Not sure where to post this but figured it might help someone out looking at an ATI Hardware issue. If someone understands why this is working, please post a follow up.

For the last fews days I was getting frustrated trying to get an old ATI graphic chip working on my Thinkpad A21m. I wanted to get this running as the laptop uses less power and had all the needed I/O. However based on the myriad of info around, I was ready to bin this.

On a whim as I followed the links through http://www.retinalburn.netI decided to test out the identified options. It wasn't clear to me if the ati.2 driver and Rentinal Burn patches had been integrated into xorg yet. So what the heck right?

Per the link:
http://www.retinalburn.net/linux/tvout.html#options

I added the following option to /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the device section:


Note my driver is already properly identified as "ati".

I rebooted with S-video hooked up to the TV and blam TV Out was working!!!

Now all I have to do is fix the offsets and ensure other aspects are working properly.

Hopefully this restores some hope in someone else.

Anyone know the root cause of why this is working? Was the TV output work merged into xorg?

Christ.