Install fglrx

Moe (Talk | contribs)
(First version of the HOWTO. Enjoy!)

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Installing the ATI binary driver

What is this document about?

This HOWTO covers the steps needed in order to install the ATI binary driver, also known as "fglrx", on your system. It also gives a couple of hints as how to configure your system the right way to use it afterwards.

Which architectures are supported?

Currently, the fglrx module is tested on x86 and x86_64-based architectures.

Prerequisites

Kernel configuration

In order to install the driver successfully you need to make sure the following kernel options are enabled within your kernel configuration:

• CONFIG_PCI_LEGACY
• CONFIG_MTRR
• CONFIG_MODVERSIONS

Then make sure the following options are NOT selected:

• PREEMPT_RCU
• CONFIG_DRM

Your kernel must not be compiled with DRM support. A DRM (direct rendering manager) kernel module is going to be compiled during the install phase.

Module configuration

First of all, please make sure that the module "xorg-server" has been compiled with GLX support. You can check by either taking a look at the install log (lvu install xorg-server) whether or not it installed "libglx.so" or by relining the xorg-server module:

$ lin -cr xorg-server

and say 'n' (default answer) to "Do you intent to use the NVIDIA binary driver?".

Secondly, install the module mesa-glu. Its going to provide vital system headers for applications that are relying on OpenGL acceleration.

Installation

Now go ahead and install the fglrx module by issueing:

$ lin -cr fglrx

One the installation is finished you're good to go.

Configuring XOrg

In order to make use of the newly installed driver you will have to change your XOrg configuration. You can either do it manually by adding a "Device" section mentioning the fglrx driver or you use "aticonfig" which is provided by the fglrx module:

$ aticonfig --initial

Its going to do its best to autodetect most of your hardware and configure your xorg.conf (located in /usr/X11/xorg.conf) accordingly. It might not work very well for multihead or other different and/or strange setup. You might want to consider a manual setup in these cases. For more information about aticonfig either run aticonfig --help or take a look at the installed documentation in /usr/share/doc/ati.

Troubleshooting

Everything is painfully slow!

XOrg 7.2+ enabled an extension called "Compositing" by default which is useful for drawing windows rendered through OpenGL on the desktop. Modules like the window manager compiz are relying on it. Unfortunately, the fglrx module (to date) does not support AIGLX, the backend used to draw those windows, very well. Thus its recommended to disable the composite extension. You can do so by adding the following lines to your xorg.conf

Section "Extensions"
      Option      "Composite"     "false"
EndSection

It does not compile/work/I found a bug!

Please consult with our bugtracker and file a bugreport or ask on the mailinglist (registration required) for help. You may also drop me a mail directly if you want to.

Created by Moe 21:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)