ATI is a PITA with Linux, which is Lacking

There are certain times that I run into linux’s Dark Patches<tm>.  These are the spots where even the most dogged linux supporter has to admit that there is a problem.  Every OS has its weak spots; some more than others.  I find documentation pretty weird on linux but I have a pretty decent idea why this is.

Another spot is video.  Video by itself is a problem in places but nowhere is it worse than with ATI.  As I understand it, ATI is not open source, and as such, linux can’t speak ATI’s language because it doesn’t know the language.  There are open source ATI-ish drivers that will probably work but not in all cases or for all features.  Because ATI won’t release the source, they released their own linux drivers that take advantage of the features of the hardware (who knows better than the manufacturer?).

Xubuntu 8.10 discovered the ATI card in my laptop without difficulty and offered to install the proprietary driver if I wanted it.  Since I don’t believe I’ll be utilizing the 3D effects, I decided against it.  Here’s where it really gets fun: tonight I took my laptop into the computer room and plugged in my old Dell 20″ monitor as a second screen.  I know from before that the open source driver may detect an additional monitor but all it does after that is snicker at you.  It sits there chuckling, daring you to make something -anything- appear on both monitors.   If you happen by some bizarre chance to make something appear on both monitors, that’s as far as you’ll ever get anyway.  There is simply no way in hell that the driver is going to allow you to make both monitors into one gigantic screen.  The best you will ever do is two completely separate screens, between which you cannot move the cursor.  Trust me, I’ve been there, done that, and stuffed the t-shirt up the video card’s rear output.

ATI video cards plague me.  Without specifically purchasing any of them, they’re in two of my work desktops, my main home box, and one or two laptops.  Since I like dual monitors a lot, I’m always frustrated.  Some would say I was always frustrated before I discovered single monitors but I’m not in much of a mood to argue that right now.

The Ubuntus of 8.10 brought us a new, improved video system.  Instead of struggling with the boa constrictor that is xorg.conf when you want to use more than one monitor, they’ve gone and upgraded the system.  I’m not entirely sure how the system has been upgraded but They assure me it has been.  So when plugging in an additional monitor produced what installing Windows on a pc produces (nothing), I became confused.  Some people will continue to insist that I became confused long ago but I’m not in much of a mood to argue that right now.

When I went to edit xorg.conf, as I have had to do every single time I wanted more than one monitor, I noticed a special feature: Nothing.  Yes, nothing.  There was nothing in xorg.conf but a few stock lines.  When I tried to add a few lines as before, the video drivers laughed even louder at me.  Yes, they had been laughing at me all along, mocking my every attempt to use more than one display, but they suddenly got louder.

Not to be outdone by an hysterical video driver, I pulled out the Big Gun<tm>: Google.  Google suggested several different methods by which the New And Improved Ubuntu Video System could be convinced to support additional monitors; every one of them a dead end or so confusing that it made my head hurt.  Some people maintain that my head always hurts but I’m not in a mood to argue that right now: I have a headache.

There’s something called xrandr (X Rock and Roll?) that’s supposed to help in cases like this.  It didn’t.  I pulled out its big brother; xheavymetal, which also failed to work and made my head hurt worse.  It did make my hair taller but I was warned against spandex pants many years ago.

At this point I had no choice but to acknowledge that this was One of Those Linux Moments, where things aren’t quite a polished as they should be.  I take it a lot better these days.  After all, I could still be shackled to Windows.

I had to throw up my hands and say it wasn’t going to happen.  But I did this very carefully, out of hearing range of the open source video drivers, which would mock me terribly if it found out.  I had no choice but to [insert suspenseful music] install the closed-source ATI video driver.  This was not a proud moment for me.  Not only had open source failed. I didn’t know if the proprietary driver would laugh at me the same way the open source driver did.  Or worse, it might have a French accent and act really haughty.

After telling Xubuntu that it was ok to install this driver, I looked around for some sign that it had worked.  Maybe a nicer display.  Maybe a correct resolution (my laptop runs at 1283×807 exactly).  But this was not to be.   I swear I could hear something in the laptop laughing at me, even if it wasn’t the open source video driver.

As a secondary test, I plugged in my old Dell 20″ crt again, hoping that something would happen in the vein of Plug and Play.  I realized that PnP with linux actually meant Plug and Pray that something would happen.

As you will no doubt be surprised, it didn’t.  No monitor no wakey.  No change on laptop monitor.  I would have to locate the ATI Control Panel.

GOOD $*#@ING LUCK, LEFTY

As I mentioned, I use Xubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop.  XFCE’s menu integration is, shall we say, somewhat lacking.  If I used Gnome or KDE, everything would come up in the menu where it belonged.  Because I use XFCE, I’m lucky there are menus at all, and if I want a newly installed program to appear in said menus, I’d have a greater chance of Congress repealing the income tax amendment.

It took forever but I finally located the ATI Control Panel, in the Accessories menu.  Of course it was in Accessories… it wouldn’t make any sense to put it someplace silly like System or Settings.  What’s the matter with me that I didn’t automatically think of looking for it in Accessories.  The video card in my laptop is an Accessory, right?

After standing on my head, wiggling the cable, and cursing ever louder, ATI finally capitulated and detected the Dell monitor.  It asked me how I’d like to deploy this monitor:

• clone of screen 1
• disabled
• to the right of screen 1
• to the left of screen 1
• around the corner from screen 3

(I suspect that last one is a trick answer)

I figured I’d play along, so I selected to the left of screen 1 because of the complex formula used to arrive at that conclusion: the Dell monitor was to the left of the laptop, aka screen 1.   It applied the settings and asked me if I wanted to revert.  I don’t know about you but my (lack of) religion forbids me to revert, so I told it to apply.  After which I discovered that somebody was having a little problem with orientation.  Screen 2, which was left of screen 1, could only be traveled to by going right from screen 1.  Yes, it had its left and right backwards.

This is not really all that strange to me.  It simply mirrors real life.  My wife, and likely most multiples, seem to have this same difficulty with directionality.  If I tell her to turn left, I will invariably have to tell her to turn to the other left.

Recognizing this for what it was, I reversed right and left as far as the computer was concerned and it worked like it should.  Sort of.  It seemed to have a great deal of difficulty with one and two also.  I figured that one would be the laptop display because it’s the original, making the Dell two.  ATI, in its infinite wisdom, decided against going with tradition or any other approach that made sense.  Sometimes the Dell was one, sometimes it was two.  Now I have a multiple wife and two monitors that keep changing identities.  Life isn’t supposed to be this confusing.

So there I sat, newly able to move the cursor from one screen to another, in the correct direction.  The video driver’s incessant mocking had quieted to the occasional chuckle when I noticed that the resolution on both of the monitors was…. odd.  It was passable on the laptop but the Dell was whacked.  I looked around for some sort of indication as to which resolution the driver had decided to use and discovered it was 1600×1200.  I’m fairly certain that’s the resolution I use normally on the Dell so you can bet I was a bit confused as to why it looked so distorted.

Turns out that it didn’t matter what resolution the driver had decided upon: it wouldn’t let me change the resolution anyway.  On either screen.  DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY I SPEND SO MUCH MONEY ON HEADACHE REMEDIES NOW?

I tried playing with it again tonight, with largely similar results.  If I want two backwards screens that keep swapping identities, the leftmost of which is warped so much that it makes web pictures of Oprah look trim, I’m ok.  If I’d like two normal screens with their native resolutions, well, suffice it to say that I’m %*$&ed.

And this, Your Honor, is one of the issues I have with linux.

Mind you, when I tried this on XP, XP decided to have a few cheap laughs at my expense by swapping one and two also.  Aside from that, it worked.  The only serious issue is that I use a vertical setup with one at eye level and two above.  Whenever I open a program or dialog box, it invariably appears on two, even when opened from one.  So I sit there and curse at the program for not coming up when I click on it, then eventually (hopefully) realize it is opening – I just have to look up at a different monitor to tell.   In the words of Python, “My Brain Hurts.”

Of course some people will tell you my brain has always hurt but I’m not in a mood to argue that right now.