customising life

This is a cumulation and culmination of several posts now.

I recently was successful installing the latest NVIDIA drivers (v1.0.9269), which support AIGLX.
The next thing that must be done is an edit of the X.org configuration file to enable AIGLX. I have already done this once before.

One final adjustment is necessary for using AIGLX with the NVIDIA drivers. The following line needs to be added to the X.org configuration file in the “Screen” section.

Option “AddARGBGLXVisuals” “true”

Once that change has been made, you should be able to start an ordinary session (now using AIGLX) and then start Beryl. If you need to install Beryl as well, you can see how I did it a while ago.

You may need to stop the XFCE window manager (xfwm4) first, using these commands.

killall xfwm4
beryl-manager &

Enjoy!

Well I’m not sure what happened or why, but I’m having more issues with fonts.

I only noticed when I spent some time doing things other than watching DVDs. Like reading and coding.

I just started getting tired and sore eyes. I could only think it was the refresh rate or something wrong with the fonts. They did look a little crappy to me.

Continue reading ‘More crappy font issues in Xubuntu 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.

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.

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!

My work PC is now running Xubuntu Edgy and I thought I might try to see if I can get some eye-candy action happening. The first thing I thought of doing was to try to enable AIGLX, as it is already part of the X server in Edgy.

There’s not really much to it.

The only thing you need to do is edit the X.org configuration file.

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup
gksudo mousepad /etc/X11/xorg.conf &

In the section named “Module”, you need to make sure that the following three lines are included

Load “dbe”
Load “dri”
Load “glx”

Then in the section “Device”, the following line is required

Option “XAANoOffscreenPixmaps”

Next in the section “ServerLayout”, the following line is required

Option “AIGLX” “true”

Finally two more sections need to be added, unless they are already present

Section “DRI”
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Enable”
EndSection

Then all you need to do is save the file and restart the X server. Next thing is 3D acceleration.