Is my ATI 9000 installed properly (Debian, Lenny)

Tolem · 05-29-2009, 05:08 AM

I'm trying to figure out if my ATI Radeon 9000 mobility is installed properly in lenny on my dell d600 laptop. The laptop has a 1.5ghz Pentium M processor, 256mb ram.

I was thinking I would have to install the ATI linux drivers from their website (they come in a .run package).
When I just compiled my kernel tonight (2.6.29.4), I went into the graphics hardware section seeing as how the ATI 9000 radeon has been out for several years now thinking there might be something in there for it. I saw these options and enabled them:

/dev/agpgart (AGP SUPPORT) enabled
ATI CHIPSET enabled
INTEL 440LX/ BX / GX / I8xx (i810) enabled

Direct Rendering Manager enabled
ATI Radeon enabled
Intel I810 enabled

I just booted into XFCE on the new kernel and ran the glxgears program. In windowed mode, I am showing an average of 905 FPS in ~4500 frames over 5 seconds.

Is this about right for my hardware?
Am I correct to assume that I do not have to install the ATI drivers and the kernel options I enabled are now giving me full 3d acceleration? Or should I still attempt to install the ati drivers using their .run package?

I was worried installing the ATI drivers over the things I enabled in the kernel could screw something up...

Thanks for any help

contusion · 05-29-2009, 05:21 AM

The ATI provided binary drivers provide 3D acceleration. While the lenny doesn't provides it. It's best to install ATI Catalyst drivers for linux.

Tolem · 05-29-2009, 05:34 AM

I noticed in the install manual for the ATI drivers it says

Quote:

In order to use the fglrx internal AGP support, you have to make sure that the kernel agpgart support is not active, i.e. it is not compiled into the kernel and the kernel modules are not loaded. If the fglrx kernel module detects that the kernel agpgart support is active, it will automatically use that even if its internal AGP support is requested in order to avoid conflicts that can cause problems under some circumstances.

Does this mean I have to recompile the kernel again and remove this entire tree:
/dev/agpgart (AGP SUPPORT) enabled
ATI CHIPSET enabled
INTEL 440LX/ BX / GX / I8xx (i810) enabled

I assume I want fglrx internal AGP support?
If so, any idea if I should remove the Direct Rendering Manager from the kernel as well?

jdkaye · 05-29-2009, 08:59 AM

Hi Tolem,
I'm running an ATI Radeon 9550 proprietary driver from ATI and the figures you quote are just about the same as what I get. The output Direct Rendering enabled suggest you do have 3D acceleration working. To be absolutely sure, run PPracer or some other program that uses 3D acc. like a screen saver (3D OpenGL). I'd say it's working fine, so don't change anything.
cheers,
jdk