video-card battle

Issues related to hardware problems
chemal
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Joined: 2013/12/08 19:44:49

Re: video-card battle

Post by chemal » 2015/02/26 01:26:37

TrevorH wrote:chemal I don't think this is helpful. The poster wants to use his video card and he's entitled to pick which one he wants to use.
But volumetricsteve wrote:
The parhelia is my targeted gpu, and I've tested it in CentOS 5.11 after I compiled the driver for it - it works fine once the driver is installed.
He didn't give any hints why the onboard ATI chip is still a problem. But if you got it, no problem with me.

volumetricsteve
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Joined: 2014/11/29 20:44:48

Re: video-card battle

Post by volumetricsteve » 2015/02/26 02:59:49

TrevorH wrote:chemal I don't think this is helpful. The poster wants to use his video card and he's entitled to pick which one he wants to use.
Thank you. If you decided to use an S3 Trio in a gaming rig, I'd happily support your choice to do so.
But volumetricsteve wrote:
The parhelia is my targeted gpu, and I've tested it in CentOS 5.11 after I compiled the driver for it - it works fine once the driver is installed.
chemal wrote: He didn't give any hints why the onboard ATI chip is still a problem. But if you got it, no problem with me.
My list of questions regarding blacklisting is my indication that the ATI rage is "still a problem" though I have a few possible solutions in progress. I refer you to the rest of the thread for evidence of this.
chemal wrote:So you have compiled an old rotting driver from source and forced it into C5, and then told us your Parhelia works fine now. What really is your problem with the onboard ATI chip now? What does it do you don't like?
I have compiled the last stable, official driver available from Matrox on a similar test machine as I previously stated...and it required no forcing since I used CentOS 5.11 which uses a supported kernel. The card itself is fine, the card isn't even an issue here, I could theoretically be using any other video card and the question would remain the same. What does the ATI rage do that I don't like? It exists - I don't want it there, and I can't remove it, so I need to figure out the software changes necessary to accomplish as much as I can... a question which has been answered by a handful of helpful people in this thread, which you'd have noticed if you read the thread prior to posting.

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AlanBartlett
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Re: video-card battle

Post by AlanBartlett » 2015/02/26 16:23:03

To blacklist a module, make a reference to that module in a file contained within the /etc/modprobe.d/ directory.

So a plan of action would be --

First determine which module is loaded for the AMD/ATI video device (perhaps boot the system without your desired card installed and look at the output produced by lsmod), then look at the existing files in the /etc/modprobe.d/ directory to understand the format and finally create your own blacklist-ati file in that directory. Shut the system down. Insert your desired video card. Boot the system and check for the desired result.
Image 100% Linux and, previously, Unix. Co-founder of the ELRepo Project.

chemal
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Re: video-card battle

Post by chemal » 2015/02/26 17:37:41

I have a C5 system with an ATI onboard chip myself. No module for this piece of hardware is loaded during boot, C5 has no KMS. After X starts, no kernel module is loaded either because the 3D part of the chip is unsupported. And if it were supported, that drm kernel module would only be loaded because my xorg.conf explicitly says: use the ATI driver. If I had another graphics card and would only load it's driver, the ATI chip would be completly ignored by X (and the rest of the OS unless it drives the primary console).

Another of my systems, albeit C6, has onboard G200 graphics and two Teslas. X is setup to only deal with the Teslas.

Now, you simply cannot disable a device unless you can physically remove it, or it has a jumper to disable it, or there is at least a bios option for that. The best you can get is Linux to ignore it, which in your case should happen automatically, if you don't load the X driver for ATI in your xorg.conf. X in C5 doesn't autodetect.

And unless you come up with a detailed description of the real problems you're still facing (what bad does the ATI do to your system, which errors are you seeing?), I doubt you can be helped. But hey, suit yourself.

volumetricsteve
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Re: video-card battle

Post by volumetricsteve » 2015/02/26 23:48:44

chemal -

Apparently you can't help me. Thanks but no thanks.

AlanBartlett -

Thank you for understanding my issue. Unfortunately, as the undesired card is on-board, I can't unplug it or disable it at the hardware level. However, during the CentOS install, the video probe immediately tries to configure X for it. I don't care if this happens during install, but after the fact I'd like to stop the system from seeing it, which I guess I can only do through blacklisting. I'll try what you've suggested and post back here, thanks for your suggestion!

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