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Page Contents Author Editing This Page Introduction Important Notes Licensing Issues Installing the fglrx driver CentOS/Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (Etch) Fedora Core 6 Fedora 7 Gentoo Linux 2007.0 Mandriva Linux 2007 Commercial/Non-Free Version Free SuSE Linux 10.2 Ubuntu/KUbuntu/XUbuntu Linux 7.04 Generic Method Configuring Xorg to use the ATI driver

Author

Bill Giannikos (bill2 at giannikos.com.au)
www.billgiannikos.com

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Introduction

This guide will help you configure the proprietary ATI driver for Linux, which they have named 'fglrx'. We will not be covering open source radeon driver included with Xorg because it's configuration is normally handled automatically by most Linux distributions.

Important Notes

Licensing Issues

ATI provide their own license for their driver. You will need to read and accept this license before proceeding.

Installing the fglrx driver

CentOS/Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0

To do.

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (Etch)

Debian include the fglrx driver in its 'non-free' repository. You will need to enable it to install this driver.

Then, as root, execute the following commands:

You can now configure Xorg to use the fglrx driver by following the instructions below.

Fedora Core 6

The ATI driver is not included with Fedora Core 6 so we will need to use a 3rd party repository. Here we will be using the livna repository.

If you are not currently using the livna repository then, as root, execute the following:

Then execute the following command:

You can now configure Xorg to use the fglrx driver by following the instructions below.

Fedora 7

Currently the fglrx driver does not work with Fedora 7. All we can do is wait for ATI to release an update.

Gentoo Linux 2007.0

It's very easy to install the fglrx driver in Gentoo. As root execute the following command:

And that's it. Now configure Xorg to use the fglrx driver by following the instructions below.

Mandriva Linux 2007

Commercial/Non-Free Version

Mandriva include the fglrx driver as standard. To enable it, load the 'Mandriva Linux Control Center', click on the 'Hardware Tab' and select the 'Set up the graphical server' option. Now click on the 'Graphics Card' option and select your graphics chip from the list. You will now be asked if you would like to use the proprietary fglrx driver, choose yes. Now reboot your system and it should use the fglrx driver, no extra configuration is required.

Free

To do.

SuSE Linux 10.2

ATI provide a set of drivers specifically for SuSE Linux. To use these, load up YaST, click on 'Software', then 'Installation Source' and finally 'Add'. In this new window enter the following details:

The above adds the ATI repository to your system. You can now, again in YaST, go to 'Software', then 'Software Management' and select to install the following two packages:

Make a note that you either need to install the ati-gfxG01-kmp-default or ati-gfxG01-kmp-bigsmp package, depending on the kernel version you are using. If you are using the 32bit version of SuSE, in a console type in the following:

This should tell you the kernel you are running and then you can just select the package appropriate for your system. If you are using the 64bit version of SuSE then just use 'ati-gfxG01-kmp-default'.

Now run the following to configure the driver to configure your card:

And that's it. Reboot your system and it should use the ati drivers, no extra configuration is required.

Ubuntu/KUbuntu/XUbuntu Linux 7.04

Ubuntu now has a nice and easy way of installing the proprieraty fglrx drivers. Go to 'System', 'Administration' and then 'Restricted Devices Manager'. Now enable the fglrx driver and follow the on-screen prompts (you may be asked to insert your installation CD, depending on your setup).

And that's it. Reboot your system and it should use the ati drivers, no extra configuration is required.

If you do not have the 'Restricted Devices Manager' option then execute the following:

Generic Method

To do.

Configuring Xorg to use the ATI driver

We now need to tell Xorg to use the proprietary driver. First, create a backup of your current configuration file. On most systems it will be like this:

Now, as root, edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with your favourite editor. In the example below we will use nano.

In this file find the section labeled 'Module' and add the following lines to it (if they don't already exist):

Next, find the section labeled 'Device' and in this section find the line which starts with 'Driver'. Change this line to read as follows (it will likely currently say either 'radeon' or 'vesa'):

And finally add the following to the bottom of the file if it doesn't exist:

Now save the file and that's it. Reboot your system and the ati driver should begin to function.