People people!

I read all kinds of posts about difficulty intalling proprietary ATI drivers, expecially the new one with aticongig as a configuration tool and particularly when setting up dual monitors.

The one major thing people forget to do before installing these proprietary drivers is to make sure they installed the kernel-sources and a GCC compiler firsts!!!

Even if ATI says it's not mandatory...Believe me: It is!

Especially on Mandriva, Fedora Core and Suse.

The latest one is : ati-driver-installer-8.23.7-i386.run

Here is my little guide:

1) Install your kernel sources and a GCC compiler above version 2.2

2) Get and install ATI drivers for linux from the shell script supplied at www.ati.com. and make a backup of your xorg.conf (don't forget to make that backup, it will save your butt!)

3) In console as root run ATICONFIG and setup up the basics like so: aticonfig --initial=dual-head --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf . DO NOT ENABLE DUAL HEAD AT THIS POINT.

4) Reboot.

5) Fire up the ATICONFIG again in console as root. Now setup dual head as indicated. The commands are explained.

6) Reboot again and it should work 100%.

I hate to sound like a newb, but I am. If you could please go into a little more detail for each of those steps. This tutuorial is exactly what alot of us ATI people need. In fact it should probably be made a sticky.

My main questions regarding your tutorial are as follow.

1. by "install your kernel source" do you mean installing the distro on your pc?

2. How do you "install ATI drivers for linux from the shell script"

3. How do I run "ATICONFIG"? I type it in the terminal, says no command.

I hope I'm not asking to many quetions, but I know if we get this tutorial to be as informative as possible, it will prevent alot of new posts asking the same question. And we all of course appreciate your help.

thanks,
Michael

I see with your questions that you are indeed very new to this. first of all welcome to the UNIX/Linux universe. We welcome new users.

Second of all I hope you have some patience and some will to learn. Linux is not windows. It's different and also better in a lot of ways.

Now I will try to answer your questions but some things you might still not get at first. If you researched a bit on google you would find a few good tutorial on installing the ATI drivers on Linux, but they are not current and the installation changed quite a bit. These days it is very easy to install.


No, Kernel-source are the source packages that are used to compile your O.S kernel. A kernel is the sole of the operating system. It contains all the hardware modules to control your hardware and he is the "go between guy" that translates everything between softwares and harwares.

Now, kernel-sources are with every distro outhere and can be installed like any software. In Mandriva, Suse or Fedora (Red-Hat) for example you install them with the RPM system (Red Hat Package Manager) which is a software installation system common to thos 3 mainstream distros. On Debian type distros they have a similar package management system and the files end in .DEB instead of .RPM

My Kernel is version 2.6.12.12mdk (Mandake/Mandriva). I simply went into the control panel, intall software, searched "kernel-source" and installed the the kernel-source 2.6.12.12mdk.

Dowload the linux drivers from ATI, go into that directory where the file is, open a console (shell) from that directory, change to root with the "su" command and inputing your root password and type "bash ./ati-driver-installer-8.23.7-i386.run.

Then a familiar interface will appear. Leave everything to default.

Once installed the drivers will let you. Open a console, su to root (su means "super user") and enter "aticonfig". Instructions will be displayed and follow them to create your own personal configuration. Then reboot.

Hope I helped you out, but some of this stuff still requires a lot of basic Linux know how.

read this. It will help any newbie get a lot of the basics and fast...

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxguide.php

hmm, i thought "su" meant "switch users", anyways.

I know this might sound like another newbie question, but if I have linux installed, isn't the kernal already installed?

Also, my problem may be totally unrelated to this post, so I'll just tell you whats going on, and maybe we can get it worked out.

I tried the "bash ati...." and it looked like it tried to start the installer, but I get the message:
Creating directory fglrx-install
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing ATI Proprietary Linux Driver-8.23.7.............................................................................................. .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ...........................................................
==================================================
ATI Technologies Linux Driver Installer/Packager
==================================================
Detected configuration:
Architecture: i686 (32-bit)
which: no XFree86 in (/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/michael/bin)
X Server: unable to detect
Removing temporary directory: fglrx-install

Obviously somthing is up with X Server, but I have no idea what....

I have a related problem with the ati drivers...

I'm running Ubuntu Breezy.

I've installed the drivers with the ati driver installer 8.23.7 , and encountered the following message when I try to run aticonfig:

./aticonfig: error while loading shared libraries: libfglrx_pp.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such object or directory

I've gone back and tried installing the kernel-source, and my package manager indicates that I already have the base for the gcc compiler installed. I've tried pulling the specific file in the error message from driver archives found on the net and throwing it the in the same directory as aticonfig, but that didn't work.

What do I do?

I type "ubuntu ati driver" in Google and got http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...allation_Guide

instantly.

It'S the guide you need to follow because Ubuntu is Debian and the procedure is different than other distros.

I have followed this guide and it works perfectly.

For the love of wathever Gods you believe in people do try to Google a bit for yourselves before you post. I'm saying this in the nicest possible way...