ATI Radeon driver installation

[Guest instromaniac]

I believe there are already many threads regarding the fglrx driver installation for ATI cards, but this solution, though probably for only a few, hasn't been mentioned before.

 

First of all my specs:

ATI Radeon 9800 XT

2.6.3-19mdksmp kernel

XFree86 4.3.0

 

First of all I downloaded the corresponding driver from www.ati.com. On the download page of the linux driver for cards in this range you'll also see the installation instructions:

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/linuxhowto-ati.html

Follow them

 

If that doesn't work you could have had the same problems as I did:

First of all you need the kernel source corresponding to the kernel you're using. You can find, download and install it using urpmi:

go to a console, type su, give your root password

now type urpmi kernel-source-2.6.3-19mdk

Remember though that if you're using a different kernel version you'll have to get another source version, just make sure they correspond.

 

Now here comes the trickery: after that I tried the installation procedure mentioned on the ati site again, but again it didn't work. The problem is that there was no symbolic link for the kernel module to the kernel source. So you'll have to create one yourself:

if you're still in the console logged in as root (su) type this:

ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.3-19mdk /lib/modules/2.6.3-19mdksmp/build

 

Again, I'm assuming here you're using the same kernel version as I am, if not you might want to adjust the version numbers.

 

After that I did the installation process explained on ati.com and everything worked fine, or so I thought. When I type glxinfo in the console I get the output you would expect from a correct installation (direct rendering = yes). But sadly 3d rendering didn't work at all. Then I tried the following command: fgl_glxgears

Normally this would show a 3D box turning around with gears and stuff, but the only thing it should was blackness and errors spawning in the console. But fortunately there was a solution, at ati:

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4687.html

 

If you follow those instructions your driver should finally be correctly installed and the days (well in my case) of pulling out hair from frustration are over :)