeonhd driver was deprecated.. articles at phoronix and mailing lists have indicated so for quite some time.

It started out as a cooperation between Novell and AMD to add support for the R500 series GPU's which were quite different. AMD also released NDA-free GPU documentation and information about AtomBIOS to the public which allowed the radeon developers to add support to their driver.

http://developer.amd.com/documentati....aspx#open_gpu
http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/

The radeonhd driver became pointless. AMD now has paid developers working on the radeon driver, and nobody has committed to the radeonhd driver since 2010.

[jggimi]

It may be common knowledge, but I have a middle aged memory.

[adamk]

At the time that radeonhd development was stopped, the only thing that driver supported, which radeon was missing, was HDMI audio support. radeon does now support that, but only via KMS. As a result, if you have an HD4xxx or HD5xxx GPU on FreeBSD/OpenBSD, radeonhd is the only way to get audio from the sound card. That's the only time I would recommend radeonhd over radeon any more.

Adam