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[SOLVED] amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 26 Aug 2013, 14:50
by Marrea
I am a newcomer to Porteus, which I am running from a USB stick plugged into an HP G62 laptop with ATI Mobility Radeon HD4250 graphics. I have created a save.dat file because my stick is formatted with a Windows filesystem and I would like to save changes. Since creating the save.dat file if I boot into "Always Fresh", Porteus starts up correctly. However when choosing LXDE at boot, on the first few occasions I received messages about FATAL Server error and amd-catalyst-13.4-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm, but Porteus would then start. But now when I choose LXDE at boot I receive a message about "unloading the amd-catalyst moduie" and I then get a completely black screen and can proceed no further. The only option is to to power down my laptop by pressing the power button.

I should be extremely grateful for any advice on this problem. Let me know if you need any further information.

Many thanks.

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 26 Aug 2013, 16:35
by fanthom
hi Marrea,

you are using wrong catalyst module. please download legacy driver: amd-catalyst-legacy-13.1-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm (which supports 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx GPU family) from here:
http://dl.porteus.org/i486/current/
and replace amd-catalyst-13.4-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm with it.
please also boot with 'cliexec=xconf' cheatcode so your xorg config gets updated in saved changes (it's enough to do it once).

@hamza
please add an info to the wizard that amd-catalyst-legacy is for HD 2000/3000/4000 and amd-catalyst is for HD 5000 and never.
would be also nice to have a link pointing to http://dl.porteus.org/$arch/current so people would know where to get standalone modules.

thanks

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 26 Aug 2013, 20:26
by Marrea
Hi fanthom

Thanks for your reply. This is what I have done.
  • Downloaded amd-catalyst-legacy-13.1-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm

    Deleted amd-catalyst-13.4-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm from the modules folder

    Copied amd-catalyst-legacy-13.1-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm from the downloads folder to the modules folder

    Under the 'LABEL lxde' section of porteus.cfg added 'cliexec=xconf' to the APPEND line, which now looks like this:

Code: Select all

APPEND initrd=initrd.xz cliexec=xconf changes=/porteus/save.dat timezone=Europe/London kmap=uk
  • Rebooted, chose LXDE and unfortunately was still taken to a blank screen. I waited for a few minutes, nothing happened, so I had to turn off the laptop with the power button again.
Have I done something wrong or misunderstood your instructions?

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 26 Aug 2013, 21:05
by fanthom
please delete 'cliexec=xconf' and 'changes=/porteus/save.dat' cheatcodes and check if you can boot to the GUI.
if yes then:
bring back 'changes=/porteus/save.dat' -> boot to 'text mode' -> login as root -> run following command

Code: Select all

cp -f /mnt/live/memory/images/amd-catalyst-legacy-13.1-porteus-v2.1-i486-1ftm.xzm/etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11
and then run 'init 4' which should load GUI.
if you get into GUI then everything is ok and you can boot porteus as normal (not to 'text mode').

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 27 Aug 2013, 16:47
by Marrea
fanthom wrote:please delete 'cliexec=xconf' and 'changes=/porteus/save.dat' cheatcodes and check if you can boot to the GUI.
Hi fanthom

Many thanks once again for your time. I have done the above but unfortunately still cannot boot to the GUI if I choose LXDE at the boot menu - I just get taken to a blank screen again and have to reboot manually. Being so new to Porteus (and also as this is my very first experience of running Linux from a USB stick) I am trying to understand why I can boot into LXDE if I choose "Always Fresh" but not if I choose "LXDE", although I can see that the initrd line in porteus.cfg in the "Always Fresh" section contains the words 'nomagic base_only norootcopy'. Is that something to do with it? It's all a bit of a puzzle to me at the moment I'm afraid.
:%)

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 28 Aug 2013, 00:10
by brokenman
Porteus is 'modular' by nature. This means that whatever packages (modules) you have placed in the 'modules' folder of porteus get inserted into the filesystem upon boot. Rootcopy does the same thing, but just for individual files you have placed into the porteus/rootcopy folder. When you run 'Always fresh mode' you are telling the system only to boot the base of porteus without any of the extra modules you have put into any folder, and NOT to load any changes you have made to the system. The lines you saw during boot are called 'cheatcodes' which are passed to porteus during boot; hence base_only means just load the base folder modules and norootcopy means don't load the rootcopy folder. If you can boot in fresh mode it means that something in either your changes folder, rootcopy folder or modules folder is interfering.

Have you tried booting porteus without any AMD driver at all? On my last computer I didn't require any extra graphics module at all to boot. If I did include the graphics module I got a blank screen and no porteus. The built in kernel module did the job for me.

You can read more about cheatcodes in the file /mnt/sdxY/boot/docs/cheatcodes.txt. Any question just ask.

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 28 Aug 2013, 08:39
by Marrea
Hi brokenman

Many thanks for your explanation of the modular nature of porteus. That has certainly clarified a few things for me and helped me understand better how the distro works.
brokenman wrote:Have you tried booting porteus without any AMD driver at all? On my last computer I didn't require any extra graphics module at all to boot. If I did include the graphics module I got a blank screen and no porteus. The built in kernel module did the job for me.
No I haven't tried doing this - mainly because I don't know how! At the moment I have the legacy driver in my modules directory. If I want to try booting without it, is it simply a matter of temporarily moving the driver out of the modules directory to somewhere else, so porteus won't find it at boot and will therefore boot without it? Or is there some other method?

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 28 Aug 2013, 08:57
by fanthom
things went awkward as you have changes set already and you did use the wrong driver in the first place.

porteus has opensource 'radeon' driver shipped by default which should work just fine for your PC but is still lacking some features comparing to 'catalyst'.
a) to try opensource driver just move 'catalyst-legacy' module to /porteus/optional folder and reboot
b) to check out catalyst driver you have to do 2 things:
- remove 'changes=' and 'cliexec=xconf' cheatcodes from your APPEND line
- move 'catalyst-legacy' back to /porteus/modules folder

now:
a) if you are happy with radeon driver then you can delete catalyst from /optional.
b) if you want to use 'catalyst' together with 'changes=' cheatcode then you have to copy /etc/X11/xorg.conf from the catalyst module (you can unpack it with right mouse click) to your save.dat file (so it will overwrite radeon/wrong_catalyst_module configs). the easiest way is to use /porteus/rootcopy/etc/X11 folder so just place correct xorg.conf there and reboot.

if nothing works then i would delete everything and start once again with fresh setup (with amd-legacy driver or without it).

Re: amd-catalyst module problem

Posted: 28 Aug 2013, 14:01
by brokenman
is it simply a matter of temporarily moving the driver out of the modules directory to somewhere else
Yes exactly. However there is no need to even try because booting in fresh mode doesn't load the modules folder which means you have already tested it. As fanthom suggested I would start again by removing your changes folder/file and putting the graphics driver module into the porteus/optional folder where it won't be loaded at boot, but you can load it using a cheatcode if you want to try to get ti working. Good luck.

Re: amd-catalyst module problem [Solved]

Posted: 28 Aug 2013, 19:32
by Marrea
Hi fanthom

Very many thanks for your further input.

I found that trying to use the opensource ‘radeon’ driver by moving ‘catalyst-legacy’ to the optional folder and rebooting - as at your (a) - still presented me with a blank screen. So I decided to start over again right from the beginning by reinstalling porteus on to the USB stick. After doing that and booting, I chose LXDE but as porteus detected a Windows formatted stick it booted me into Always Fresh instead.

Of course, with a new installation, I was then back to the amd-catalyst module, so I moved that into the optional folder (so I could use the opensource radeon driver instead) and created a save.dat file. On a reboot I was then able to select LXDE and boot into it OK. I’ve done two or three more reboots just to check I can still get into LXDE, which I can and as I am perfectly happy with the radeon driver I think I will just leave things as they are for now.

So, once again, I am extremely grateful to you (and brokenman, whose latest post I have only just seen) for your help and suggestions. I have much to learn about porteus but am really enjoying using it, and what a nice friendly forum this is.

PS I don't know how to add [Solved] to the main title for this thread so perhaps one of you could do that for me. Later edit: I see [Solved] has actually appeared in front of the main title so I don't know if I managed to do that after all, or whether one of you did it! :wink: