Debian Squeeze (stable) won't even start the game

[Guest Sephiroth]

Alright, I installed all of the dependencies, set proper directory and file permissions (root:games, 775, and I am in the games group), and turned off all video niceties such as cloud shadows, shadows, and all of that. When I run the 64bit game (I am running Squeeze AMD64 on a Turion 64x2 laptop) it will open a window, flash the loading screen, and instantly close. In the terminal I simply get "Segmentation Fault", but my log-file points me to the game not being able to use the frame-buffer and says I need a new driver. Odd, considering WoW, Guild Wars, Tremulous, Nexuiz, and others run on here just fine. Below is my log, followed by my specs. I am a fairly advanced Linux user, so recommend away!

Log started at 2011-04-05 23:55:45 localtime (EDT)

[23:55:45] Window size adjusted to 1014x713
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_multitexture extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_texture_env_combine extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_point_sprite extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_texture_compression extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_shadow extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_EXT_framebuffer_object extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] GL_EXT_draw_range_elements extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_fragment_program extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_vertex_program extension found, using it.
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_ARB_fragment_shader extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_ARB_vertex_shader extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_ARB_shader_objects extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_ARB_shading_language_100 extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat extension found, NOT using it...
[23:55:46] GL_ARB_texture_rectangle extension found, NOT using it...
[23:55:46] GL_EXT_fog_coord extension found, NOT using it...
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_ATI_texture_compression_3dc extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] Couldn't find the GL_EXT_texture_compression_latc extension, not using it...
[23:55:46] Framebuffer disabled (need newer driver)

AMD Turion 64x2 TL50 (1.60GHz)

2GB DDR2/667MHz Dual-Channel

ATI1100M (R300)

Using X.Org "radeon" driver with non-free firmware package

 

Now, if the game is looking for the proprietary driver it will not happen. ATI made a bonehead move and dumped support for all cards older than their HD 2000 series, including cards sold in laptops to this very day. The official driver for my card will not work with X.Org in Squeeze. The "fglrx" package in Squeeze also had a bonehead move and dumped support for a bunch of cards including mine. The "official" word is to install the non-free firmware and use the radeon driver. This works fairly well (800+fps in glxgears) and I have full desktop effects enabled and running smoothly in KDE4.

[korrode]

Now, if the game is looking for the proprietary driver it will not happen. ATI made a bonehead move and dumped support for all cards older than their HD 2000 series, including cards sold in laptops to this very day. The official driver for my card will not work with X.Org in Squeeze. The "fglrx" package in Squeeze also had a bonehead move and dumped support for a bunch of cards including mine.

Wow, that sucks.

 

So what did you end up doing (here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56429 ) to get to the stage you're at now?

I see MESA 7.10 packages are in Sid (and some 7.10.1 packages in Experimental). Did you rebuild those packages against your Squeeze installation? (or just simply install the Sid binary packages?)

[Guest Sephiroth]

Now, if the game is looking for the proprietary driver it will not happen. ATI made a bonehead move and dumped support for all cards older than their HD 2000 series, including cards sold in laptops to this very day. The official driver for my card will not work with X.Org in Squeeze. The "fglrx" package in Squeeze also had a bonehead move and dumped support for a bunch of cards including mine.

Wow, that sucks.

 

So what did you end up doing (here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56429 ) to get to the stage you're at now?

I see MESA 7.10 packages are in Sid (and some 7.10.1 packages in Experimental). Did you rebuild those packages against your Squeeze installation? (or just simply install the Sid binary packages?)

I didn't do anything with Sid packages both because I dislike mixing distros and because I didn't think the newer mesa would be of much help. As for what I did, I did just like I said in that thread. I installed the non-free firmware package to get 3D acceleration and setup X to use the "radeon" driver. The problem is that the FOSS drivers for ATI are horrible due to ATI's lack of Linux support and information. My nVidia systems (almost all of my other systems) work great with either the FOSS or proprietary drivers, but nVidia has always seemed to play nicely with the Linux community.

 

Either way, I am apparently at a position where I can either go back to Lenny, which I refuse to do, or find some solution to using a decent driver in Squeeze, which I feel is possible. I guess I just haven't run across the right info yet. I am not against building a new mesa on this system, but only if I am sure it will improve things. My understanding now is that mesa is fine, it is my ATI FOSS driver that may be the problem.

[korrode]

If my understanding of ATi/Intel MESA stuff is correct (which I don't have heaps of direct experience with, as all my stuff is nVidia (i won't buy anything but nVidia for a system where I want 3D capabilities for these exact sort of reasons)), all the 3D functionality is provided by MESA, and afaik it is also what provides the entire DRI... so I wouldn't write off updating it as a possible solution.

 

All of the various MESA-related packages are made from just one source package simply called "mesa".

( http://packages.debian.net/search?keywords=mesa&searchon=sourcenames&suite=all&section=all )

 

You could put a deb-src line for a sid (for 7.10) or experimental (for 7.10.1) repo in your sources.list and then do:

aptitude update
apt-get build-dep mesa
apt-get -b source mesa

and then hopefully (barring dependency issues) you'll have a bunch of new mesa binary packages built against your squeeze system, ready to install.

 

Also, you could consider running a newer kernel that doesn't have all the firmware Debian classify as "non-free" ripped out, a common choice for people running Debian on gaming/multimedia workstations is the Liquorix kernel:

http://liquorix.net/

 

I don't know if getting a kernel/firmware newer than the 2.6.32 ones shipped in Squeeze will impact your ATi chip, but I know it's possible it could. (for eg. there's newer, better nouveau firmware in the .38 kernel than the previous ones.)

 

 

Anyways, it's a considerable amount of stuff to fiddle with and risk causing problems to get one game working... but you can always just revert it all... and frankly i'd try it for teh fun

 

 

edit:

I've used apt-get in my example for getting and building source packages because last I was doing this kind of thing on Debian it wasn't yet implemented in aptitude... but maybe it is now.

Edited April 6, 2011 by Korrode

[Guest Sephiroth]

Actually I build my own kernels. I am currently working on a custom 2.6.38 for this laptop. Maybe I'll grab the latest mesa at the same time and give it a shot. As far as it goes though, I am fairly sure that the glx module for ATI handles the 3D stuff, but I've never used the FOSS driver before, since it lacks so much. I'm also debating getting the last usable ATI driver for my card, building it on a Lenny box as a .deb, and seeing if it will work here. That might save me.

[korrode]

I'm also debating getting the last usable ATI driver for my card, building it on a Lenny box as a .deb, and seeing if it will work here. That might save me.

I can tell you now that building a kernel module against Lenny's 2.6.26 kernel and trying to use it with a 2.6.3x kernel will not work ;p

 

edit: also, the Xorg version differences will cause incompatibility as well.

 

A lack of fglrx driver supporting newer Xorg's could be the sole thing holding you back from using the older ATi binary drivers right now.

 

 

edit2:

Yeah... can see here:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Legacy/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.7&product=2.7.2.3.2&lang=English

 

Xorg 1.7.4 is the latest supported...

Pretty crappy really... nVidia put out 96xx and 173xx drivers for Xorg 1.8.x and then 1.9.x so their legacy products would still work on current distros... AMD/ATi need a slap :<

 

 

edit3:

You could try building the Xorg 1.7.3 packages from Lenny and running the older Xorg server... could be problematic tho...

 

That said, a while ago i held back updating to Xorg 1.8 on one of my ArchLinux systems that had a nVidia 5xxx series card while I was waiting for nVidia to put out a new 173xx driver... i kept updating all other packages though, it didn't cause me any problems, but it was only briefly.

 

If you're going to try it, don't forget to also build and install evdev and any other Xorg drivers you use.

Edited April 7, 2011 by Korrode

[Guest Sephiroth]

I would build a 2.6.32-5-amd64 kernel in Lenny using the config from Squeeze. That would allow for kernel compatibility 100%, but X.Org worries me. Still, I am sick of not being able to do anything in Squeeze due to limitations brought on by ATI being a bunch of flaming idiots. Prior to Squeeze, I could do quite a bit with this system. Now I am constantly hitting walls due to things not seeing the ATI driver or not believing the card can do something. Aggravating as heck to me, and it is 100% ATI's fault.

 

On that note, every system I built has an nVidia card in it. This laptop was somewhat of a gift and I can't turn that away, can I? This has urged me into no longer buying any AMD or ATI product though. Oh, and I mean the company I work for. It's a few thousand a year less they'll get, and more nVidia will earn.

[korrode]

If i was in your position i'd look deeply into running Xorg 1.7.x (if that is in fact the sole thing stopping the usage of the older ATi binary drivers, which i'm pretty sure it will be).

 

If it's no-go on Debian, success might be found on a distro that's more upstream compliant and has less cross-package integration. (This isn't a stab at Debian, I like Debian, it's just fact.)

[Torg]

I've got the same issue on Debian Testing, running an R300 card on the Open Source driver.

 

It's crashing in the R300 driver when init'ing the shaders (reflectiv_water_fs.glsl).

 

I added a "return 0;" at the start of the is_shader_supported() function in shader/shader.c (line 256) and it seems to be working fine. Shaders aren't working of course, but then they never used to be with the OS driver.