Recently, I have posted to both of these lists:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2008/07/msg02029.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-laptop/2008/07/msg00012.html
about the struggles I've had with the ATI graphics adapter (Mobility
FireGL V5200) in my Thinkpad T60p. The proprietary driver supplied by
ATI (fglrx) has proved a nightmare for me---suspend/resume hasn't
worked, no xv extension, frequent X crashes, freezes, no hardware
acceleration, the slow scrolling problem with Firefox/Iceweasel 3,
which has now also been documented by many others. I concluded,
though, with this:
|> So there are still no very good choices for linux users who have
|> made the mistake of buying a system which includes one of these new
|> ATI adapters.
This turns out not to be true, and I want to withdraw it. I've been
using both available open source drivers in the past week: the
radeonhd driver (xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd) and the radeon driver
(xserver-xorg-video-radeon) from current testing (soon to be stable),
and both now give excellent dependable results with this card.
At present, I'm using the radeon driver from testing with an absolutely
minimalist xorg.conf, and:
. all routine stuff is fine (Firefox 3, moving windows, moving from
screen to screen etc)
. suspend/resume works fine
. the xv video extension works fine, and so video playback is good
. hardware acceleration is enabled; I get about 1900 frames per second
with glxgears, which is more than good enough to run GoogleEarth,
the only 3D application I care about
These results are achieved by installing the latest libdrm and mesa
libraries (libdrm2, libgl1-mesa-dri, libgl1-mesa-glx, libglu1-mesa,
mesa-utils, libgl1-mesa-dev) and crucially by installing up to date
versions of the kernel drm modules from the git repository at
freedesktop.org. This last sounds intimidating, but fortunately it has
been made easy by Debian/Ubuntu developer Tormod Volden, who has
provided a script here:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/xorg-server/xorg-pkg-tools/files
called `easy-drm-modules-installer'. This script calls git to download
the latest development snapshots, compiles the modules against the
running kernel and installs them. Rebooting causes those modules to be
used rather than the current kernel modules. This is, obviously,
recent development software and so one has no right to expect
stability, but so far for me at least there have been no problems.
This is real progress, I think.
Jim
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