SuSE 9.1 Personal - Kernel upgrade breaks fglrx driver
 

Hi,
Recently, I ran YOU and this included a kernel update that was required
for security reasons (2.6.5-7.95). However, this update seems to have
broken the fglrx driver I had installed for the ATI 9600 graphics chip in
my laptop. I say this because an OpenGL screensaver I'm running seemed
slow, and the flg_glxgears app won't run complaining that the DRI X11
module isn't available. I've tried to recompile the driver, but the
process seems to be broken. When I follow the README to make the driver, I
get the following error when I try this step :

KERNEL_SOURCE=/usr/src/linux make modules
make -C /usr/src/linux modules SUBDIRS=/usr/src/kernel-modules/fglrx
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.5-7.95'

WARNING: Symbol version dump /usr/src/linux-2.6.5-7.95/Module.symvers is
missing, modules will have CONFIG_MODVERSIONS disabled.

Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST
/bin/sh: line 1: scripts/modpost: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [__modpost] Error 127
make[1]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.5-7.95'
make: *** [modules] Error 2

I have no idea how to get modpost made. There is a Makefile for it that
doesn't work. Has anyone come across this problem? Can anyone lead me
towards the solution to this problem?

Thanks,

Jason Mazzotta

I got past this problem by finding modpost in another location and copying it to where the Makefile wanted it to be. Now, I have problem of unresolved symbols in fglrx_drv.o. Perhaps one is related to the other.

Any kernel upgrade, on any distribution, requires a reinstall of the fglrx driver, because it is compiled against the kernel source of the currently-running kernel (and this has changed when you upgraded your kernel).

You upgraded the kernel; did you also upgrade the source package linked in /usr/src/linux to the source for the new kernel? Get the source for the new kernel and reinstall the drivers, or get the driver modules for the new kernel from YOU, if available.

Hope this helps.

Hi,
Yes, I'm aware that I would need to recompile the driver against the source for the new kernel. That is what I am trying to do. Close inspection of my first post and the error messages I got shows this. For some reason either depmod or modpost isn't working properly, as symbols required by fglrx_drv.o aren't being found by the kernel (I guess).


Jason

It appears SuSE posted new code (or at least a new build process) for the new kernel. I downloaded that, and following the new installation instructions to the letter, I got everything to work. Problem solved.

Dear jasonM,

could you give the link where SuSE has posted the new code?