Idiots Guide to Installing ATI Rage Fury Pro

[Peter_O]

Hi Folks

First post, windows user. Just nuked one of my old Windows 2000 PC's. Tried Ubunto, now trying Fedora 12 Beta. Both installed perfectly, neither can drive my screen at anything above 800x600. I want 1024 x 768.

Is there a complete idiots guide to doing this. I admit to being frankly irritated by this now. Spent several weeks with success trying to get the Ubuntu install to drive the screen. Only installed Federo today but my head is already spinning from the seemingly incomplete and conflicting advice. How difficult can it be to drive a screen at 1024x768 @ 24 bit colour? N.B. The PC in question AND a complete hardware identical version of it was/is driving the screen under Windows 2000 at much higher resolutions. (1280x768 for instance)

Card Details:
Rage Fury Pro/Xpert 2000 Pro
Chip: Rage128 PRO (AGP4X)
DAC: Internal DAC (350 Mhz)
Memory: 32Mb
AdapterSTrog: 1002-5046-11
BIOS Info: BK2.0.2 VR001.001.002.002.005.025 pfso_4x1

I really really want to get this working so I can have a reasonable stab at understanding where Linux is on the desktop circa 2009. Don't need/want to play games, just need a reasonable screen size to run Internet, e-mail and office apps.

Many thanks.
Peter

[Hlingler]

now trying Fedora 12 Beta

Moved to F12 Alpha/Beta.

V

[Laserman]

The simple answer is that ATI supplies drivers for all their hardware in Windows but for Linux they only supply drivers for some of their newer cards.
Your card is one that is not supported so if the open source vesa drivers don't work at your desired resolution, well, you're out of luck.

[Peter_O]

Ok thanks...... so... all this stuff I read about the ATI and R128 driver there isn't any point in following up I guess? Gee, that's disappointing.

Back to the drawing board.

Drawing board idea.... If I remove the ATI Rage 128 card and use the onboard video ( VIA UniChrome Pro) on my MSI K8MM3 motherboard, am I likely to have any more joy? Will I need to re-install from scratch for the hardware change to be detected?

Cheers
Peter

[bob]

Can't you grab an old Nvidia card from some scrapper? They're still easily configurable. Think I've got 2-3 extras hanging around.

[Peter_O]

Originally Posted by bob

Can't you grab an old Nvidia card from some scrapper?...

Yes I possibly could. It's just kind of not what I set out to do. Had a spare PC, thought I'd see how OpenOffice was doing these days....... I may even have other cards in my own collection of spare parts.

Thanks for the tip.

Cheers
Peter

[lewis41]

You are well come as a new-user, but not pretend much than you can obtain ...

I suggest you to begin with a stable release: stable_release < beta-release.

Greetings.

[Peter_O]

Originally Posted by lewis41

You are well come as a new-user, but not pretend much than you can obtain ...

I suggest you to begin with a stable release: stable_release < beta-release.

Greetings.

Greetings indeed... Driving a video card isn't/shouldn't be rocket science.

I want to use/test Internet, e-mail and office apps. I shan't be launching any critical missions that can't cope with the occasional crash. Had either of the installs been able to drive the video card I wouldn't have been having this conversation and would by now have worked out if the Beta's were stable enough for my requirements. If not, I'd have simply started agan with a stable release.

Beta or stable release it appears to make no difference, neither can drive the video card as I might like. That's the issue I need to resolve at the moment.

Cheers
Peter

[beaker_]

+1 for nvidea route because there will be no joy without ati support but I've had better luck on F10 with older ati & intel. Free driver of course. An alternate route could be centos; compare which version of X they're using with what ati claims to support. OO in their repositories is older but sympthany admitily is polished better. I doubt or don't know if you'll find joy without nvidea because like yours, all my ati video cards have been abandoned and forgotten.

[Peter_O]

Right.. well I think I'm going to whip out this ATI card, re-run the install and see if it loads the OpenChrome driver for the onboard video ( VIA UniChrome Pro) on my MSI K8MM3 motherboard.

Nothing ventured etc, etc... If that doesn't work I can see a trip to my loft coming on. See, I told my wife I was keeping all those old PC's for a reason. ;-)

Cheers
Peter

[beaker_]

Slow down a bit and remove or rename /etc/X11/xorg.conf if it exisits. Remove your card, make the bios change (if needed) and boot it. With luck your onboard card will be detected.

[lewis41]

Isn't possible to configure the card driver using system-config-driver ?

(It's not installed by default in System->Administartion)

[Peter_O]

Originally Posted by beaker_

Slow down a bit and remove or rename /etc/X11/xorg.conf if it exisits. Remove your card, make the bios change (if needed) and boot it. With luck your onboard card will be detected.

Well.. Whipped the card our. System booted. Maxium resolution was 800 x 600. Then it went "phut"..... May have a dicky power supply now.

Is there somewhere obvious I can look to see/change what video driver is being used? Quite happy to be pointed at the documentation source. Been in support long enough to know about RTFM. ;-)

Cheers
Peter

[Laserman]

Open a terminal and type:
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Lots of info there.

[Peter_O]

Originally Posted by Laserman

Open a terminal and type:
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Lots of info there.

The "phut" was terminal..... When I've found and installed a new ATX power supply, I'll be back.......

Cheers
Peter