HOWTO ATI Driver 8.8.25 on FC3 kernel 2.6.10 (latest)
 

[EDITED]

Hi guys & gals,
After a few hours of extreme psychological pain, I finally got this blasted thing to work on the latest kernel under FC3 (some previous knowledge regarding patching, etc would have been useful)! So I thought I'd help as many ppl as possible avoid such trauma by posting a short how-to here... Enjoy!

1) Download the latest ATI Driver for X.org from here: http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/f...8.25-1.i386.rpm

2) Download the ATI Development Team's kernel 2.6.10 kernel patch from here: http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33798874 (just cut & paste mtippett's code from the first message into a text file and save it as 8.8.25-kernel-2.6.10+.patch at the same place you saved the Driver)

3) Open a terminal and su as root, go to the download directory and install the drivers by executing the following command (it's necessary to overwrite the old MESA GL drivers with the ATI ones, they are backwards compatible with MESA anyway): rpm -Uvh --force fglrx_6_8_0-8.8.25-1.i386.rpm

4) Go to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/ and apply the patch by using a command similar to (where ~/Download is the directory where you put the patch file): patch -p0 -i ~/Download/8.8.25-kernel-2.6.10+.patch

5) Rebuild the driver by executing: sh make.sh

6) Go back one directory to /lib/modules/fglrx/ and reinstall the driver by executing: sh make_install.sh

7) w00t! There should be no errors (there might be one error while trying to load the fglx driver module, but this should be resolved on the next reboot - it's because your current driver is already loaded) and everything should have installed properly.

8) Time to backup your current configuration, make a backup of your xorg.conf file by executing: cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.confBAK

9) Switch your boot mode to Shell only (no graphics) in case your configuration fails: edit the /etc/inittab and change the boot init mode from 5 to 3 and save

10) Now that everything is installed OK and backed up, configure your driver for your video card and monitor(s) by executing: /usr/X11R6/bin/fglrxconfig

11) In the end, tell the program to save the settings to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. YOU WILL NEED TO EDIT THE FILE TO CHANGE THE KEYBOARD DRIVER TO KBD, other modifcations may be necessary, use your backup for this!

12) It's SHOWTIME! Reboot your computer, at the Shell, login as root, start the GDM by executing: gdm

13) Login as any user, open a Terminal and start ATI's openGL test program by executing: /usr/X11R6/bin/fgl_glxgears

14) If all is well, you should see a new window with a rotating gears textured cube in it. Congrats!!! :cool: You can edit your inittab file back to boot init mode 5 now that everything works for sure. You can run the older glxgears if you want to see higher scores and no cube... Oh, and by running the /usr/X11R6/bin/fglrxinfo command, you should see anything ATI in there (MESA means it didn't work), ex:
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9500 Pro Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.4769 (X4.3.0-8.8.25)


If you had any problems with 12 through 14, then do 10 again or try editing the xorg.conf file to see what's up. You can compare it to your xorg.confBAK backup to see if anything's missing. But it should all work fine.

Enjoy!!! It's gaming time!

Here are my problems .... let's see if them can be solved.

when: step 6 i get:
Warning: could not find /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/.libfglrx_ip.a.GCC3.cmd for /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/libfglrx_ip.a.GCC3
make[1]: Leaving directory `/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.737_FC3/build'
build succeeded with return value 0
duplicating results into driver repository...
done.
==============================
You must change your working directory to /lib/modules/fglrx
and then call ./make_install.sh in order to install the built module.
==============================

[root@localhost fglrx]# ./make_install.sh
bash: ./make_install.sh: Permiso denegado

and in step 7:
[root@localhost fglrx]# sh make_install.sh
- creating symlink
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel module
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.737_FC3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrx.ko): Operation not permitted
failed.

I still have the original 6.9-1.667 kernel fc3 install, I installed the rpm sourcecode, executed the buildrpm -bp ... command, then installed the fglrx rpm, wnt to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/ executed sh make.sh then cd .. sh make_install and then I get an error, that I (as root) do not have any permission to do that !!! what should I do ?


PS: sorry for the post, didn' see the upper one before. I get the very same error !

make sure that radeon module is not loaded.

How? And how do I unload it?

/sbin/lsmod | grep radeon shows if the module is loaded
/sbin/modprode -r radeon remove it

probabily you need to be in init 3 (run as root: init 3)

Thank you. I still get the same error. Hmm! Maybe I should stop mucking with the system before I screw it up. This is what I get when I try to install the RPM:

Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:fglrx_6_8_0 ########################################### [100%]
*** Trying to install a precompiled kernel module.
- creating symlink
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel module
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrx.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
failed.
*** Found kernel module build environment, generating kernel module now.
ATI module generator V 2.0
==========================
initializing...
cleaning...
patching 'highmem.h'...
assuming new VMA API since we do have kernel 2.6.x...
doing Makefile based build for kernel 2.6.x and higher
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/build SUBDIRS=/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/build'
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST
Warning: could not find /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/.libfglrx_ip.a.GCC3.cmd for /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/libfglrx_ip.a.GCC3
*** Warning: "pci_find_class" [/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/fglrx.ko] undefined!
make[1]: Leaving directory `/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/build'
build succeeded with return value 0
duplicating results into driver repository...
done.
==============================
- creating symlink
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel module
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrx.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
failed.
*** Warning ***
The QT based control panel application did not load in any version.
===
ATI display drivers successfully installed
please run 'fglrxconfig' now
===

Did you properly patch the drivers after running the RPM? It seems you didn't from the text above... Did you follow my HOWTO? You MUST patch the drivers if you're using the latest FC3 kernel (2.6.10 and above).

If so, it's just you're still running the radeon drivers so you can't have both in memory at the same time (thus the fail on insert). Next time you reboot, the new fglx drivers should load instead of the radeon ones. I suggest you reboot in shell mode (boot init 3 in inittab) while you play around with the xorg.conf file. Did you run the fglxconfig command? This will configure the drivers in the xorg.conf file. I highly suggest you edit this a bit by comparing it with the backup you made of it. The keybaoard driver will have to be changed for sure (to kbd).

Hope this helps!

Well, step 6 is just a warning. It does say BUILD SUCCEEDED. As for step 7, it's probably because you didn't reboot yet to unload the radeon driver and load the new fglx driver. See posts above...

Hope this helps!

It did. I ignored the errors and followed the rest of the steps as best I could. So far, so good, though I haven't run glx_gears yet. Error messages of any kind always freak me out. They usually result in two hours of tinkering, ten minutes of cursing, a cry of "WHY GOD, WHY!?", and an additional hour of total system reinstall. ;)

Thank you for the instructions. Now, to gears and 3d goodness!

Please note that Livna will soon release RPM packages of the new ATI driver specifically designed for Fedora Core 3...
http://bugzilla.livna.org/show_bug.cgi?id=296

So if you don't want to get your hands dirty, wait for the Livna RPM packages.

It looks as if I spoke too soon. When I run fgl_glxgears I get this error:

Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
Major opcode of failed request: 143 (GLX)
Minor opcode of failed request: 5 (X_GLXMakeCurrent)
Serial number of failed request: 30
Current serial number in output stream: 30

Ok i wait for Livna RPM but it will be for the newest kernel ?

Mesa still showing up
 

I see that the driver loads and finds my 9800Pro but fglrxinfo still shows Mesa. How does one get around this?

I get a simmilar error to people past only a little different,

- creating symlink
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel module
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.10-1.741_FC3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrx.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
failed.

when I dmesg it has errors at these parts,
fglrx: Unknown symbol pci_find_class

When I patch the files I also have errors, here they are,

patching file agpgart_be.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 267 with fuzz 1 (offset 12 lines).
Hunk #2 FAILED at 736.
Hunk #3 FAILED at 812.
Hunk #4 FAILED at 864.
Hunk #5 succeeded at 897 with fuzz 2 (offset 12 lines).
Hunk #6 FAILED at 5151.
Hunk #7 FAILED at 5220.
Hunk #8 FAILED at 5257.
Hunk #9 succeeded at 5302 with fuzz 2 (offset 24 lines).
Hunk #10 FAILED at 6553.
Hunk #11 FAILED at 7099.
Hunk #12 FAILED at 7525.
9 out of 12 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file agpgart_be.c.rej
patching file firegl_public.c

-Denny