install ati radeon 9800 driver in slackware 13
 

Hello,

I try to install the catalist 9.3 driver from ati.com. Prior to that I start reading the Installer Note and I got stuck:

I'm using Slackware 13 - updated to current.
Looking in installed packages list, I found fontconfig, freetype, zlib and gcc.. none of the rest.
OK, I tried to find them on SlackBuilds.org, LinuxPackages.net, google.com and found nothing.. where can I found the missing ones?

PS. I know there are many threads about ati drivers and slackware but I'm newbie and I got even more confused reading those threads.

Thanks.

You can not use fglrx on Slackware 13.0 or higher (1). Catalyst 9.3 requires an older kernel than what comes with Slackware and an older Xserver. If you *must* use fglrx, you should stick with an older distribution. Otherwise, use the open source radeon driver, which does provide 2D and 3D acceleration.

Adam

EDIT:

(1) With that GPU

The video card is radeon 9800 pro, forgot to mention :)

Searching the net about radeon open source driver I've found this info:

This makes me questioning:

1) Do I have the closed-source proprietary driver installed by Slackware or is an open-source driver?

2) I there any worth trying to install an open-source driver? I'm not interested in playing games but I got some compatibility issues with VirtualBox and very slow performance when watching youtube content in fullscreen.

Slackware comes with the open source radeon driver. It should be using it by default. If you are unsure if that's the case, please show us your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file.

Adam