yes we all have issues with our ATI cards. so lets just combine them here i guess. i belive configureation is going to be the same for ATI radeon cards 8500 and up.

i will share what i know, and have done to get them to work(kinda) or not to work

VESA will work on most any distro, however preformance may suffer and you will not be able to use openGL.

from ATI.com
there are 3 drivers for different versions of X
i grabed 4.3.0 (tycnicaly i think my version is 4.3.99) so that may effect things or not
it currently says the 2.6 kernel is not supported, meaning it will not work well or at all. i did get it to 'run' in mandrake 10. i used enemy territory to test it. it was playable but the graphics where slow and lacked quality.

however at the time i had ordered suse 9.1
well it is here and installed
this is a distro i can't really get it to work on. however just havnt had time to play around with suse.

install the driver with RPM, or convert it.
rpm -i --force (drivername.rpm)

make SURE you have your kernel source and GNU make, suse has a habit of neither includeing make or the kernel source on a standard install. go to your distro FTP and they should have it, or check the CD/DVD

here is a basic of what you do next
cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod
sh make.sh
cd ..
sh make_install.sh
fglrxconfig

fglrxconfig is a basic X config program, however i would prefer to use sax2.

please feel free to contribut to this pot so that we all might be able to enjoy those expensive ass ATI cards

specs fo curent system
dual AMD 2400+
1024MB RAM
120GB and 20GB hard drives
suse 9.1
kernel version 2.6.4-52-default


anyways here is an output of my atemted install
for make.sh
ATI module generator V 2.0
==========================
initializing...
cleaning...
patching 'highmem.h'...
skipping patch for 'drmP.h', not needed
skipping patch for 'drm_os_linux.h', not needed
assuming new VMA API since we do have kernel 2.6.x...
doing Makefile based build for kernel 2.6.x and higher
/bin/sh: line 1: gcc: command not found
/bin/sh: line 1: gcc: command not found
ln: `./libfglrx_ip.a.GCC': File exists
make: *** [libfglrx_ip.a.GCC] Error 1
build succeeded with return value 0
ln: `./fglrx.ko': File exists
duplicating results into driver repository...
cp: cannot stat `fglrx.ko': No such file or directory
done.

no for make_install
inux:/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod # cd ..
linux:/lib/modules/fglrx # sh make_install
make_install: make_install: No such file or directory
linux:/lib/modules/fglrx # sh make_install.sh
*** WARNING ***
Tailored kernel module for fglrx not present in your system.
You must go to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod subdir
and execute './make.sh' to build a fully customed kernel module.
Afterwards go to /lib/modules/fglrx and run './make_install.sh'
in order to install the module into your kernel's module repository.
(see readme.txt for more details.)

As of now you can still run your XServer in 2D, but hardware acclerated
OpenGL will not work and 2D graphics will lack performance.

failed.
something is missing or wrong here, i have just recently only begun to dive into the guts of linux.

my main concern is this line
/bin/sh: line 1: gcc: command not found
i checked to see if gcc was installed, yast say it is.

like i said, i have shared what i know and have done. hopefuly this info can help ohers and what other say may help me

I spent ages getting the fglrx drivers working with my 9200. OpenGL and dual head (via tvout). In the end there were two problems with my setup:
-- old nvidia drivers were still installed.
-- had vga=extended in lilo.conf