Gordaen's Blog

I’ve been using the community “radeon” drivers for a while, and I found them to do everything I needed… until I need solid OpenGL support. I didn’t realize the problem when Scorched3D didn’t work. However, I tried Blender and K-3D and was not having success. I also noticed that glxgears failed. The errors were all similar:

name of display: :0.0
X Error of failed request: BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
Major opcode of failed request: 156 (GLX)
Minor opcode of failed request: 19 (X_GLXQueryServerString)
Serial number of failed request: 10
Current serial number in output stream: 10

The exact numbers varied depending on the application, but the results were all the same: failure. A Google search or two later, and I discovered that the best solution was to switch to the proprietary FGLRX drivers. I wasn’t eager to do that both out of philosophy and the time it took to get dual monitors to properly work with the radeon drivers, but I gritted my teeth and made the switch. Ubuntu loaded in cloned mode just fine and Blender worked, so the next step was getting the dual-screen setup to work properly (extend across both screens, called “Big Desktop” by ATI in some cases).

After a few attempts, I was able to get the login screen to show up as I wanted it, but the display would revert to cloned mode after logging in. I tried a bunch of xorg.conf tweaks that ended up being unnecessary because I found that I had to again use a virtual resolution. This time I set it via System > Preferences > Screen Resolution, changing from 1680×1050 to 3360×1050. It seems to be working, but I may need to do a bit more tweaking since the 2D draw rate seems a tad slow. Then again, it’s late, and I’m tired, so I may be imagining it. We’ll see tomorrow. My new xorg.conf file looks like this:

#ATI Radeon 9800 Pro dual-head (extended) using fglrx drivers

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "default"
	Screen      0  "screen0" 0 0
	Option		"Dualhead" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "radeon0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "DesktopSetup" "horizontal"
	BusID       "PCI:3:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"radeon1"
	Driver		"fglrx"
	BusID		"PCI:3:0:0"
	Screen		1
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier  "monitor0"
	Option      "DPMS"
	HorizSync   24-82
	VertRefresh 50-75
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier  "monitor1"
	Option      "DPMS"
	HorizSync   24-82
	VertRefresh 50-75
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"screen0"
	Device		"radeon0"
	Monitor		"monitor0"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport 0 0
		Modes	"1680x1050"
		Depth	24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"screen1"
	Device		"radeon1"
	Monitor		"monitor1"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Modes	"1680x1050"
		Depth	24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
	Mode 0666
EndSection