On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 12:54:20 -0500
Peter Laws <plaws@...> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 3:27 PM, Felix Miata <mrmazda@...> wrote:
> >
> > The 1.17.2 CentOS 7 Xorg server has a built-in driver "modeset(0)" that
> > works for most of the big 3 gfxchips. Some distros have made the internal
> > driver the preferred driver for certain gfxchips. To try it can be as simple
> > as removing all Xorg driver packages applicable specifically to your gfxchip
> > and restart the server. If you have xorg.conf* configured to use a specific
> > driver, or use an xrandr startup script to configure Xorg, then it would
> > need to be removed or adjusted accordingly.
> 
> 
> My problem is that I'm a "install it and forget it" person so I don't
> have much experience poking around in xorg.conf.
> 
> AMD helpfully provides an uninstall script, which seems to have worked
> but may have left some items installed (uninstall log was decidedly
> unhelpful).  It left me without an xorg.conf at all so the driver
> picked a generic config.  Problem is that I have displays on both DVI
> connectors and the HDMI connector.  The default doesn't see that.  I
> tried using aticonfig to generate an initial config but that leads to
> no display and a warning about "kernel module (fglrx.ko) may be
> missing or incompatible ".

fglrx is the AMD-proprietary module for their older cards (I understand it
to be unmaintained, by the way).  The open-source driver is radeon.  Sifting 
through the output from the lsmod or lspci -v commands should tell you what
driver you're using now if you're not sure.

aticonfig probably expects fglrx for your card and won't work with the
other drivers.

> Really not sure where to go from here which is why, initially, I'd
> installed all the AMD/ATI stuff (including their GUI control panel).

The Gentoo wiki page on multiple monitors gives some instructions on
how to hand-roll appropriate configurations if you want to go there:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xorg/Multiple_monitors#Configuration

Use xrandr -q to get a list of attached displays.  You'll need to know
what driver your video card is using to write a valid xorg.conf for this.

> But I can confirm that the AMD drivers aren't very good.  The problem
> with konsole exists when I run Opera, too, in addition to Chrome.  And
> I'm really tired of Firefox.  :-)

In general, the Intel drivers and the nVidia proprietary drivers seem to be
the most reliable ones.  The nVidia open-source drivers (nouveau) are 
reverse-engineered and not very reliable at all.  The AMD drivers (both sets) 
are supposed to be somewhere in between.  I've stuck with nVidia cards
and have had no problems (well, until the one in my laptop got end-of-lifed).

It makes sense that Opera and Chrome would react in the same way,
since they use the same rendering engine.  You could try a pure Webkit
browser like Vivaldi or Midori and see if that's any better (it might not be, 
though).

E. Liddell