[Pkg-fglrx-devel] Bug#516231: Bug#516231: fglrx-driver: please describe more fully how to get the ATI driver working

[Bertrand Marc]

Hi,

Ross Boylan a écrit :
> 1) README.Debian says
> "Further information can be found at http://www.ati.com/ -- look for
> the "Drivers & Software" page and follow links to the Linux drivers."
> The URL is semi-obsolete, and trying to follow these instructions led,
> after much hunting, to a downloadable driver.  It did not lead to
> installation instructions.  Searching the site produced only the
> unhelpful Linux FAQ.
>   
README.Debian is a bit old I guess...
> 2) README.Debian says "After you have installed the packages, you'll
> also need to install a suitable kernel module to enable 3D
> acceleration."  This sounds as if I can skip this if I don't care
> about 3D acceleration. Will the driver work without the 3D module?
>   
The driver works fine without a kernel module, for 2D of course. This is 
the big difference with nvidia.
> 3) How do I need to change xorg.conf (and possibly other things) to
> get this to work?  Is it supposed to be found and work automatically?
> What is the name of the driver?
>   
The driver name is fglrx. You can change your xorg.conf with aticonfig 
--initial
> 4) Both fglrx-glx and fglrx-modules* describe themselves as providing
> the display driver.  Huh?  I'm guessing the former provides the xorg
> modules, and the latter provides the kernel modules.
>   a) If that's true, it would be helpful to clarify it.
>   
That's true
>   b) fglrx-glx says you need to build from fglrx-source; is using an
>   appropriate fglrx-module* a substitute for that?
>   
fglrx-module* is fglrx-source built against standard Debian kernel 
provided by the Debian kernel team.
>   c) again, if I don't care about 3D, can I skip the modules?
>   
again, yes
> 5) Are the -686 modules appropriate for amd64 under Xeon?
If your kernel is linux-image-2.6*-flavour, you need 
fglrx-module-flavour. If your flavour is not in Debian, you can build 
fglrx-source with module-assistant. And you can't load a 64bits kernel 
module with a i386 userland
> 6) For amd64 do the drivers need to be built or run in some kind of 32
> bit compatibility mode?  I ask because fglrx-glx-ia32 got pulled in
> automatically (along with a bunch of other 32 bit stuff), and also
> because of the -486 and -686 package names.
>
> At any rate, it's not working for me yet, even after adding 
>    Driver "ati"
> to my xorg.conf device section.  I got that idea from
> http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo.  I discovered it from an ATI
> driver download page.
>   
Try Driver "fglrx" or just #aticonfig --initial. See 
http://wiki.debian.org/ATIProprietary

Regards,
Bertrand