Compiz Fusion with ATI Radeon X800 GTO on Ubuntu Gusty

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I have finally gotten Compiz Fusion to run after upgrading to Ubuntu 7.10, and it looks very sharp.

Compiz Fusion running on Ubuntu 7.10 with XGL.

As anyone else who owns an ATI card can attest, getting OpenGL working in Ubuntu is often no small task. After the initial upgrade to 7.10, I was not surprised to find that Ubuntu was using the Vesa (2d) graphics drivers. My first thought was to try using the proprietary drivers manager version of the ATI drivers, xorg-driver-fglrx (ATI’s non-open-source 3d drivers for linux). This is the version of the driver that is installed if you click “enable” in Ubuntu’s proprietary drivers manager. After enabling the drivers, and playing around with xorg.conf settings some, I still was having no luck getting OpenGL working and was getting the standard error messages:

ubuntu-desktop:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: http://www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (1.5 Mesa 6.4.1)

At this point I decided to try the new 8.42.3 ATI drivers which are purported to support AIGLX, and thus should be able to work without XGL. Following a guide I found on via the forums, I was able to install the 8.42.3 drivers without too much trouble. Unfortunately however, I still had no luck getting OpenGL to work. I tried several combinations of xorg.conf settings, switching Composition and AIGLX on and off, but to no avail.

So I decided to uninstall the new driver, and wait and pray that when the newer drivers were uploaded to the main repos, it would work for me. By a stroke of luck however, I noticed that after removing the new driver, and reloading the default proprietary-driver-manager version, OpenGL was now working! I reinstalled xserver, rebooted, and Voila!– Working Compiz Fusion!

ubuntu-desktop:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON X800 GTO
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6473 (8.37.6)

So what is the difference between now and after the initial upgrade? The Screen & Graphics manager is set to use the “ati” drivers instead of “fglrx!” Also, I enabled the “Composite” extension in xorg.conf (See below). Everything else is the same:

Using the default restricted drivers manager ATI drivers.

Screen and graphics preferences

Even though Gusty is set to use the “ati” driver version, xorg.conf is still set to use fglrx, and running compiz in the terminal confirms that the fglrx drivers are being used.

ubuntu-desktop:~$ compiz
compiz compiz.real
ubuntu-desktop:~$ more compiz
compiz: No such file or directory
ubuntu-desktop:~$ compiz –version
Checking for Xgl: present.
Checking for nVidia: not present.
Checking for Xgl: present.
Enabling Xgl with fglrx ATi drivers…
Starting emerald
compiz 0.6.1

Why setting the screen and graphics preferences driver to “fglrx” breaks fglrx is beyond me, but in any case, at least it is working now. In case anyone else would like to see, the contents of my xorg.conf file are as below:

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "int10"
Load "vbe"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri"
Load "v4l"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "altwin:meta_win"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "stylus"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "eraser"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "cursor"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver "fglrx"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
Device "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "enable"
EndSection


Hopefully compiz will not break again with the next update of xorg-driver-fglrx. If so, you may see another “Compiz Fusion on Gusty” post in the weeks to come.

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