Find the desktop being a little laggy. Decide to installed the ATI driver for better performance.
FC5 comes with XOrg 7.0, not officially supported by ATI. Livna Repos. (rpm.livna.org) has
built driver set but I can not use them directly because I am using a custom build kernel. (refer
to a previous blog for suspend2 and reiserFS4 support)
So I need to build and install driver sets manaually.
Get source rpms form livna
kernel module : fglrx-kmod-8.24.8-3.2.6.16_1.2122_FC5.src.rpm
And ati driver for xorg : xorg-x11-drv-fglrx-8.24.8-3.src.rpm
This package no longer exists on livna, searched in google.
Following this HOWTO
"http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_build_custom_packages_for_fglrx"
mkdir fglrx-workdir; cd fglrx-workdirperl operations removes dependencies for specific kernel version. This is for fglrx-kmod,
rpm2cpio ../fglrx-kmod-$VER.src.rpm | cpio -i
perl -i -pe 'print "#disabled: " if m/BuildRequires: +kernel/' kmodtool
perl -i -pe 'print "#disabled: " if m/Requires: +\$\{kdep\}/' kmodtool
perl -i -pe 's@(^ +ksrc)=.*$@$1=/lib/modules/%{kverrel}/build@' fglrx-kmod.spec
tar czf pack.tgz --exclude pack.tgz .
rpmbuild --tb --clean --target $(uname -m) --define "ksrc /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build" --define "kversion $(uname -r)" --define 'kvariants ""' pack.tgz
The xorg drivers does not install automatically either. Do the similar steps for xorg-x11-drv-fglrx-8.24.8-3.src.rpm
The packages from livna does not support i686. Just add "i686" to arch. section in spec file before
making pack.tgz
After the two packages build , install with " rpm -ivh --nodeps " , the two packages strangely depend on each other. Driver 8.24 works fine (now ) with my Mobility 9200, higher versions (8.25, 8.26)have
problem on 3D.
The 8.24 version did not copy file to correct places.
Manaually link drivers in /usr/X11R6/modules
to XOrg7.0 drivers in /usr/lib/Xorg/modules use "ln -s
run "/sbin/modprobe fglrx" to make sure kernel module runs.
run "ati-config --initial /etc/X11/xorg.conf" to generate new xorg.conf
edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add
"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPFastWrite" "True"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
"
to fglrx section.
check DRI is
"
Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection
"
Save and restart X using "startx"
When X is up, open a console and
run "glxinfo". should say direct rendering : Yes
run "xvinfo". should produce a lot of rubbish saying overlay is ok.
run "fglrxinfo" should say
"
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY/RADEON 9000 DDR Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.1060 (X4.3.0-8.24.8)
"
If openGL vendor reports mesa Lib indirect, then go to /usr/lib
run "ls -l *GL*", point symlink of libGL.so.1 to /usr/lib/ati-fglrx/libGL.so.1.2
There is another version under /usr/X11R6/lib/ Both are ok.
The newer versions of driver went wrong at this point, the libGL is broken for
8.25, 8.26 drivers. Hopefully ATI will fix it in new version. For old card like
9200, there is little improvment in new drivers. Waiting for HW Support of
Compsite operation (said to give good look of shading and transparency)
After all ops. run glxgears to check performance and also fgl_glxgears . I got
1550.992 FPS on my laptop. (before was 120 FPS)
Keep a copy of source rpms and built rpms, old running versions of ati drivers
are hard to find.
Degbugging info for this procedure are
1. dmesg | grep fglrx can see if the kernel modules works correctly
2. /var/log/Xorg.0.log can see if the driver for xorg7 works correctly
I noticed my mouse cursor moves a bit better and it does not have a patch around when
starting gnome. Maybe it is "hardware pointer" now. Can also run
"mplayer -vo gl2
Takes time and I am lucky it finally works on my box. Got lot of work delayed and
no time for gaming in the weekend now. Sigh.
Hope this saves your time. A lot of laptops use ATI 9200 card.

