Impossibility to install AMD Catalyst driver on Slackware 14.1
 

Hi, I've just fresh-installed Slackware 14.1 on my notebook and I tried to install the latest driver for my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT (pretty old, but this is all I've got for now). Downloaded this file, unzipped and I tried to build a package for Slackware (I am following this guide. The process was strangely short, like 2 seconds, and i looked the log, which said:
So I looked for the file he was searching and...
Nothing, as you can see.
Has anyone encountered the same error? Thanks in advantage.

That version of the driver is old and will fail with the new version of the kernel that comes within slack 14.1, you need to test a more recent version like the last beta (13.11 beta6):

http://support.amd.com/it-it/downloa...p?os=Linux+x86

the beta driver does not support his card!

That is the legacy driver needed for older cards. Unfortunately AMD haven't been very good with updating it to newer kernels. I'm pretty sure legacy card support stops with the 13.1 version, which limits the kernel to 3.9 (iirc).

There is a patch. https://github.com/kolasa/fglrx-8.97.100.7. It did work as of 3.10.4. Probably wont work past 3.10x series kernels though.

If the radeon (open source) driver works OK I would leave it. I would build this as a last resort, as it does involve a bit, ie: extracting the source, patching the source, building and installing the kernel module then installing the userspace stuffs. Not for the inexperienced.

As a side note, because the source is patched, don't expect any support from AMD. The author of the patch doesn't say too much either. Take a look at the README.md to see what I mean.

EDIT: Sorry, seems incompatible with the 14.1 xorg :(

Thank you very much for the interest! I sadly saw that the version 13.1 is the latest for my card, no beta or whatever. I will see if radeon (a link for the open source driver?) supports 3d, otherwise i will have to play under Windows. What a shame, with 13.37 drivers worked perfectly, i was just like under windows, using wine.

umb

I have had good performance from the open source driver. It should work OOB in Slackware, but if you have had the cat driver installed it may have overwritten some things.

reinstall the mesa package ( upgradepkg --reinstall mesa-9.1.7-i486-1 ). Rename your xorg.conf to xorg.conf.old or something and start up X without a config file. Chances are you will be good go.

You can test things out with glxgears and glxinfo.

You should have radeon driver already installed.
I have Mobility 2400XT too, Its 3D performance with opensource driver is pretty crappy. I don't know how much 3D do you need, but QuakeLive (a port of a 12 year old game) is way too much for this card.
Fglrx works well in Slackware 14.0 though, so you could downgrade.

I just built a package, I have a 4000 onboard card.

However it doesn't work, the xorg module fails to load.

Have you tried using an older kernel that that version of the AMD driver does support?

Impossibility to install AMD Catalyst driver on Slackware 14.1
 

I'll try 3d performance with radeon drivers because I didn't installed cat drivers, I could not even build the package. Downgrading to 14 isn't the best option, I had a lot of problems regarding wifi that now are resolved. Will see if kernel 3.4 in /extra suits me, otherwise I'll keep playing in Windows. Thanks very much for the help!

It's not just the kernel, the legacy Catalyst doesn't support the xorg-server 1.14 as well.

Yeah, fglrx-13.0-legacy only supports up to xorg-server-1.12. The source can be patched to work fine with 3.10.x kernel.

Anyone know if we can retrofit Slackware 14.0's xorg-server-1.12.4-i486-2_slack14.0.txz (from /patches) plus xf86-input*, xf86-video-ati* (as a fallback and possibly *vesa*)? Or compile that lot?

Hi, I have successfully installed amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.run by
1. compiled 3.4.71 kernel using the 3.4 config from 14.1 testing
2. mirrored slackware64-14.1/sources/x/x11, replaced xorg-server-1.14.3 with xorg-server-1.12.3 and run x11.Slackbuild
3. upgradepkg xf86-input-evdev-2.7.0 from slackware-14.0

Replacing also fx86-input-evdev-2.7.0 in step (2) should be better, but maybe also installing xorg-server-1.12.3 and fx86-input-evdev-2.7.0 from slackware-14.0 could work. The fglrx driver seems to work the same as in slackware-14.0 on a radeon 2600.

In addition to xorg-server-1.12.3, xorg-server-xephyr-1.12.3, xorg-server-xnest-1.12.3, xorg-server-xvfb-1.12.3 and xf86-evdev-2.7.0 it needs
4. upgradepkg xf86-input-synaptics-1.6.2-x86_64-1.txz from slackware-14.0 also needs replacing for touchpad to work due to ABI compatibility errors

It seems the problem for Slack64-14.1 could be solved using 14.1 beta driver (from ATI support page)
(Mobility Radeon HD5470 with kernel 3.12.9)