This is annoying...

[ffutures]

I put the graphics card into the linux box and reinstalled Unantu. It works, but if I try anything that needs 3D graphics the program seems to start up then vanish. E.g. Celestia no longer works at all. The graphics card has two outputs, but as far as I can tell Linux isn't trying to send the graphics to a non-existent monitor or anything.

Any suggestions?

Comments

[turol.livejournal.com]

Which graphics card would that be again? Full make and model.

Open terminal and type "glxinfo"

You should see something like this:

name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
server glx version string: 1.4
.
.
.
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 9800 GT/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.2.0 NVIDIA 195.36.24
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.50 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
.
.
.

The interesting things are the vendor strings and "direct rendering" line.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

First of all I got a message saying glxinfo wasn't installed. When I did that it gave me

glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
Segmentation fault


Not very helpful.

the card is a ATI R300 GLXI 128MB AGP VIDEO CARD 2x DVI DELL 09Y130

I think I'll try rebooting, see if it works after that.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No, it didn't.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I'm really not trying to be glib, but have you thought about installing Windows and seeing if the board works properly in that situation? If it does then you might just have abandon that card and find one that does work under Ubuntu. I've seen a few situations where Linux can't handle some families of hardware devices that function perfectly under Windows (or even DOS).

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It does work in a Windows PC, unfortunately it doesn't support the best graphics mode for my 22" monitor, 1680 x 1050, or I'd shove it into my main machine.

It wasn't very expensive and I suppose I can sell it on. Any suggestions on a replacement?

[turol.livejournal.com]

It should be possible to make that card work. Also since AGP has been deprecated you're going to have hard time finding compatible cards. The latest you can get are ATI R400 and R500 series or NVidia 7x00 series. Unfortunately ATI and NVidia have dropped support for these older cards from their latest drivers so the latest distributions don't really support them that well.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

That's odd it really shouldn't segv under any circumstance short of faulty hardware. First off run memtest86 overnight on the PC and see if it finds anything.

Let us know the output of 'lspci -v' too. That might also be interesting.

If not and you feel up to some extreme geekyness try running:-
#apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx-dbg

$ gdb glxinfo
(gdb) r
....
(gdb) bt


It might shed some light on the sitaution , if not provide enough information for your first bug report...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Where will I find memtest86?

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

According to google www.memtest86.com

It's also installable as a package in debian - so almost certain in ubunutu too, so that it comes up as a boot option , rather than needing to burn in to a Cd,

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It seems to be installed, but I can't figure out how to get into it - is there a key I should press on startup or something?

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

Normally it is a option in your bootloader - usually grub - it should appear on the menu - but you only get about 5 seconds to make a choice.

If not there should be instructions on that website on how to make a boot cd and you can try that instead.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's about this point that I wonder if trying another flavour of Linux might be a good idea.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've just tried Fedora and it works straight off, I'm installing it to the hard disk now. Many thanks for your help, I think this is probably the simple answer for someone like me.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Further to this, I went to the system testing application and tried graphics modes, it told me that something called glxgears isn't working, which means that there isn't even minimum 3D support. No idea why.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

I think the 3d support library is failing with segmentation fault. No idea why yet.

[turol.livejournal.com]

You are in "seriously fucked up" territory. Your kernel and userspace drivers don't match. The correct driver for that card is the DRI project driver. ATI proprietary fglrx does NOT work. You need to remove any packages mentioning fglrx. Then reboot your system just in case and try again.

Or you can try some other distribution. I don't use Fedora but I got the impression they only ship the correct driver. Personally I use Debian, but it kind of assumes you know exactly what it is you're doing.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've just tried Fedora and it works straight off, I'm installing it to the hard disk now. Many thanks for your help, I think this is probably the simple answer for someone like me.