An interesting problem - need to restart X with correct graphics adapter. Help?

For various reasons I have decided to go back to 10.04 from Precise. I just don't feel it's up to standard yet. In the meantime, I have been using a custom iso that I made, that originally was made for my Llano notebook. I have integrated the AMD display drivers, and everything works nicely.
I just unpacked my thinkpad, with core 2 duo and intel integrated graphics, as I really need two machines. The problem is, when I boot off the thumb drive with AMD display drivers, it of course complains that no AMD graphics adapter was found, and I have the option to restart X.
It works perfectly fine, except that I am stuck in basic graphics mode. Under visual effects, if I select Normal, it says "Desktop effects could not be enabled". So as a result I get a lot of screen tearing in flash videos.

Lspci reports;

Is there any way to reconfigure X properly upon bootup, to recognize the Intel graphics adapter? I ask, because I'm tired of maintaining two separate iso's for both systems, I'd like to have to maintain just one.

Everything else works perfectly fine without issues.

 

Are you using fglrx on your Llano machine? I am pretty sure it has an xorg.conf. Move that to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.disabled and restart gdm/kdm/whatever display manager you run and you should be good to go.

If you want to get fancy, you can make a custom startup script that detects the card in use based on the lspci or dmesg output, and have it all happen automagically. I did something like that for the N10J that had hard switchable graphics (first gen). If you are interested see: http://forum.notebookreview.com/linux-compatibility-software/315810-linux-asus-n10-n10j.html

That script (called detectgpu) is a lot more complicated because of libraries and system links; you would just need to move the xorg.conf out of the way depending on the card.

 

I see you edited your post before I could reply. I tried the first suggestion, and gdm restarts fine, but I still can't enable desktop effects.
If you're second suggestion is complicated, then I may just put up with it.

 

Yeah I removed the quote of the script and instead posted a description of it. It's a mess if you don't know what it's doing.

I don't know what your problem is with desktop effects. Maybe there is something from the fglrx drivers that crapped on your opengl stack. Try running glxgears in a terminal and post any errors you get. Also look at glxinfo | head -n40 and post the output.

 

Ok. Output of glxinfo.

It's the same with glxgears.

 

Yeah, your intel glx stuff is buggered.

Did you install fglrx with the binary installer off of AMD's website, or using the packages from Ubuntu?

 

I downloaded the catalyst 12.4 drivers from AMD, then followed these directions.
I originally had just downloaded the drivers, and ran the install directly while making my custom iso (chrooted terminal) using the --force option, which installed it, then finished making my iso. It worked perfectly fine, but then I found the above option and did that instead. The only difference is now I get a notification that restricted drivers are in use, whereas before it would say restricted drivers are available.

 

Oh, ok so you're using the roll-your-own-deb method from the ati package.

See if you can install libgl1-mesa-glx or if it is already installed try reinstalling it. If you have to reinstall it, you may also need to reinstall xserver-xorg-core

I'm not sure what AMD distributed fglrx does to your system since it's been a long time, if you installed from the ubuntu distributed packages it should co-exist happily with intel stuff.

 

It didn't help unfortunately. I think I'll just tolerate it. Everything works fine, but I think the flash video tearing is related to the drivers not being installed correctly.
Thank you for your help and time nonetheless.

 

Yeah video tearing would be from not having a compositing window manager. And you need glx working for that, you might want to remove your custom fglrx debs, and reinstall the xorg stack. From there you can get intel working, and try the ubuntu fglrx packages.

 

Ok thanks. I have the non AMD custom iso so I can just build from that.

 

Ok, problem solved. I removed fglrx and fglrx-amdcccle, logged out and back in, I can now set Display effects, and here's a partial output of glxinfo.

So I just have to use

Code:

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

since I'm just booting into a live session,

and then

Code:

sudo apt-get remove fglrx fglrx-amdcccle

and lastly,

Code:

sudo gdm restart

and I'm good to go. Someone may find this information useful.

Edit: I just rebooted from scratch, and I can confirm it works. Flash also no longer tears. It's an extra step and extra 30 seconds of time, but it's a good workaround. Thanks allurgroceries for leading me in the right direction.