Some bad news:

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=309

It basically says the resolution issue is a bug in the driver. And the last working driver was version 8.20.8. Well, back to the drawing board. I'll try to figure out a way to install it on R5D1, but there is indication at that link that it won't work on kernels above 2.6.15. I'll check it out. Worse case scenario, that means reverting back to R5C7.

Yeah not working here either. I was not getting any TV display with the monitor hooked up, but a restart of X with only the TV plugged in fixed that.

The resolution on the other hand proves out of reach with this setup.

Close though

I finally got it. Everything works perfectly again, and with R5D1. I got an old version of the drivers that works. Here are the steps. (I couldn't sleep with this unsolved )

Have a clean copy of R5D1. You MUST NOT have installed the drivers that came with the system in the /usr/src directory. If you have, get your boot disc out, because you need to wipe your drive. This had me stumped for a while.

Okay with a clean copy of R5D1, issue these commands as root:



My tv needs that last setting. Yours may or may not. Unplug your monitor, leaving your tv plugged in and reboot your machine.

Alternatively, you can run fglrxconfig to get a completely new XF86Config-4. But the aticonfig commands will generate a config file without it. For other driver options for the XF86Config-4 file you can see what I posted earlier.

As a bonus:

If you want to run with a monitor plugged in, then I think this command should do the trick: aticonfig --desktop-setup=clone --overlay-on=1
but I would test everything else out before trying to get that working.

Note: The overlay-on sets where you want the video to be played, 1 is for the secondary (tv), 0 is for the primary (monitor). But of course, if you do this, and then unplug the monitor, your tv is now the primary and the video will not be shown on it. Then your best bet would be to run fglrxconfig, setup dual monitor support, clone mode, and set the tv as primary and autodetect the second monitor.

Or just don't do any of this, and leave your monitor unplugged when you want to watch video on your tv. That's what I do.

Sweet thanks a lot! I will give it a try once I get some time tonight (Japan so much later/earlier here)

Thanks a lot for the hard work tjimenez87! Got it all working using your easy to follow instructions.

Best of all it passed the wife test tonight

Still need to do a bit of fine tuning to get the TV display to fit the exact dimensions of our screen but nothing fundamental.

Version 2.0 will be to hook it up to our satellite box.

Yeah, you want to add these options with different parameters into your device section of your XF86Config-4:



Later versions of the driver have an overscan option, which stretches the screen for you, but it had a tendency to over due it, so setting it by hand was better. If these options are like the later versions of the driver, then pos is pixels, and size is percentage, where 100 was the overscan default. Who knows how this version handles it, but I'll post the settings I end up with.

Sweet!

I messed around with things for about a week on this issue ... even managed to solve the kernel module compilation bug with 2.6.17 and earlier versions of the ATI drivers ... but once I finally got them to install, I had hosed up my kernel so bad that X wouldn't start.

Rebuilt the box last night, and had decided to give up on the ATI card - planned on going out and buying a replacement today.

Looks like I'll be heading home and trying these commands first ...

Is the rpm file your creation? If so, can you share some more details on what you had to do to make it run on 2.6.17?

- Jert

Well ... still no go.

When starting X:

FATAL: Module fglrx not found.
[drm] failed to load kernel module "fglrx"
(EE) fglrx(0): CAIL: CAILNoBiosInitializeAdapter failed, error 1
(EE) fglrx(0): GetBIOSParameter failed
(EE) fglrx(0): PreInitConfig failed
(EE) fglrx(0): R200PreInit failed
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a useable configuration

Fatal server error:
no screens found


Detailed log:


(II) LoadModule: "drm"
(II) Reloading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/linux/libdrm.a
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (Unknown error 999)
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (Unknown error 999)
drmOpenDevice: Open failed
[drm] failed to load kernel module "fglrx"
(EE) fglrx(0): CAIL: CAILNoBiosInitializeAdapter failed, error 1
(EE) fglrx(0): GetBIOSParameter failed
(EE) fglrx(0): PreInitConfig failed
(EE) fglrx(0): R200PreInit failed
(II) fglrx(0): === [R200PreInit] === end
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a useable configuration



This look familiar? Any ideas?

After you wrote the dpkg command, what did it say? Was it successful?

Also, what card do you have?

The RPM comes directly from ATI. It works without any modifications, but you must have a clean install of R5D1.

I got the "no screens found" error when I had installed and uninstalled the 8.28.8 drivers, and then tried these older versions. The only way I got it to work was by doing an Auto Install with an R5D1 boot disc, and then followed those instructions exactly. I'm sure an Auto upgrade would be fine, but just saying what I did.

I noticed that Cecil must have been trying to do some kernel modifications for the driver with the debs that came with R5D1. It sounds like you were trying too also. What isn't supposed to work without these mods? So far, I haven't come across it yet.

As a further tip for others who get a nice smooth video playback at first but then see stuttering a day or two later. Check out the following thread which discusses some problems with Commerical Flagging hogging the processor:

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11706

My video started skipping, and so did my heart after all that work in getting the drivers working. But then I learned about this bug, and rescheduled the flagging.

Yup ... tried three times on clean installs.

I'm using a ATI Radeon 9250 PCI ... I've tried installing with and without the Compaq AGP card in during the installation.

UPDATE: Looks like it's a issue with the card POSTing at boot ... and lucky me - no option to change my primary video device in BIOS. Looks like it just isn't meant to be.

Well, can't help you with a bad card. Hope you have better luck with new hardware.

The last time I thought I had a video card die on me, it turns out it was the motherboard that was going bad. Just trying to warn you before you go out and buy a new card.

Thanks tjimenez87, I just followed your instructions and it worked a charm. I have just one remaining problem with Xv; the colours when playing back a recording is totaly screwed up. I have been having this issue with R5C7 with other version of the fglrx driver too, also with GATOS.

Can anyone point me in the right direction

You don't get it with a VGA connection? What about without any drivers, and just plain vanilla KnoppMyth.

On a side note, I just got around to testing the TV size adjustments, and it looks like with this version of the drivers, its not implemented yet. So it looks like we're out of luck for getting overscan.