Post-Christmas Blues - Not too much fun with ATI and Intrepid on the 2007-AE7 Thinkpad T60p

Hot on the heels of my previous posts here  and here, I found that things weren't as smooth as they could be, with Compiz crashing out from time to time.

I've played around over the past two days ( well, what else is Christmas Day and Boxing Day for ) and have taken a slightly different path to the same destination.

Instead of using Synaptic, Envy or apt get install, I chose to download the proprietary ATI driver from here.

This downloads a 80 MB file ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run. It's necessary to make this file executable ( chmod +x ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run ) and then execute it with root privileges ( sudo ./ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run ).

The installer walks you through a series of simple screens, and, following a reboot, you're good to go.

Will continue to play ...

Solved - ATI Catalyst Control Centre not saving configuration

Having solved my problems with the suspend/resume on Intrepid whilst keeping Compiz and spinny things going, I had one final thing to crack.

When I used the ATI Catalyst Control Centre ( amdcccle ) to set my display resolution, I noticed that the changes were not being saved through a reboot. As an example, I could set the resolution to 1600x1200 to get the best out of my Thinkpad's HUUUUUGE screen, when I rebooted, the resolution would be back at 1024x768, which is a bit annoying.

As usual, Google had the answer, Google is my friend. I searched for "amdcccle saving" and found this article - the answer is to run gnome-display-properties and click Apply to save the current configuration ( this applet can be as a command ( ALT + F2 ) or via System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution.

Strange but true

Parking in Beijing is manic over Christmas

Thanks to the BBC for this

Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) and Suspend/Resume on the Thinkpad T60p ( 2007-AE7 )

Having had this working ever since I upgraded to Intrepid in early November, I somehow managed to break it on Wednesday whilst trying to get a strange projector combination working. I uninstalled/reinstalled the video drivers a thousand times ( ish ) but couldn't manage to (a) get video working on the internal LCD *and* via an external device and (b) suspend/resume Ubuntu.

However, I think I've cracked it - I went back in time in my blog and found this post from September, where I'd fickered with /etc/default/acpi-support and changed: -

POST_VIDEO=true
# RADEON_LIGHT=true
# DOUBLE_CONSOLE_SWITCH=true
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false

to: -

POST_VIDEO=false
RADEON_LIGHT=true
DOUBLE_CONSOLE_SWITCH=true
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true

If it helps, I'm using the fglrx 8.54.3 driver which I got via apt-get install fglrx* - as far as I know, this is not a proprietary driver BUT I MAY BE WRONG.

If it helps, this is how I can see what driver I'm using: -

lsmod | grep -i fglrx

returns: -

fglrx                1813960  32
agpgart                42184  2 fglrx,intel_agp

dmesg | grep -i fglrx

[   42.639040] [fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.54.3 [Oct 10 2008] with 1 minors

lspci -vv

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M56GL [Mobility FireGL V5200]
        Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2007
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Region 1: I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Region 2: Memory at ee100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at ee120000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: fglrx

sudo dpkg --list | grep -i fglrx

ii  fglrx-amdcccle                            2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Catalyst Control Center for the ATI graphics a
ii  fglrx-kernel-source                       2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Kernel module source for the ATI graphics acce
ii  fglrx-modaliases                          2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Identifiers supported by the ATI graphics driv
ii  xorg-driver-fglrx                         2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Video driver for the ATI graphics accelerators
ii  xorg-driver-fglrx-dev                     2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Video driver for the ATI graphics accelerators

fglrxinfo -display :0

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5200
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8087 FireGL Release

Having got fglrx installed and having hacked acpi-support, I can now suspend and resume.

I can also switch to a single or dual display ( using my Sharp Aquos 26" LCD display ) using the  ATI Catalyst Control Centre ( command is amdccle ) to switch between screens.

I'll test a real projector later today ....

Woot, scrolling in Firefox on Ubuntu using middle mouse button

Thanks to Pete for this tip - with his help ( and some Googling ), I was able to configure the middle mouse button ( on a Thinkpad T60p ) to allow me to scroll through a web page in Firefox.

Simply put, open Firefox, navigate to the address bar and enter the URL about:config. Assuming you're happy to proceed past those dragons, change the setting general.autoScroll to true. Once you restart Firefox, you're good to go.

More about Site Analytics in WebSphere Portal

Following on from my earlier post about SA, here is a W-I-P of my notes and observations thus far.

Sun xVM VirtualBox - My First Few Hours ...

I installed VirtualBox using Synaptic on my Thinkpad T60p ( running Intrepid Ibex ) earlier today, and built my first Windows XP virtual machine. So far, so good.

Only one little niggle - USB support didn't work; I was getting

Failed to access the USB subsystem.

Could not load the Host USB Proxy Service (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND). The service might be not installed on the host computer.

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x00004005)

when I attempted to edit the virtual machine's configuration.

However, as usual, Google had the answer ( and is my friend ).

As per this post, there are some post-installation incantations that you need to run.

Once done, we're good to go.

Next, I'm going to install WebSphere Portal or, perhaps, Lotus Connections onto the VM and see how it performs ....