Confused on a couple of things - can someone help please?

guddler · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 15

Can anyone set me straight on these couple of things please??!

I was using gentoo on my Athlon XP based machine for about a week when i bought a nice new Shuttle SN95G5 complete with lovely AMD64 3200+ And superb it is too...

Now then, i'm trying to get the ati-drivers working. First of all i had a MAJOR job actually getting this far since my network wouldn't work with the live minimal install CD and my SATA wouldn't work on the Knoppix CD. Add to that, the USB pen support was broken on the 2.6.9 kernel that came with the live install cd and i was a bit snookered for getting stuff from the net to do the install, however, with the help of a windows partition and quite a few reboots and lots of "emerge -fp" i managed to get all the packages it wanted on the disk and get up and running.

First thing i noticed was an emerge gentoo-dev-sources only gave me a 2.6.9 kernel (r14 i think) unless i added the mask ~amd64, in which case i got 2.6.11-r4 just like when i had my x86 machine. Is this normal? Do i always have to do the ~amd64 mask? For now i installed both 2.6.9 and 2.6.11 kernels and have both in grub.

The other general thing i noticed was that i added the CFLAG -O3 to my make.conf (since this is what i did when i had x86) and it wasn't until after i'd got back on the internet and looked at a few FAQs that i saw something telling me the maximum recommended optimization for the AMD64 is O2. Is this a big enough problem for me to do the "emerge --update --deep --newuse world" thing (and leave it running overnight presumably!) or am i going to get away with leaving it? I definately want this to be stable though. Instability at the wrong moment does tend to drive me potty!!!

Anyway, so far so good...

So i'm trying to follow the instructions for the ati-drivers and the first thing it tells me is to ensure that kernel support for "Device drivers -> Character Devices -> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)" and "Device drivers -> Character Devices -> (pick the correct AGP chipset option from the list, depending on your motherboard)". Well, i would, but the only choices that i have available to me are:

slackerman · n00b Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Palo Alto, CA

When you have IOMMU enabled, the amd64_agp module is built into the kernel. You can disable it from the "Processor Type and Features" menu when configuring your kernel.

- Disabling it was the only way for me to get decent 3D performance out of my 9800 Pro, though I have heard that some have been able to use the built-in agp _with_ IOMMU enabled. When I tried it, I just got an unstable system.
- Be sure to do the opengl-update ati thing.
- Keep in mind that the fglrx driver _will_ work without the amd64_agp module, it will just be a lot slower.

Cheers,

- slackerman

TBerrang · n00b Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 45 Location: Germany

Ah, welcome guddler to the wonderfull world of AMD64.

. Let me try to answer some of your questions:

* About your Shuttle... I know what you mean. My wife uses a (meanwhile older) SK41G with an AthlonXP 2000+. She is very happy with her Shuttle and it looks just -stylish- on her desk.

.

* I think, the freshest kernel (2.6.11) is not yet fully testet with AMD64 and therefor masked. I personally use on my Desktop-box (Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939, nForce3, 2x 512 DDR400 Kingston-on-3rd with Athlon64 3200+) kernel 2.6.9-r14 (gentoo-dev-sources) and they work well for me. You should use them too, unless you need some driver/patches not (allready) included in it. I found it very stable (ok, I had to patch the sk98lin-module to get my Marvell gigabit ethernet to work).

* You'll find that many packages are masked, this can be for two reasons: the package is not (yet) stable for AMD64 or it is just not (yet) fully tested. I would suggest you to look here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-125730.html before emerging masked software, or you may end up with a *really* unstable system. Be warned! If you exactly know what you are doing, emerge ~amd64-packages and tell the responsible DEV's if they work or not, and what problems you had...

* I compiled my whole system "-O3" and never had a single issue (use my system nearly every day, did a stage1-install last december). But since you have another hardware-setup, it may turn out to be completely unstable for you... I can't tell, it's something you have to figure out by yourself, I guess. But I don't see the point in recompiling the whole system just because someone tells you that "-O3" is "bad" and "-O2" "good". Perhaps he had another setup, motherboard, drivers... So use your system as it is now and watch out for problems/lookups/packages not working, etc. If you find your system unstable for real, then recompile everything with "-O2".

* I'm sorry, but I can't help you with your ATI-problem, since I only use nVidia cards. :wink:

. But from what I have seen in this forums, many people seem to have problems with ATI, and, afaik, the ATI linux-support is not as good as the nVidia-support.

. Perhaps a short search here may reveal some hints?!? Oh, and did you allready had a look at this: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/dri-howto.xml ?

Ok, I hope this answers (at least) some of your questions,
cheers,
Torsten.
_________________
"They rule the world by telling lies,
dripping poison in your ear,
keeping up apparences, revelation is their fear."
-- Running Wild :: Masquerade

guddler · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 15

Thanks for the replies guys.

As far as the non-ati specific stuff goes, i've taken the comments on board. I'll try and stick with the 2.6.9 kernel for now as long as i can get everything working. The only thing that i had already done (because i'm impatient and couldn't wait for it

) was to do an "emerge kde" with the ~amd64 mask last night so that i could get kde3.4 Thankfully it's working a treat since that was from a vanilla install so everything else on the way such as X got compiled against the mask too which if i'd thought what i was doing before i did it then maybe i'd have been a bit more patient!!

What i've now realised is that i can't do an update world with either ending up back at kde3.3 or adding the mask in again and ending up with a system that is completely at the masked level (def. don't want that!). If things work for me then i'll just sit tight and wait for gentoo to catch up to kde3.4, it can't be too long i wouldn't have thought, LOL!

Okay, kernel specifics, i unselected the IOMMU and that did indeed give me the AGP support options i was looking for so all great so far...

However (there's always a but!) now i get this at the end of the kernel compile:

guddler · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 15

Of course a friend has just pointed out that i can get round the updates thing by JUST masking kde3.4, not globally.

Well, i am a gentoo noob afterall

slackerman · n00b Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Palo Alto, CA

I think you may need to be using a 2.6.11 kernel in order to use the ati drivers. In any case, there are many posts (here an elsewhere) to guide you around your unresolved symbols issue.

With ATI you get better silicon, but lousy SW drivers and you get the exact opposite from Nvidia...

Cheers,

- slackerman

TBerrang · n00b Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 45 Location: Germany

guddler · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 15

I may have to stop trying to get this to work now. The Mrs has just discovered KStars and keeps looking out the back door at the sky

Fixed the unresolved externals on the fglrx modules by commenting out one of the patches in the ebuild but now i'm just getting a black screen without any errors. I've seen this in the FAQ, but the suggestions don't help me.

I may just give up, use the 2D for now and put an nvidia on the shopping list!

Shame because this radeon, being fanless is nice and quiet for in the shuttle...

TBerrang · n00b Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 45 Location: Germany