here we go again, a new, bleeding edge driver release from ati... downloaded their driver (which came in a rpm package of course... tar? wtf is that?), compiled the kernel module, polluted my X11R6 file hierarchy with their cruft (beware, it overwrites the libGL provided by mesa...), did the xorg.conf thing and blam, fglrxinfo promptly reports it's still using our beloved mesagl from days of old... don't even bother directing me to some howto, ive been through zillions but as of yet i had no luck with getting my 8500 to work... anybody else to share this sad tale of woe with?

I just downloaded and installed the driver from www.ati.com today. Still no luck getting hardware acceleration to work. In fact, its worse than before having installed the driver.
I'm using ATI 9600XT and Mandriva LE 2005.

Anyone had any luck with the new drivers?

Lol, I have. Of course, not the ones coming directly from ati. I use ubuntu, and ubuntu uses apt. Through that I got a version of the driver specifically made for ubuntu, and it installed so very easy. I hate to brag, but my radeon x700 pro gets 3,300 fps in glxgears, instead of the 400 with the one from libmesa. I'm convinced that only about 100 people in the world have manages to get the driver directly from ati to work, and that those 100 people all wrote ati installation guides. Not being one of those hundred, I went from FC4 to ubuntu-and never looked back.

bhicks@SlackHappy:~$ glxgears
16967 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3393.400 FPS
22772 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4554.400 FPS
22318 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4463.600 FPS
22853 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4570.600 FPS
22697 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4539.400 FPS

My radeon 9800 pro! Ok - here's the link, but its the older drivers. You have to patch them and stuff. I also noticed that they hate radeonfb so you must use stock vesafb. Oh, and it likes to crash if there's any shred of ATI support anywhere in the kernel, like in character devices under DRI support.

For me it was reading a thousand walkthrus, all sucked, but pretty much had the same info.

Compile your kernel (I'm at 2.6.11.7 - the patch is made for 2.6.11.8, but works for a few more)
Install the fglrx package
patch the driver with some patch that happens to work with your kernel version -- ok, i seriously went thru about a thousand patches before i found one that worked... ugh!
build the module (just a script in the fglrx directory)
install the module (just a script in the fglrx directory)

At the end of this post, I got it working - links to things are in my last post, at the end
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...59#post1629559

This worked for me - I posted alot in it too http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=319984

Hope this helps someone!

what i find most irritating is the kernel module compiles fine, and the xorg log reports everything is working ok, what are these pathes supposed to do? what about patching those brain dead developers who came up with such a messy piece of crap?

Exactally. I mean, I got it working, so I'm pretty happy, but there are bazillions of pissed off ATI + linux users. WTF ATI?!

By the way - have you ever tried to install an nvidia card? no problems!! run, it runs, installs, restart x, done!

And what is the deal with only just coming ou with xorg drivers for ati - back when I was trying ot get it to work, I had to compile my own xfree86 and stuff, and it still didint work. Only now have I gotten it working!

Grrrr.

The problem is ATI...not the various developers for your distro.

of course, the problem is ATI, i don't know, perhaps it's just my xorg build which is broken, im running crux (a lovely distro btw id suggest all you guys give it a try!) and built it from scratch, but i dont think there's much room for error when compiling xorg because of its monolithic nature, it just boils down to a few options for a "default" build... all i know is: module seems to compile clean, x drivers seem to load fine, whytf does it report its still using the mesa driver? i remember i read somewhere about a nifty trick to get some extra debugging info from fglrxinfo which helped me solve this problem when i used to run debian, but i can't remember what the trick was whatever, ATI won't get one more cent from me in the future, and i would suggest all linux users do the same, it was about time some ppl got back to breeding pigs and stopped writing drivers... id better call this rant quit!

Anyway does anybody knows if there is still no TV-in for recent cards? I have a 9800 PRO AIW
Is this excellent explication still correct?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...cat=182&page=1

The message on the Gatos site for supported cards has changed in:

"Radeon TV-input code has been merged into X.Org CVS, to appear in release 7.0, this includes support for both original Rage Theatre and Rage Theatre 200 version."

I get confused (again) reading the message listings on the projects site. Did anything change from January? There was a new chip that was not yet supported and work was being done. Was it the RT200 or the R350 or another one?

And on the X.org site it didn't found a version 7.

Where did you get the new version of the driver via apt?

I also use ubuntu ans have been trying to install these new drivers on my Compaq Presario R4000 laptop. I can only get them to work if I turn off direct rendering. I suppose it's great I can get my native resolution, but 300 fps in glxgears is rather annoying.

For some reason I just happened to go back to this post and see that someone asked me a question...
This is probably worthless, since this is dated, but...
The package is xorg-driver-fglrx
I know it sounds like an open source thing, but whoever put it in the repository must have been tired or something. Anyway, all you need to do is install it, and maybe restart. Only problem with the driver is that make sure that you SHUT OFF ANYTHING BUT THE BLANK SCREENSAVER WHEN USING THE DRIVER! I have come back so many times to see the system has crashed with a funky 3d screensaver. The driver may have been made specifically for ubuntu, but it still holds all the bugs of the original driver.