Now I know that I have asked this before, but it's ben a long time since I have been in linux, so here it goes:

How do I install ATI's Drivers for an ATI Radeon 9000? Or, even better, can someone point me to where I can find out? (I don't even remember how to leave an X session, something about CTRL-ALT-Backspace or something).


Distro: MDK 9.1 or 9.2, I don't remember which
GFX Card: ATI Radeon 9000

you can download ATI drivers here
To install them, go in /lib/modules/<kernel-version>/fglrx/build. Run make.sh and then follow the instruction.

Uhhhh, I already have the drivers... I don't know how to exit X to install them, and I don't know which switches you use when you use RPM

to exit X, you have different manners:
- the nice manner: telinit 3
- the golgoth manner: pkill X
- without killing X: Ctrl-Alt-F1 (in fact a F-key between 1 and 6)
...
In fact when I installed them, I didn't use RPM... I have changed RPM into .tar.gz thanks to alien and then I have copied interesting files at the right place. But I remember, once the files are installed, you have to go in /lib/modules/.../fglrx/build and run make.sh then cd .. and run the other make script.

Do you know what the most common switches for RPM are? b/c I think it used the most common ones. ie: RPM with a switch of -iv and something else, but I can't remember what. ATI stopped including instructions on how to install the files.

Every time, I used RPM, I did: rpm -ivh package.rpm (i for install, h for dependencies and v for verbose)
else I also did: rpm -Uvh package.rpm for upgrade... and -f option to force if it really doesn't want to install

YESSSSS! Thanks

Alright, I did this:

and it seemed to work okay. I then went into /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/
and compiled the kernel by running make.sh like this:

It seemed to work, so I cd'ed up one level, and tried the same thing for make_install.sh, but it failed. I finally figured out that I need to do this to the fglrx dir,

and I ran it like this:

Now, after this big runaround, I ran fglrxconfig, and I'm fairly confident that I did it correctly. Finally, I ran startx, but it wouldn't start. I got this errors that it had some unresolved symbols for some of the flgrx files (I think they were librarys, their names were *.o)

Anway, I have done this before, but gotten it to work, but obviously, something if differnt. Is there anything I still need to do or perhaps have forgotten?

What is the exact output for the unresolved symbols ???
I know I had already have unresolved symbols with ATI... but I can't remember if it was due to libGL.so (or a name like that) or to the upgrade of my X-server (because drivers are differents according to the use of X v4.2 or v4.3)

hmmmm, I tried to pipe the output to a text file, but it didn't work. They happened before where it says that unresolved symbols above may not be the cause of a failure or something like that. Anyway I got an exit code 4 I think, and then an error of 104, it was shut down by a peer. I have gotten the drivers to work before, but I think it was when they had catalyst 3.9 or 8 out. I recently put a new harddrive in my computer, if that could be the reason. I can still run X, but with the default drivers that came with mandy (they're not actually that bad) but I know that the FGLRX drivers are better

Have you run fglrxconfig yet?

Are you sure the drivers downloaded correspond to the version of your X-server???
Else startx must log into /var/log/XFree86.0.log or a similar file... Post the end of the output (or where it goes wrong)... It may give us indications