Gentoo Installation Guide

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Orginally found on the Gentoo Wiki, the GNU Free Documentation license allows me to copy/paste it here.

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Troubleshooting

Config Files

By default, the driver uses the Internal AGPGART. Sometimes the internal one doesn't work, and you will have to use the one provided with the kernel. Search your xorg.conf for the line that has the option "UseInternalAGPGART." Simply change the "yes" to "no."

File: xorg.conf
Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"


Now simply add the modules to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.x where x is your kernel version.

Add the following (ORDER IS VERY IMPORTANT);

File: /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.x
agpgart
intel-agp # change intel-agp to your chipset. eg: via-agp, nvidia-agp sis-agp.
fglrx

Finally, run

modules-update

Then you can reboot and everything should work. If you have are having problems, check dmesg and /var/log/Xorg.0.log for more info.

Blank screen or monitor turning off after startx

Versions of ati-drivers >= 8.16.20 have an issue with this that's easily corrected by inserting:

File: xorg.conf
    Option "ForceMonitors" "notv"

in the device section of xorg.conf (discussed here: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=103028)


Check if you have a non-DDC monitor connected via VGA/HD15 connector. If so change your xorg.conf:

File: xorg.conf
#   Option "DesktopSetup"               "0x00000000"
    Option "MonitorLayout"              "NONE, CRT"
    Option "IgnoreEDID"                 "off"
    Option "HSync2"                     "30-85"
    Option "VRefresh2"                  "50-160"
#   Option "ScreenOverlap"              "0"

where HSync2 and VRefresh2 are your monitor parameters.


Also, try changing the MonitorLayout option. The default is "AUTO, AUTO", which is to say X will attempt to autodetect what kind of monitor you've got on the first and second display heads. This can theoretically fail (though I have never observed it). Try changing it around a bit. For example, if you have an LCD and no secondary monitor, change the line to read:

File: xorg.conf
    Option "MonitorLayout"              "TMDS, NONE"

if you have a CRT, simply replace "TMDS" with "CRT".

Crashes on startup

If you are unable to use any 3d applications and get this error instead:

FGLTexMgr: open of shared memory object failed (Function not implemented)
__FGLTexMgrCreateObject: __FGLTexMgrSHMmalloc failed!!!
fglX11AllocateManagedSurface: __FGLTexMgrCreateObject failed!!
FGLTexMgr: open of shared memory object failed (Function not implemented)
__FGLTexMgrCreateObject: __FGLTexMgrSHMmalloc failed!!!
fglX11AllocateManagedSurface: __FGLTexMgrCreateObject failed!!
FGLTexMgr: open of shared memory object failed (Function not implemented)
__FGLTexMgrCreateObject: __FGLTexMgrSHMmalloc failed!!!

Then you do not have tmpfs mounted on /dev/shm, which the driver requires. Make yourself sure you have tmpfs support compiled into kernel. It's under

   File systems -->
       Pseudo filesystems -->
           [*] Virtual memory file system support (former shm fs)

To mount this, add to following line to /etc/fstab (if it isn't there already):

File: /etc/fstab
tmpfs     /dev/shm           tmpfs        defaults            0 0

Then just do a:

mount /dev/shm

If the drivers still crap out on you, or for example you get a black screen on X init, try going into your system BIOS and change graphics-related stuff around. Believe it or not, for me my 9800 gives a black screen on X init if I have the AGP Aperture set at anything other than 128MB. I don't know what causes this, and I don't care; I'm just relating to you how I overcame my problem ;)

Also, whenever you update your compiler, you must recompile your kernel otherwise you won't be able to insert the fglrx module. Note that recompiling your kernel means you must also unmerge/emerge ati-drivers!

Duplicate symbol errors in X log

If you are unable to start X or X fails to load the fglrx driver and you have multiple symbol errors in your Xorg log, chances are that you have compiled X with the dlloader flag. This flag can not be used with the fglrx driver. To fix this problem, remove the dlloader flag by editing your /etc/portage/package.use file as follows:

File: /etc/portage/package.use
x11-base/xorg-x11 -dlloader

Now re-emerge the xorg-x11 package and reinstall the fglrx driver.

Crashes on the exit of X.org / X won't shutdown

Perform the following if you can get the fglrx drivers working with hardware acceleration, but are suffering from a complete system crash when trying to quit X. You should boot into your system, login, then start on this. You don't need to boot into X, and shouldn't need to edit your xorg.conf file (as fglrx is already setup as the driver and working)

You've emerged the "stable" version of the ati-drivers, these are out of date -- remove them (emerge --unmerge ati-drivers), to add the most recent you should either add them to the keywords file (/etc/portage/package.keywords) or emerge your local ebuild (emerge /usr/portage/x11-drivers/ati-drivers/ati-drivers-8.22.5.ebuild) if you're told it requires a dependency, emerge the local e-build for that, then try again. (usually eselect-opengl is required.) Once you have the most recent ati-drivers emerged, run (eselect opengl set ati). Now you can (startx) and hopefully quit without any problems.


glxinfo says "error: failed to open DRM: Operation not permitted"

If a check with the glxinfo fails for ordinary users though works fine for root it might be related to filepermissions of the device-file. Here is how to solve it:

Make sure that the filepermissions on the card-device allows the video-group to read and write. The common group in gentoo with X is "video". All normal users should be part of this group. Also, the device must have permissions for this group to read and write the card-device.

Check the permissions on the card-device:

root:/#ls -lcF /dev/dri/card0
crw-rw---- 1 root root 226, 0 Oct  5 16:19 /dev/dri/card0

It can be changed with:

root:/dev/dri#chgrp video card0

Check if user is part of video:

paddlaren:~>id paddlaren
uid=1000(paddlaren) gid=1000(paddlaren) groups=1000(paddlaren),10(wheel),11(floppy),18(audio),19(cdrom),80(cdrw),85(usb),100(users),35(games)

To add a user to the video-group:

root:~#gpasswd -a my_user video

paddlaren:~>id paddlaren
uid=1000(paddlaren) gid=1000(paddlaren) groups=1000(paddlaren),10(wheel),11(floppy),18(audio),19(cdrom),27(video),80(cdrw),85(usb),100(users),35(games)

Logoff and on to ensure that the membership of the group is known to the system.

See Also