I’m a sucker for bleeding edge technology. After posting before about upgrading to the 8.42.3 ati drivers, I realized I was using Xorg-X11 7.2, not 7.3, which is the latest. The latest 7.3 ebuild contains a block on the ati drivers. The block is no longer necessary though because the 8.42.3 drivers are compatible and have xorg-server 1.4 support built in.
Here is what I did to upgrade. Before you follow through with this, read the note about compiz at the bottom.
- Unmask packages
You only have to unmask the appropriate packages if you are not using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=”~x86″. If you have ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=”x86″, you can add these to /etc/portage/package.keywords:
x11-base/xorg-x11 ~x86
x11-libs/libXcursor ~x86
x11-base/xorg-server ~x86
x11-libs/pixman ~x86
x11-libs/libXrender ~x86
x11-proto/renderproto ~x86
x11-proto/inputproto ~x86
x11-libs/libXtst ~x86
x11-libs/libXaw ~x86
x11-libs/libXpm ~x86
x11-apps/xinit ~x86
x11-libs/libX11 ~x86
x11-proto/xf86dgaproto ~x86
x11-libs/xtrans ~x86
x11-libs/libXfont ~x86
x11-libs/libXi ~x86
x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard ~x86
x11-apps/xmodmap ~x86
x11-libs/libXxf86dga ~x86
x11-libs/libSM ~x86
- Create a new xorg-server ebuild
This is to override the block on the ati drivers. (I’m assuming you already have the 8.42.3 drivers installed.)
>cd /usr/local/portage
>mkdir x11-base
>cd x11-base
>cp -r /usr/portage/x11-base/xorg-server .
>cd xorg-server
Now, edit the xorg-server ebuild (at the time of this writing, the file was xorg-server-1.4-r2.ebuild) and delete the block:
# remove the following line in the PDEPEND variable
!x11-drivers/ati-drivers
Next, re-digest the ebuild
>ebuild xorg-server-1.4-r2.ebuild digest
- Perform the upgrade
>emerge -av xorg-x11 - Restart X
After the emerge completes, you should be able to restart X and enjoy. I didn’t have to make any changes to the xorg.conf file that I was using for 7.2.
IMPORTANT: As far as I know, the new ati-drivers don’t support compiz when using xorg-server 1.4. You’ll get the following error:
compiz (core) - Fatal: GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap is missing
compiz (core) - Error: Failed to manage screen: 0
compiz (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0
Since I’m motivated primarily by the desktop effects I get with compiz, I’m switching back to Xorg 7.2 for the time being.
HI!
Thanks for this artical, one question:
“the new ati-drivers don’t support compiz when using xorg-server 1.4.”
Work “compiz-fusion”?
Thanks
That is correct. I actually wrote a follow up post about that too. If you want compiz-fusion, you’ll need to stick to xorg-server 1.3. Perhaps the next ati release will solve the issue. This driver does support xorg-x11-7.3 by the way, just not with compiz.
Dennis
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I still get the “GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap is missing” error using xorg-server 1.3.0.0-r2. This seems to force indirect-rendering on compiz-fusion which in turn causes unusably slow scrolling and video playback.
Do you have direct rendering enabled with compiz.
Yes, I do. After going back to xorg-x11, have you tried
“eselect opengl set ati”? Or perhaps switch back to xorg-x11 and then back to ati again. I wonder if you still need to recompile some other dependency.
Compiz does work with direct rendering for xorg-server = 1.3 but even with direct rendering, it isn’t as fast as it ought to be. I’m hoping the next driver fixes that.