Hi all,

I have an ATI ES1000 video card that I'm trying to get working with RHEL 4.7 on an x86_64 box. ATI has proven completely worthless as a source of information as to which driver(s) might possibly support the card, so I fully expect to have to try a few before I get it right. I am confident enough with computers that ordinarily I would just tear into it, suffer the consequences, and learn from my mistakes -- develop my own "best practices" from original research, if you will. However, this will be my first-ever driver install on Linux and I am also in a situation where I need to make sure if I screw something up that I can roll it back quickly.

Given all of that, is there a particular way you all would recommend I tackle driver installation such that if it doesn't work I won't be left installing everything from scratch? Or is this generally not an issue with Linux like it is with Windows? I have the vague impression from one source that all I really need to do is backup xorg.conf -- is this true (providing, of course, I don't mess with the files my current xorg.conf calls upon)? Can I then install and configure new drivers to my heart's content, rolling back by simply restoring the old xorg.conf if need be?

If that is not the case, what else should I back up? What pitfalls should I look out for?

I have searched for a handy web page somewhere that covers this topic and come up empty, but if such a thing exists I would love to see it.

Thanks!

In general, backing up xorg.conf is the only protection you need. However, make sure to back it up to another directory. I have backed up my xorg.conf to something like xorg.conf.original and later a proprietary driver installation script overwrote it. I recommend backing it up to a subdirectory of your home directory or some other place where you can find it easily, but will not be searched by the install script.

Thanks for the reply. I have xorg.conf securely backed up and I am in the process of resolving failed dependencies in the driver installation process. A new question: Some of the drivers I'm considering will taint the kernel. Will an uninstall (via rpm) un-taint the kernel? Or is a tainted kernel forever tainted? I think I'm okay with tainting the kernel, but given my level of experience with Linux hardware drivers at this point I would prefer not to do anything irreversible to the kernel.

Thanks again!

Have a look at ../Documentation/oops-tracing.txt. Snippet followsI doubt you will do any permanent damage - unloading is usually fine. Generally only if you intend to lodge a bug on LMKL would you need to worry about the tainting.

Thanks, I will. Sorry if I veered off into territory that would best have been covered in the newbies section....

Wasn't meant to castigate, merely offering a location for some info.