amd64 XFCE radeon 4300 graphics problem [Solved]

[demian0]

I've just downloaded Sabayon 5.5 amd64 with XFCE as DE and it seems the GPU driver fails to setup correctly.

I have hp probook 4710s with ATI Radeon 4300. I remember I installed Sabayon 5.4 with KDE some time ago and the GPU was correctly recognized and the proprietary fglrx drivers were active after the installation.

When I boot into the default live environment just when XFCE shall show up I get some wery disturbing purple-white lines (which make my eyes hurt ) changing to text terminal (Alt+F1/F2..) here is impossible, just blank black screen shows up. Booting in Safe Mode gave me black screen with some random colors on the bottom and I am able to change to any text terminal and use the command line. Graphical installer wont boot correctly either, just blank screen and again its impossible to change to text terminal.

So, the best thing will be that we find some workaround and install from the CD I already downloaded, booting in Safe Mode and hacking trough some text terminal. The fallback option is I guess to download Sabayon with GNOME or KDE because I red somewhere that this 690mb package is stripped down so I guess not all drivers are included.

Help very appreciated, thanks in advance

[Fitzcarraldo]

Looking at the package list for SL 5.5 amd64 Xfce on the mirrors (e.g. http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/sabayo ... so.pkglist) you can see that only the open-source Radeon driver is provided for AMD ATI GPUs with that SL edition. The Radeon driver package installed is xf86-video-ati-6.14.0-r1. From what you say, the open-source driver does not work well with your GPU. Searching the Web page of the SL Entropy Store for the closed-source FGLRX driver a.k.a. AMD Catalyst for Linux (http://packages.sabayon.org/quicksearch ... rs&x=0&y=0) I see that the version of the package in the Entropy repository is ati-drivers-11.2-r1 (the "r1" is an SL ebuild addition; the AMD driver is actually 11.2). If you look at the AMD release notes for Catalyst for Linux 11.2 and the AMD release notes for Catalyst for Linux 11.3 (the latest version issued by AMD) you'll see that the Radeon 4300 Series (I assume you actually have the Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series installed in your laptop) is not supported by the latest versions of the closed-source driver. Looking at the AMD site, I see that the last version of the closed-source driver that supported your GPU was ati-drivers-10.10 (http://support.amd.com/us/psearch/Pages ... =&items=20). If the current version of the open-source Radeon driver does not work well for you, try booting the LiveCD and pressing F5 when the boot menu appears, then append xdriver=vesa to the end of the kernel boot line and press Enter. See what the graphics looks like when the Desktop appears.

[demian0]

Something must be wrong in that catalyst info... I'm currently running Ubuntu with catalyst 11.2 installed and working as should. Just now, I selected my GPU info on the Catalyst site and selected Linux_64 as OS and I was directed to download 11.3 catalyst drivers. Something smells funny .

I will try booting with xvideo=vesa as you suggested and try to figure this problem out. I will post here if Im lucky to get it working.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I will try booting with xvideo=vesa as you suggested

It's xdriver=vesa, not xvideo=vesa

[demian0]

adding xdriver=vesa did the trick, i was able to install sabayon.. plus i installed catalyst 11.3 and it works fine. may I suggest adding something like "Boot in Safe Graphics Mode" on the boot menu ? Thanks for the help.

[Fitzcarraldo]

You're welcome. You might want to add your suggestion to SL Bugzilla Bug Report No. 2305.

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