[gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Helmut Jarausch <jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de>]

Hi,

this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop running 
OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are experts 
here.

This old laptop has a
radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.

There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.

Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s but for 
my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).

Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
radeon.modeset=0
glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
it.

Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.

(The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver 
supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)

Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
Helmut.