Hi Phil- My intent was not to create frustration. Below I have pasted the most relevant excerpt from our exchange several months ago. After that exchange, and some success with the ATI drivers, I had to move on to new projects.
Regards, Wil --- On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:12 AM, Wil Irwin <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Phil- > > Very rewarding, if not a bit confusing, starting from scratch with the "SL6 > Live" installation and THEN making the leap to install the proprietary ATI > (release 02/15/2011) drivers worked. In fact, the SL6 Live appeared > (literally) to recognize the graphics subsystem in that the installation > feedback stream was at a font size (and type?!?) which was readable (if one > can speed read). > > My objective was not to have proprietary ATI control, but it is present and > the performance is what would be expected with this display driver. It was > almost perfectly smooth. After most initial prelim installation of system > updates and such, graphics failed. But after the delightful success of the > initial performance, a quick re-install of ATI things solved the problem(s). > > I should add that while I was very motivated to get maximum performance > (data visualization, not games), the "basic" display driver components which > were packaged with SL DVD LIVE proper recognized not only the display card > but the monitor model. > > Thus far keeping fingers crossed. I don't know if I can offer further help > others to solve this rather hideous problem(s), but I will endeavor to keep > technical information forthcoming. > > Best regards, > Wil > > As an update: There appears to be a not-at-all-interesting theme. The proprietary ATI driver installs correctly and is properly configurable, UNTIL you install (any) updates-- presumably updates to X-11 and/or kernel. The system was running smoothly until I bit the bullet and did a 'yum update' last week. After that, the display system was corrupted. This is most easily evidenced by the scrolling in Firefox, and the nature of the corruption has evolved, so to speak. Previously, when the display system broke after updates, the behavior of the browser was VERY slow (actually not functional). The effect of updates last week did not affect the scroll rate, per se, but the contents were not systematically garbled (e.g., a section of a page, likely a <p> /<p>, would be illegible, but sometimes content before and after were fine). As I have stated previously, I am not bent on using the proprietary ATI driver, however given the very recent release of 11.2 in February, one would want that to work. Previous suggestions to use "kmod-fglrx" from elrepo.orgwas totally unsuccessful. I noted just now that the page contents have been updated to suggest that this generation of ATI devices should be supported, but without confirming, I don't believe the guts of kmod-fglrx have changed so I am not sanguine about the success of that route. Thoughts or comments from users with similar experiences would be useful. Regard, Wil On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Phil Perry <[email protected]> wrote: > On 11/10/11 19:41, Wil Irwin wrote: > >> Hi Phil, >> >> Yes, I went through that route when I was using the Radeon HD5970 card in >> April or so---nothing but problems. I'm now using the Radeon HD5750 and am >> still relying on the proprietary drivers as my past experience with Elrepo >> drivers cost me hours of circular work. I have not visited the Elrepo >> pages >> for documentation of late, but several months ago it was deficient and, to >> some degree, misleading. >> >> > It's a Wiki - did you offer to correct/update it? Did you file a bug report > detailing the problem/solution? > > I have spent many many hours of my evenings and weekends developing those > ATI driver packages for the community, and I don't even use ATI products let > alone have hardware to develop/test them on so I'm totally reliant on > *quality* end user feedback. Elrepo.org has over 500,000 users and I can > count the amount of feedback I've received on one hand so I'm sure you'll > understand my frustration at reading your comments. > > Feel free to donate a test box with ATI hardware and RHEL licence to > elrepo.org :-/ >
