Xubuntu Edgy, XGL and Beryl (ATI)

Just mucking about at work again.

So I’ve ruled out AIGLX/Beryl on my work PC, because the proprietary drivers don’t have a particular extension to use AIGLX. However I can still try XGL/Beryl now that I have the fglrx drivers working.

Setting up XGL and Beryl follows almost the same steps I used on my home PC, which uses an NVIDIA card.

The installation of the XGL X server package and Beryl is the same, the only difference between using ATI and NVIDIA, is the XGL options used in the startxgl.sh script. This is the modified script I use for XGL and Beryl (ATI)

#!/bin/sh
Xgl -fullscreen :1 -ac -br -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:pbuffer &
sleep 4
export DISPLAY=:1
beryl-manager
exec xfce4-session

The first time I started the XGL session, Beryl was acting all weird, the window decorations were flashing on and off. I just killed the process, and started the beryl-manager again, then things were fine.

I’m actually surprised how well it runs on my PC, I didn’t think the video card (ATI R300) would be up to it.

Nice, so now I have eye candy both at home and at work.

CUPS-PDF and Xubuntu Print Manager

Not long ago I posted how to print documents to a virtual PDF printer using CUPS.

That was for Dapper, but I wanted to install the PDF printer on Edgy using the new Print Manager GUI - system-config-printer, rather than the URL way.

If you haven’t got the cups-pdf package, get it from the Ubuntu universe repository using apt-get or aptitude,

sudo aptitude install cups-pdf

Once that package is installed, start up the Print Manager, and proceed to add a new printer.

When you get to the step of choosing the connection, you should now have the option of a ‘Virtual Printer’. If you select that is should also display cups-pdf:/ in the printer URI.

In the section regarding the PPD, I chose a Generic printer. (Similar to my previous post on CUPS-PDF printing, you could use the PPD supplied in the cups-pdf package)

In the section regarding the model and driver to use, I chose the PostScript Printer Model and PostScript Driver.

Once that’s setup you should be able to see the PDF Printer in the GUI, and in the Print dialogs of your applications.

Printing Manager in Xubuntu

Another post inspired by messing around with Xubuntu at work.

At home I have no printer connected to my PC, I can’t remember the last time I wanted to print anything out. At work though, I need to print out things all the time.

Xubuntu Edgy uses a Printer GUI from Fedora Core 6; system-config-printer to manage printers. I used it to setup a connection to a local printer on my PC. It’s pretty straightforward.

The application should be in the Applications -> Settings Menu -> Printing.

From there choose the New Printer button. In the next screen enter the name for the printer and optional human-readable name and location.

The next step is to choose the connection to the printer. My printer is connected by USB, so I chose USB #1. (I later tried to connect to another printer on our network using SAMBA without any luck yet.)

Next I had to choose the PostScript Printer Description (PPD) from the list of available options.

Last thing to setup is the model and driver for the printer.

After the print setup is complete, specific options for the printer can be changed; whether it is the default printer, paper size, print quality and so on.

Installing ATI Drivers on Edgy

Just mucking about at work again.So I’ve ruled out AIGLX/Beryl on my work PC, because the proprietary drivers don’t have a particular extension to use AIGLX. However I can still try XGL/Beryl, if I can get the fglrx drivers to work.

Trying these instructions again, first install the fglrx driver with this command

sudo aptitude install xorg-driver-fglrx

Next we need to reconfigure the Xorg configuration file. Rather than manually like for enabling AIGLX, we can do it by reconfiguring the xserver-xorg package

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

If you have ever seen the inside of the Xorg configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, you will probably notice the questions that accompany lines you often edit without knowing why.

The first part of the reconfiguration deals with which driver to use for the X server. This is important and fglrx must be selected.

Other options will include the the PCI bus it is located on, keyboard and mouse settings, monitor resolution and similar options. If the X Server has been working correctly before this reconfiguration, you can just leave these values alone, and accept them as they appear.

The process will exit and copy the old configuration file to a unique filename, based on the date and time, in case you need to go back.

Finally you need to restart the PC, to make sure that the fglrx module is loaded (restarting the X Server doesn’t cut it here), and then observe the changes.

liam@liam-desktop:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON X300/X550 Series Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6011 (8.28.8)

liam@liam-desktop:~$ fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
867 frames in 5.0 seconds = 173.400 FPS
1120 frames in 5.0 seconds = 224.000 FPS
1114 frames in 5.0 seconds = 222.800 FPS
1130 frames in 5.0 seconds = 226.000 FPS
1098 frames in 5.0 seconds = 219.600 FPS
liam@liam-desktop:~$

For some reason all my GTK fonts have become very small, but otherwise there doesn’t seem to be any real issues. So now onto XGL and Beryl again.

No 3D acceleration for AIGLX with ATI

It turns out I was attempting this all the wrong way, because of some careless research on my part.

For the last part of an hour two hours I’ve been struggling to get AIGLX and 3D acceleration working on the ATI video card in my work PC. I kept hitting a brick wall over this error

liam@liam-desktop:~$ fglrxinfo
Xlib: extension “XFree86-DRI” missing on display “:0.0″.
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (1.5 Mesa 6.5.1)

It turns out that the fglrx drivers can’t be used with AIGLX. It was all there, but perhaps not as clearly as I needed.

I think my problem was following this wiki page. I kept ending up trying to install the fglrx drivers with no favourable result.

So for the moment AIGLX is out. Cheers ATI!